• Buddha - Karen Armstrong
• The Story of Buddhism - Donald Lopez
• The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching - Thich Nhat Hanh
• What the Buddha Taught - Walpola Rahula
• The Heart of Buddhism - Guy Claxton
• Awakening the Buddha Within - Lama Surya Das
• Mindfulness in Plain English - Bhante H. Gunaratana
• The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - Sogyal Rinpoche
• The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living - The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler
• Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness - Robert Thurman

I initially resisted making this page as, based on personal experience, I feel it’s better to avoid telling people what books to read on subjects like this, since it is apt to be based more on my own needs and tastes then theirs. That said, perhaps this website is incomplete without a list of some books have helped me in this area, or others that I think would be appropriate for a beginner.

I have left out many other good books by authors such as Alan Watts, Edward Conze, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Mark Epstein, D.T. (and Shunryu) Suzuki and Pema Chodron, but I had to set a limit somewhere. Once a practitioner has an understanding of the basics, they can continue on with more texts (and there are very many).