The Must-Read Book Club
Lisa Dawn Angerame: After reading an article about it in the L.A. Times, I preordered it on my Kindle and downloaded it the day it came out.
YCNYC: Favorite quote?
LDA: "Some people might find this disillusioning—there’s a reason that the relatively recent provenance of so many yoga poses is rarely discussed in yoga studios—but it’s also freeing, because it means we don’t have to think about yoga in terms of purity and corruption or to feel guilty for adapting it. Indeed, to adapt yoga to modern needs is even to be part of a tradition of sorts. Today’s Western yoginis may not really be heiresses to Patanjali, but they are very much part of a lineage that goes back to Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and Indra Devi."
YCNYC: What one person would you recommend this book to?
LDA: Yoga teacher trainees. It should be mandatory reading in all yoga teacher training programs!
YCNYC: What moment or part resonates with you the most?
LDA: The entire book! I was hooked from the first page. It is not only the story of Indra Devi’s life—which is captivating, compelling, heartbreaking, uplifting, and inspirational—but it is also the true story of yoga and the characters who influenced modern yoga as we know it.
You can purchase The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West here.
Have a Must-Read book to recommend? Email us here.
—Interview by Allison Richard
