cover image The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be

The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be

Mark Nepo. Atria, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-1-4767-7464-0

Nepo (The Book of Awakening) writes reflectively and poetically about the lifelong spiritual journey. His tone is ruminative and intimate, as he draws from his own experience—he is a cancer survivor, which has powerfully shaped his life—but also adds poetry, bits and pieces of facts and musings, all strung together by his searching mind. The effect is like reading a journal, though a finely honed one. His perspective is a mature one, allowing him to sift through his years of life and a variety of spiritual readings to find meaning in life events. This book is not for everyone; those who prefer more structured spiritual seeking will find woolly passages (“the pilgrimage of the heart exhausts our argument with life so we can enter the realm where all things are true”) that others will see as insightful and poetic. Older readers at the stock-taking stage of life will find this exploration of life’s big questions especially congenial. Mystics will delight. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, WME. (Aug.)