Suggested Reading List - Tibet & The Dalai Lama

Tibet Through the Red Box by Peter Sís Tibet
Through the Red Box
by Peter Sís
     The Red Box is now yours" his father's letter said. For most of his childhood, the old lacquered box had been beyond his reach in his father's study. Now he was being summoned home to discover its carefully guarded secrets.
     Opening the red box, Peter Sís finds the diary his father kept when he was lost in Tibet in the mid-1950s. As he turns the brittle pages, covered with faded handwriting and fine drawings, and examines the small treasures that were hidden in the diary, Sís becomes the accidental traveler trekking through Tibet.
     In this very personal book, Peter Sís has given us a kaleidoscopic fusion of truth, dreams, and memory. It is an unforgettable work of rare imagination.
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Frances Foster Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, USA, 1998.
Hardbound US$25.00 ISBN #0-374-3755-6
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The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk
by Palden Gyatso
     Palden Gyatso was born in a Tibetan village in 1933 and became an ordained Buddhist monk at eighteen -- just as Tibet was in the midst of political upheaval. When Communist China invaded Tibet in 1950, it embarked on a program of "reform" that would eventually affect all of Tibet's citizens and nearly decimate its ancient culture. In 1967, the Chinese destroyed monasteries across Tibet and forced thousands of monks into labor camps and prisons. Gyatso spent the next twenty-five years of his life enduring interrogation adn torture simply for the strength of his beliefs. Palden Gyatso's story bears witness to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the strength of Tibet's proud civilization, faced with cultural genocide.
Grove Press Books, New York, NY, USA, 1997, 232 pages.
Softbound US$13.00 ISBN #0-8021-3574-9
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In Exile from the Land of Snows
by John F. Avedon
     Through visits to Asia and personal interviews with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and countless Tibetans living in exile, Avedon recounts the story of Tibet. From the 1930s through the Chinese invasion to the end of the 1970s, this is a rich, yet heartbreaking story of the destruction of one of the most remarkable cultures in history. And still, this story remains one of inspiration and amazement at the resillience and spirit of the Tibetan people.
Vintage Books, New York, NY, USA, 1986, 383 pages.
US$9.95 ISBN #0-394-74071-8
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The Way of the White Clouds by Lama Anagarika Govinda The Way of the White Clouds
A Buddhist Pilgrim in Tibet
by Lama Anagarika Govinda
     "This classic book is the autobiography of a Westerner who spent most of his adult life in Asia and who studied several Buddhist traditions. Here is his eyewitness account of a pilgrimage in western Tibet when it was still an independent nation. A combination of beautiful prose, drawings and photographs, the book paints a delightful portrait of a magical land and offers an informed introduction to Tibetan Buddhism."
Shambhala Dragon Editions, Boston, MA, USA, 1988, 305 pages.
US$15.95 ISBN #0-87773-007-5
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