Books I'm reading

Books about Tibet seem to be on my reading list this month, neatly coinciding with our recent snowfall. The first book is The Heart of the world by Ian Baker, about his travels in Tibet searching for the fabled waterfall supposedly hidden in the gorge of the Tsangpo river, the place that has been transformed in the West as the legend of Shangri-la. It's a mixture of adventure and Buddhist philosophy. If you liked Peter Matthiesen's The snow leopard you will love this, although I'm not sure if Baker's motives are quite as disinterested as he makes out, but his observations on the way we percieve landscape, that landscape is a reflection of our inner state, is mind-opening. Oddly enough I heard similar views expressed the other night on Justin Paton's TV programme How to look at a painting. The other book is Colin Thubron's To a mountain in Tibet, about the author's pilgrimage to Mount Kailas, considered to be by Buddhists to be the hub of the turning world, the centre of everything. I haven't really started this yet, but no doubt it will be good.