Liz Derow's Top Book Recommendations

Liz DerowThis book is beautiful. It’s very visual—every short text is accompanied by an image, mainly photographs, many of nature rather than of anyone ‘doing yoga’. She conveys her vision of or understanding of yoga in a very impressionistic way through these pictures. It’s a book about how rather than what to do, an extremely beautiful book by somebody with the spirit of an artist. I think that’s what... (Source)

Liz DerowB K S Iyengar is often considered to be the father of yoga in the West. This was written when he was relatively old; in it, he’s looking back. It’s very much an overview. He goes from the gross physical body to subtler factors, to the subtle body and ultimately to the soul. That’s the trajectory. It’s the inward journey. It’s a beautiful book by a great yoga master looking back at a life of yoga. (Source)

Liz DerowThere are three main types of constitution—Vata, Pitta and Kapha—but nobody is exclusively one. You don’t want your dominant type to become exacerbated. It’s all about balance. This cookbook has so many recipes and tells you which qualities a particular dish will increase and decrease so that you can eat in such a way as to maintain balance. (Source)

Liz DerowRamaswami starts by saying who he is, who his teacher was, and gives us the classical definitions and goes into detail with a lot of Hindu stories. Then he goes on to deal with the physical practice (asana), not in huge detail, but enough and then he covers breathing practices (pranayama) and also says a little bit about yoga for women and little bit about the yogic texts. So he’s covered... (Source)

Liz DerowI love this book because for one thing it’s just a great story, well-told. A lot of books about Indian sages are written in such a way that they just send you to sleep . . . But Ishwerood is a great writer, and he’s smart. He explains lots of things about Hindu tradition and thought throughout. It’s actually a very informative read on that level. (Source)