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If Barack Obama weren't to become President -- if he hadn't been elected to a public office of any kind -- he still would have established his legacy as a great writer of our time. He enlightens us with his thoughts on race and identity. His prose is a finely measured cup of honesty, lyricism and insight. His skill at structuring a narrative matches that of any accomplished writer.

Thoreau believes ultimately that man aspires to greatness -- that no matter how spiteful we become of our regimen of daily work; regardless of our concerns for wealth and success and the approval of our bosses and our peers; we inevitably find ourselves drawn sidelong to another plane, where simply, effortlessly, we situate our minds within the slipstream of the present and discard the emotions that immure our minds in past and future cares.

An acrobatic show of language; Woolf's masterpiece. Her words are simultaneously delicate and sublime and mark one of the earlier modernist forays into the mechanisms of the mind. This book has little focus on "plot" in the traditional sense and is wildly experimental, so some readers who've never pursued Woolf might be better off starting with Mrs. Dalloway, The Voyage Out, or Jacob's Room. On the other hand, if you're patient and willing to examine each word as if it were a grain of sand, then you're ready to receive all that this novel has to offer.

You've heard of On The Road; likely you've even read it. But turn to this book for the wilder side of Kerouac. A classic Beat treatise on nature, loneliness and the human spirit, Dharma Bums offers a sparkling introduction to the world of Zen Buddhism according to the wandering poets of 1950s America.

Through the trope of the surf pilgrimage, Kotler illuminates the many aspects of surfing that have made it not merely a sport, but also a way of life: surfing's connections to religion and spirituality, the mythical tradition, health and neurology. His frank, humorous and spare writing plunges us into the center of the world of surfing. The result is a portrait of faith and the human soul as invigorating as being out there on the ocean ourselves, gliding down the face of a breaking wave.