634 ratings (3.51 avg)
33 reviews

Sam

Add friend

Sam’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (487)
currently-reading‎ (21)
read‎ (634)
did-not-finish‎ (0)
fiction-to-read‎ (70)
history‎ (61)

polemical‎ (30)
anthropology‎ (21)
poetry‎ (21)
science‎ (15)
north-korea‎ (14)
china‎ (12)

philosophy‎ (10)
biography‎ (9)
homelessness‎ (9)
mafia‎ (5)
ccf‎ (4)
chomsky‎ (3)

nature‎ (3)
sport‎ (3)
writers‎ (3)
joyce‎ (2)
limbo‎ (2)
other-non-fiction‎ (1)

Stats | More…

Sam is Currently Reading

Sam is currently reading

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

by Jung Chang

bookshelves: china, currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Apr 04, 2026 12:59PM

Sam is currently reading

Sun Yat-sen

by Marie-Claire Bergère

bookshelves: currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Feb 13, 2026 09:05AM

Sam is currently reading

What Every Body is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People

by Joe Navarro

bookshelves: currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Feb 13, 2026 09:05AM

See all 21 books that Sam is reading…

Sam’s Notes & Highlights

Book cover for The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries

The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries by Thich Nhat Hanh

19 notes & 100 highlights

It is not only a bell that can be a bodhisattva. Anything can help us to awaken to the present moment and all that it contains. “Buddhism is a clever way to enjoy life,” Thay says. In this light, I would like to suggest a way to read this ...more

See Sam’s 3 books with notes and highlights…

Sam’s Quotes

“They asked me my goal in life. I said, to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race and see if it could be mass-produced in plastic.”
― Woody Allen, Apropos of Nothing

0 likes

“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

603 likes

“Today I often said 'forest' to myself.
Truth itself wanders through the forests.”
― Werner Herzog, Of Walking in Ice: Munich-Paris, 11/23 to 12/14, 1974

1 likes

“Don't you find it odd," she continued, "that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try.”
― Ethan Hawke, The Hottest State

tags: adulthood, childhood, dreams, ethan-hawke, follow-your-dreams, growing-up, judgement

881 likes

recent posts
Sam’s Groups

J.G. Ballard — 207 members — last activity Dec 08, 2019 02:17PM
A group in honour of the late Jim Ballard, who pulled science fiction out of the adolescent male ghetto and gave us books full of beauty, excitement, ...more

Anarchist & Radical Book Club — 2752 members — last activity Jul 13, 2026 06:13AM
This is a group to read and discuss anarchist practice and theory, by gathering a large body of anarchist literature, non-fiction, and theory, as well ...more

Reading Peace — 1470 members — last activity Aug 15, 2023 08:57AM
Reading Peace is a book club exploring topics in mindfulness and Buddhism in daily life in a way that is accessible and relevant to today. We meet o ...more

¡ POETRY ! — 22514 members — last activity Jul 15, 2026 03:32PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

Nonduality — 136 members — last activity Jun 14, 2026 10:02AM
Welcome to a discussion of nonduality in topics including inquiry, enlightenment, Truth, ultimate reality, meditation, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, myst ...more

More of Sam’s groups…