High Peaks Pure Earth presents the Summer 2014 Reading List – books on all aspects of Tibet!
We’ve updated our Winter 2013 reading list with fifteen more titles and there’s a bit of something for everyone in the list, from fiction to Tibetan language learning! Please get in touch with us if you have your own recommendation or feel free to write your own short reviews in the comments.
A big thank you to “Tweeps” who also responded to our call for suggestions for the reading list: @CMcGranahan, @RobbieBarnett, @GJosephRoche, @samgeall and @pchilimzam
We also received these recommendations from the above Tweeps: Dharamsala Days, Dharamsala Nights By Pauline MacDonald and free downloads from Asian Highlands Perspectives A Namuyi Tibetan Woman’s Journey from Chinese Village to Indian City to Beijing and Mushroom Ghosts, Belligerent Yaks, and Cranberry Cocktails: A Brag ‘go Tibetan Woman’s Early Life
We’ve added the following sixteen books (in no particular order) to the existing reading list:
- “Grains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler” By Gendun Chopel (Transl. by Thupten Jinpa and Donald S Lopez Jr.)
- “Windhorse” By Kaushik Barua
- “Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal” By Matteo Pistono
- “The Unbearable Dreamworld of Champa the Driver” By Chan Koonchung
- “My Tibetan Childhood: When Ice Shattered Stone” By Naktsang Nulo (Transl. by Angus Cargill and Sonam Lhamo)
- “Tibetans Who Escaped the Historian’s Net” Edited by Charles Ramble, Peter Schwieger & Alice Travers
- “Land of Pure Vision: The Sacred Geography of Tibet and the Himalaya” By David Zurick, Foreword by Eric Valli
- “Hollywood’s Representations of the Sino-Tibetan Conflict: Politics, Culture and Globalization” By Jenny George Daccache and Brandon Valeriano
- “A Change in Worlds on the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands: Politics, Economies, and Environments in Northern Sichuan” By Jack Patrick Hayes
- “Mapping Shangrila: Contested Landscapes in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands” Edited by Emily Yeh and Chris Coggins
- “Gendun Chopel – Tibet’s First Modern Artist” By Donald S. Lopez Jr.
- “Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine” Edited by Theresia Hofer
- “Colloquial Tibetan: The Complete Course for Beginners” By Jonathan Samuels
- “The Monasteries of Amdo: A Comprehensive Guide to the Monasteries of the Amdo Region of Tibet” By Stewart Smith
- “Rewriting Shangri-la: Tibetan Youth, Migrations and Literacies in Mcleod Ganj, India” By Heidi Swank
- “Mandarin Gate” By Eliot Pattison
Click through each of the above links to see short descriptions of the books. Happy reading!
Are there any categories to the books on the list? I am particularly interested in the language learning books!
We haven’t made any categories, sorry about that. Apart from “Colloquial Tibetan” there aren’t any new Tibetan language learning books that we know of.
Instead of suggesting books to read by purchasing it.i wish these books can be distributed freely so as to have more people knowing about Tibet and its people.nowadays it seems money is what publishers and their promoters care about.i myself being Tibetan feel very helpless that to learn more about my country I need money to do so.its a shame.guess it is a censorship for poor ordinary Tibetan from reading good books.
Thank you for your comment. In an ideal world yes, all books would be free! However, we would strongly encourage you to keep reading. If you can’t afford to buy the books, message the authors and publishers and ask for a free copy. You could even start a small library and ask publishers to donate, so that your friends could also read the books. You might be surprised by how many kind people would love to support and encourage Tibetan readers. Good luck!
Thank u.