Self- Improvement Books
November 19, 2009 7:26 PM   Subscribe

Book recommendation filter: Can you point me to a book about purity of self/ respect for self/ self improvement through interactions with nature? Possibly with discussions on eating healthily/ exercising and/or with emphasis on gaining clarity of thought.

No traditional transcendentalist writers, and please nothing steeped in Christianity.

Memoirs, instructional books, biographies, or anything, really, are all okay!
posted by thewestinggame to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
You may find The Yoga of Eating to be inspiring. From the book blurb...
The Yoga of Eating is a practical and inspiring manual that offers original insights on the physical and spiritual functions of sugar, fat, meat, and other foods; fasting, dieting, processing, willpower, and the deeper principles of self-nurture. This book appeals to a higher authority--your own body--and shows how to access and trust the wisdom your body has to offer.
posted by Kerasia at 10:48 PM on November 19, 2009


There a very very good fictional portrayal of the process I think you're describing in Joan Barfoot's Gaining Ground (also more vaguely in Cold Mountain)
posted by runincircles at 4:27 AM on November 20, 2009


I don't get your question. It seems to me the definitive work in this genre is Walden by Henry David Thoreau and you specify you are not interested in any transcendentalists. I would be astonished if any such book as you describe exists which does not reference his book on its very first page.
posted by bukvich at 12:25 PM on November 20, 2009


The Spell of the Sensuous, while not a self-help book, is all about what we have lost through our diminished interactions with nature.
posted by BigSky at 12:46 PM on November 23, 2009


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