Stephen Mitchell Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Children's Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Stephen Mitchell is a bestselling and award-winning author of poetry, non-fiction, and religious and spiritual works.

The author grew up in a Jewish family after he was born in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up in New York, he found many examples of people who made it using art and developed an early attraction to wisdom.
He particularly loved to go to his grandfather’s place, where he used to sit on the floor of his living room, thumbing through “Selected Poems of “Faust” in miniature German editions.

Later on, Stephen Mitchell studied philosophy and literature at Amherst College and then in Paris. It was while he was in Paris that he got introduced to a French translation of Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet.”
When he went back to Amherst, he pushed himself to learn German so that he could read the German version of Rilke’s work. But he would stop learning German when he got into Yale to study comparative literature.
Mitchell has since published a ton of books and has at least thirty titles to his name.
In addition to translations of several books from the Bible, the poems of Pablo Neruda, the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” and the “Bhagavad Gita,” he has also edited countless anthologies of sacred writings, and written his own fiction and poetry.

When Stephen Mitchell was twenty-two years old, and studying at Yale Graduate School of Sciences and Arts, his girlfriend introduced him to Rilke.

She gave him a French version of “Letters to a Young Poet,” which he found to be one of the most amazing experiences of truth he ever had. There was just nothing comparable to hearing the great poet talk about love, solitude, and beauty.
Two years later, his girlfriend unceremoniously walked out on him and left him devastated and unsure of how to deal with the pain.

Over several months, he was magnetically attracted to the Biblical Book of Job as the biblical tradition was all he knew. Moreover, he believed that it was the only place where the question of human suffering was most profoundly dealt with.
Reading about “The Voice from the Whirlwind,” he thought he could find an answer to his pain in it.

At some point, he decided to learn Hebrew to get a better understanding and soon enough also learned textual scholarship. One thing led to another and he got into an amazing hole, as he started translating the Book of Job into verse.

While Stephen Mitchell studied literature at Yale University and Amherst College, he believes his real education began when he first bumped into a Zen master in 1973.
Half a dozen years into his work on the “Book of Job,” he realized that he was never going to understand the profound and magnificent words.

Seeking answers in the flesh, he decided to start learning Hindi and even intended to go to India and study the language, when a friend suggested something that changed everything.

He advised him to go see a Korean monk and Zen master in Providence, Rhode Island. He found the man living in a funky apartment in the slum and immediately knew he had what he wanted by just looking into his eyes.
Following a year of intense mediation, he finally started getting answers to “Job’s Whirlwind.”

He began connecting with the essence of things but without categories such as Asian or Jewish or anything. It was just a connection that made him begin to understand and find a way out of his suffering.

Stephen Mitchell’s novel “The Gospel According to Jesus” is a novel that seeks to unpack the teaching of Jesus by offering an accessible and simple translation.

The author also attempts to analyze this translated core text, as he applies his insights in addition to the work of great thinkers and academic biblical scholars.

Some of the thinkers who have penned some notable commentaries on the teachings of Jesus that he uses include the likes of Jefferson, Gandhi, Blake, and Tolstoy.

In his analysis, he, for the most part, makes use of Eastern traditions that sometimes are illuminating, even if may be biased given that he owes a lot to history and Zen practice.
The work examines Jesus as the real-life character who inspired the New Testament.

In this, Stephen Mitchell provides an immensely attractive and provocative picture of Jesus as a great spiritual teacher, whose image is acceptable to just about everyone regardless of religious belief.
In addition to that, he also provides excerpts from Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Emerson about Christianity that are more germane, incisive, and immediate to the actual text.

Stephen Mitchell’s novel “The Second Book of the Tao” has the honor of being inspired by “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tze.

Otherwise referred to as “The Book of the Way,” it is an ancient but still very relevant work about the art of living. After his massive success writing his version of the work, Stephen has come back with the innovative second work in the series.
In this outing, Mitchell draws from the work of Chuang Zhou, who was a disciple of Lao Tzu, and Tzussu who was the grandson of Confucious.

The novel draws you into a reality that has nothing to do with Buddhism or Taoism or new or old alone, but rather the truth. Mitchell selects the clearest and freshest teachings from people who have to be some of the greatest students of Taoism.
He then adapts their works into versions that bring forward the humor, depth, and poetry of the original texts in a very refreshing manner.

In addition to each adaptation, Mitchell provides his own commentary that complements and explicates the text too.

At its essence, it is a modern form of ancient wisdom that brings out the knowledge of the “Tao Te Ching” into the contemporary world, providing a moral and psychological acuity as deep as the original.

“The First Christmas” by Stephen Mitchell is a work in which the author brings to life the Nativity story like it has never been done before.

While this is a narrative that is told in just two of the Gospels, Mitchell pens with a setting reflecting the culture of the time and some very nuanced characters.
The author suffuses the nativity story with a sense of beauty that is sure to astonish and delight his readers.

In this work, you get to see the story from the perspective of Zen-like wise men, a Whitmanesque ox, starry-eyed shepherds, and a visionary donkey.
Each of these provides a unique perspective to a scene that had for years been central to the Christmas story.

Instead of superimposing late concepts of Christianity into the Nativity and Annunciation scenes, he imagines Joseph and Mary experiencing the angelic message as a young Jewish man and woman living in 4 BCE might have experienced it.