Despite the self-helpy title, this is one of the best books about meditation we’ve ever read and, believe it or not, it’s a bit of a page-turner.  Harris conveys his personal journey from skeptic to avid meditation practitioner in a very engaging fashion, skillfully explaining meditation and putting it into much needed context.  The true indication of how useful a text it is lies in the large number of dog-eared pages!  Thanks to our meditation practice, we were able to notice the envy arising for how well Harris can write about meditation and just sit with that feeling without judging ourselves :  )  

This classic tome details Kabat-Zinn’s learnings from 30+ years of studying and using Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction to help patients manage chronic pain and other health-related challenges.  It also offers the framework for beginning and sustaining a personal mindfulness practice.  It’s not uncommon to hear people declare, “I started meditating after reading Full Catastrophe Living during a challenging period in my life”.