This book is written as a story told by my older self to my younger self, a story I wish I had heard much earlier in life than I did.
That story is one of a journey, the journey from distraction to composure through the practice of calm abiding, and from unknowing to awareness through the practice of insight. Along the way, questions of both "being" and "knowing" arise and play out with intricacy and delicacy.
For the general reader, the key to reading this book is to recognize that it is, as it announces itself to be, a work of fiction. It is a work of fiction in the sense that it tells a story, in the sense that it is the story of the telling of that story, and in the sense that there is, in any case, no such thing as non-fiction. As a story chiefly about the reactive self, it provokes the reactive self, with the unfortunate consequence that, should you take the second person to be yourself, it is all too easy to get arrested right there by that most ready and comforting of wardens.
For the reader already in search of what the book has to say, it is, ultimately, a story of natural magic: a practice of inspiration, invocation, and transformation leading to liberation and compassion should the reader care to engage.
For a temperate review, see: BookLife
For an exasperated and sarcastic review, see: Kirkus Reviews