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We’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending Dec. 27, 2015–a sneak peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month.

(Debuted at #8 in Early & Middle Grade Readers) Star Wars: The Force Awakens Incredible Cross-Sections written by Jason Fry and illustrated by Kemp Remillard: “Twelve breathtaking artworks bring the new craft to life, showing all of the weapons, engines, and technology, while engaging text explains each vehicle’s backstory and key features.” (Dec. 2015)

(Debuted at #10 in Mass Market) The Choice by Nicholas Sparks: “Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life – boating, swimming , and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies — he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door.” (Dec. 2015)

(Debuted at #14 in Paperback Nonfiction) How to Relax by Thich Nhat Hanh: “Fully illustrated in two colors, these short contemplations are designed to be used amid the busyness of daily life and will help even the most hardworking multitasker.” (Nov. 2015)

Recently I accidentally discovered a newish book by Thich Nhat Hahn, he of The Miracle of Mindfulness that I enjoyed so much. This book is called Love Letter to the Earth. It is a slim volume filled with compassion and the wisdom of mindfulness. It begins:

At this very moment, the Earth is above you, below you, all around you, and even inside you. The Earth is everywhere. You may be used to thinking of the Earth as only the ground beneath your feet. But the water, the sea, the sky, and everything around us comes from the Earth. Everything outside us and everything inside us comes from the Earth. We often forget that the planet we are living on has given us all the elements that make up our bodies. The water in our flesh, our bones, and all the microscopic cells inside our bodies all come from the Earth and are part of the Earth. The Earth is not just the environment we live in. We are the Earth and we are always carrying her within us.

We are the Earth and the Earth is us. When we harm the Earth, we harm ourselves. When we harm ourselves, we harm the Earth. A simple, yet profound idea that the world has forgotten about because if we remembered we would not be arguing about climate change and oil pipelines and fracking and emissions and pesticides that kill bees and butterflies. If we remembered we wouldn’t be eating artificial sweeteners or synthetic vitamins, wouldn’t be driving everywhere, wouldn’t be consuming more than we need and tossing our excess into landfills.

Earth and Moon from 6 million miles away via NASA

Hahn’s approach to healing the Earth is to first heal ourselves. I admit I scoffed. That’s not going to help, something needs to be done and it needs to be done now, sitting still will get us nowhere. But then I had to laugh because he knew I was going to think that:

We tend to think we have to do something to heal the Earth. But sitting with mindfulness and concentration is doing something.

And what sitting with mindfulness is doing is allowing you to be yourself, to relax, to stop striving, to be present, to be happy within yourself. And when that happens we begin to heal. We stop needing to consume, stop buying things we don’t need. We start being loving and compassionate to all things and realize our interconnectedness. Heal ourselves, heal the Earth. A simple thing that is so very hard.

No one could ever call Thich Nhat Hahn a prose stylist. His words are plain and unadorned. His sentences tend to be short. He repeats himself a lot. It is at times like I was reading a children’s book, “See Jane run. Run Jane, run.” He says the same thing over and over but in a slightly different way. I suppose it is necessary, the repetition, for children and beginners in mindfulness. We can sometimes be rather thick headed.

Love Letter to the Earth is a quiet, uplifting sort of book infused with the gentle spirit of its author. At the end there are ten letters intended to be used as meditations. Here is part of one I especially like from letter number three, “Walking Tenderly on Mother Earth”:

Dear Mother, you wish that we live with more awareness and gratitude, and we can do this by generating the energies of mindfulness, peace, stability, and compassion in our daily lives. Therefore I make the promise today to return your love and fulfill this wish by investing every step I take on you with love and tenderness. I am walking not merely on matter, but on spirit.

The Earth doesn’t need us, but without the Earth, we have nothing.

Kids books are a fantastic mechanism to start the discussion with young readers on what is mindfulness and ways to incorporate it into lives.

A month or so ago when I came upon a book at the public library called Mindfulness in the Garden: Zen Tools for Digging in the Dirt I thought it would be something I’d like very much. And it is. But, the book turned out to be nothing except meditations to do in the garden. They are lovely, for instance:

Looking deeply at the tree,
I feel its presence.
In its stillness,
I find my true being.

And

Dear garden,
you mirror my heart.
With each beat,
a flower blooms.

Each meditation has a short explanation following, telling how you are supposed to do the meditation, when you are supposed to breathe and whether it should be an inhale or an exhale, that kind of thing. And reading this I realized I knew pretty much nothing about zen meditation. Sure I’ve meditated before but nothing so directed or specific. So, as things happen, one book took me to another and I borrowed The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh from the library.

Oh what a lovely book this is. Thich Nhat Hanh is Vietnamese and now lives in France. He is a Zen master and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr. He is not the sort of spiritual leader who advocates withdrawal from the world to seek enlightenment by sitting under a bodhi tree like the Buddha. He is a peace activist and believes in being engaged in the world. And it turns out the thing about meditation is, it can be practiced any time, and any where for an hour or more or for five minutes. It can be done while in the garden or washing dishes or waiting for the bus or waiting in line at the grocery store.

Of course, Nhat Hanh advocates a practice of regular, long, quiet sessions the short ones worked in throughout the day. The Miracle of Mindfulness was originally written as letters to Brother Quang at the School of Youth for Social Service in South Vietnam in 1974. The style is friendly and matter of fact, easy to read, hard to put into practice. The essence of Zen meditation is breathing. The amazing thing is something as simple as paying attention to your breathing is really hard to do! The mind wanders and before you know it you are writing your grocery list in your head or thinking about what book you are going to read when you are done meditating.

The subtitle says manual and it really is, explaining how to breathe, how to sit, how long one should sit, how often, what to do when you realize your mind has wandered away, and why anyone might want to try meditating to begin with. There are also a number of guided meditations for walking, washing the dishes, even cleaning the bathroom. And of course there are meditations for relaxation.

It is a short book that will take a couple hours to read and a lifetime to master should you choose to pursue that goal. It helped me make sense of the meditations in the garden book. And while I haven’t been diligent at practicing meditation every day, the time I have given to it has felt good. It really does help one pay attention, be more mindful. And in these days of multitasking, being always connected and perpetually in a hurry, it is amazing how paying attention to your breath for five minutes brings focus and clarity and relieves stress. It’s the best kind of self-help.