
by Jalal AlDin Rumi
Recommended by 4 notable people, including Tim O’Reilly and Kevin Kelly
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See customer reviews on Amazon →This revised and expanded collection gathers dozens of short, intensely lyrical poems that rely on ecstatic spiritual imagery and intimate metaphors. Many pieces are brief and self-contained, suited to reading aloud or dipping into between tasks, and the added previously unpublished poems widen the emotional range. What works best is a steady stream of memorable lines that resurface on rereading; the main limitation is repetition — shared images and refrains recur, and translation choices sometimes smooth or sentimentalize cultural particularities.
This summary and audience guidance are AI-generated from the book's description and its recommendation history, last updated May 2026. Recommendations, quotes and sources elsewhere on this page come from published material and are not generated.
This revised and expanded edition of The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 neverbeforepublished poems.Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenthcent...
Difficulty:hard
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Recommended by 8 sources and appears in Poetry, Poetry, and Fiction.
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Consider Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Recommended by 2 sources.
“Eat Pray Love reads like a personal travel diary stitched into three acts: indulgent, sensory Italian pleasure; slow, instruction-style spiritual time in an ashram; and reflective, relational closure in Bali. Its useful part is a candid first-person voice that makes small moments — meals, mantras, landscapes — vivid and immediate, useful when you want emotive travel writing and honest self-questioning. Its main limitation is repetition and a sometimes indulgent tone; the narrative can feel circular and light on concrete takeaway.”
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.