The Tao of Pooh

The bear Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends from Milne's stories become guides to philosophical Taoism as Benjamin Hoff introduces its principles to Western readers. Pooh stands for wu wei, effortless doing, and for pu, the uncarved block, open to experience but not weighed down by it, while Owl and Rabbit overthink, Eeyore frets. Hoff begins with the vinegar tasters, a painting in which Confucius finds life sour, the Buddha bitter and Laozi satisfying. The characters talk with Hoff as he writes, and he mixes passages from Milne with translated Taoist texts by Laozi and Zhuang Zhou. Hoff wrote it in his spare time while pruning trees in Portland, and it spent 49 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

Pittsburgh Technology Council chief executive Audrey Russo included it among the books she recommends to young people interested in her career path.