Chris and Don: A Love Story (2007)

Fascinating and pretty much unbelievable story of a 50 year old writer, Christopher Isherwood (author of A Single Man), who picks up a 20 year old 'boy', Don Bachardy, as a lover back in the late 1950s. Bachardy who is still alive as of this posting tells the tale from beginning to end, and it's quite riveting. I say unbelievable because Bachardy was young and attractive while Isherwood was already quite old and faded. But Isherwood supported his young lover and 'kept' him pretty much until the day Isherwood died.

The Art of Happiness In a Troubled World by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler

I liked the first book in this series so much because it was such a new concept: the idea of a religion which did not look down upon other religions or even on not believing. It look a secular approach to showing how compassion and empathy could improve your life, rather than being instructed to do so as a moral and religious imperative. This book attempts to update and improve on the first. Cutler does a reasonable job with informing on the latest in happiness psychology and research. He is able to extract some nuggets from the Dalai Lama over his several interview visits. But I couldn't help but think that I might have gotten more out of a reread of the original book.