Books

Featuring the best Sunbeams from The Sun’s first two decades, this completely redesigned edition of the bestselling book in our library is full of eclectic insights about the human experience.

In fifty personal essays, short stories, and poems, The Sun’s writers explore the enigma of love with unremitting candor, leading us through heartbreak and ecstasy, anger and forgiveness, fleeting crushes and lasting relationships. The result is vibrant, messy, mysterious, and enduring.

Contributors include Poe Ballantine, Cheryl Strayed, Sparrow, Steve Almond, and many others.

One man’s attempt to understand himself, his wife, his country, and the human predicament — all before breakfast.

This eclectic collection of Sunbeams takes you on a journey through innocence and experience, love and loss, disillusionment and awakening. Along the way you’ll find words that inspire as well as challenge; that celebrate the beauty around us without ignoring the injustices in our midst.

Since Sy Safransky founded The Sun in 1974, his essays have appeared in the magazine. Thirty of his best are collected in Four in the Morning. “This guy is absolutely naked on the printed page,” writes the Asheville Citizen-Times. “No pretension, no elevated ideas, just one man's responses to the world around him and the people he loves.”

The best works from The Sun’s second decade, featuring interviews with spiritual teacher Ram Dass, maverick psychologist James Hillman, potter and poet M.C. Richards, and others.

This first volume from The Sun’s first decade is a glimpse into the magazine’s early years. “Subtle, sometimes mystical,” the Los Angeles Times says, “this anthology never disappoints, alternating whimsical essays with soulful contemplations.”

This second volume from The Sun’s first decade is a glimpse into the magazine’s early years. “Subtle, sometimes mystical,” the Los Angeles Times says, “this anthology never disappoints, alternating whimsical essays with soulful contemplations.”