Into the Magic Shop

When he was twelve, James R. Doty, then a poor boy in the California high desert with an alcoholic father and a mother depressed and paralyzed by a stroke, went into a magic shop in search of a plastic thumb. There he met Ruth, who taught him exercises to ease his suffering and asked him to keep his heart open and pass the techniques on. Doty, who went on to lead a Stanford center devoted to research on compassion and altruism, recounts how her practices helped bring him wealth and power, and what followed when he neglected her lesson about the heart. The book mixes memoir, science and practical instruction.

Taraba Virtuala founder Roxana Bitoleanu names it, in an interview, among the books she suggests to young people hoping to follow a career like hers.