I was looking through the stacks of books in my foyer, looking for something to read on the plane later this week, when I noticed that I’d been compiling a mini-suite of memoirs from young men who went to Asia to become Buddhist monks. Matthew Polly “started” this trend back in 2007 with American Shaolin, which was published in paperback this January—right around the time that Jaed Coffin published A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants, in which he recounts his journey to his mother’s home village in Thailand to study at the monastery there. And then, in May, Nikolai Grozni came out with Turtle Feet, about his experiences in India, where he trained at the Dalai Lama’s home in exile.
Anybody know if there are more of these coming out any time soon?