Why Buddhism Is True, by Robert Wright
Why Buddhism Is True argues that Buddhist theory-of-mind / psychology is generally correct, with some reference to how evolution would explain various of the things the Buddha noticed, and how we don't have to be slaves to our evolution.
I thought this was super good -- how popular non-fiction ought to be. The writer is actually-smart, actually-funny and understands two important things about how popnonfic should work:
1) specificity is good; tell actual stories with meaningful details; just giving reams and reams of broad abstract claims doesn't help anyone
2) you don't have to argue against every possible weird counter-argument that an imaginary guy might have made.
One thing that annoyed me slightly was where Wright kept saying "I'm an excellent guineapig for this because I'm especially distracted, especially bad at loving kindness, etc -- if this worked for me it could work for anyone!"
I'm sorry but I think this is trash -- he may well be very distracted, he may even be unusually distracted among his demographic, but given that he's successfully published a bunch of books and launched a bunch of successful projects (etc etc etc), I do not believe he is bottom-of-the-pile for attention-abilities in society as a whole.
Don't get me wrong: I, too, like to whinge about how unbelievably distracted (etc) I am! In a sense it's a self-compliment, because if you're so distracted and still did XYZ then you must have unbelievable talents to compensate, vs the proverbial Plodding Mediocrity^[1] who succeeds by relentlessly plodding. But you can't make these kinds of claims in print, since they're clearly false and therefore ultimately ridiculous. (H/T to J, who pointed this out to me, and has put up with a disproportionate share of my whinging).
Anyway, recommended -- I don't think it's super ground-breaking, and if you've gone deeper into meditation than I have then maybe it would all be boring, but for me it was good. Plus, spending a week reading a book about how you should meditate was good for nudging me back into a meditation practice.
Incidentally! At risk of jinxing myself, my new streak of meditation-practicing has been the best I've ever done, in the sense that I'm finding it much easier to stay on the cushion for an hour and not be unpleasantly distracted all the time, even though my mind still does wander a lot. Now, it's possible that this is because my mind is doing better than it used to -- this is somewhat plausible, for reasons that some of you know -- but another thing I notice is that it's just physically much easier for me to sit for an hour than it used to be. Which is down to two things:
1) the meditation centre I've been going to has us kneel-sit on a BUNCH of cushions, like 3-4 cushions and you kneel straddling over them, and they really discourage you from sitting cross-legged unless you're very good at leg-crossing.
2) I've been lifting weights again, and re-crossed the threshold from Beginner to Novice Lifter (e.g. I'm squatting more than 1x bodyweight), and I'm not sure I've ever had a meditation practice and a lifting practice simultaneously before.
Anyway! This is a very long way of saying... I'm wondering whether the difficulty of meditating might sometimes/often be physical? I keep telling people in general that one of the weird benefits of weightlifting is that just sitting up straight is more comfortable, that I never realised how weak my back-muscles were until I strengthened them. And I'm wondering if some people's struggles with meditation are really just struggles with sitting up straight for 40 mins? Idk, but worth a thought.
^[1]: "“In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity — please observe, a plodding mediocrity — for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.”  ―Benjamin Cardozo, Supreme Court Justice