Below I have listed a tiny sample of the books and themes that accompany my yoga classes. Within each drop down section you'll find a short blurb on the book, a quotation, and how it ties into and is expressed in the class theme. There is a new work of literature every single week. 
Express Yourself - Kangaroo, D.H. lawrence
Creativity has been a vehicle for self discovery since the dawn of time. This class focuses on inventive flows that border on choreography, inspired by the novel Kangaroo by D.H. Lawrence. Essentially an autobiography, Lawrence used this novel to hash out his politics and clarify his thoughts on various political theories. The novel has also been described as a 'hymn to Australia', so if that's more your style it's another reason to read this intriguing book. 
“I am a fool," said Richard Lovat, which was the most frequent discovery
he made. It came, moreover, every time with a new shock of surprise and
chagrin. Every time he climbed a new mountain range and looked over, he
saw, not only a new world, but a big anticipatory fool on this side of
it, namely, himself.
opposites - the master and margarita, mikhail bulgakov
The fight between opposites is often the place in which to find balance. Extremes are also necessary to appreciate the world, how would you know what bravery was if you had never seen cowardice? Opposites are a theme throughout this masterpiece of a novel, whether literal - sun & moon, silence & noise - or metaphorical - good & evil, innocence & guilt. This class makes heavy handed use of the opposites the body is capable of (twisted inwards & unfurled, movement & stillness) in a small homage to this novel that I strongly recommend everyone to read.
But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if 
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows 
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings. 
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because 
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light?
innocence and convention - daisy miller, henry james
This perfect novella feels as fresh and relevant as the day it was written, which is a sad lookout for young women today but that's a topic you can get me talking on for hours so we'll move on. Daisy Miller is a young American girl spending time in Europe with her family, she is carefree and seems to have little regard for social conventions. The question in this novella is are her actions deliberately flouting convention for her own enjoyment or does she simply not notice so busy is she delighting in what the world can offer her? In this class we try to approach some of the key yoga asanas from a fresh angle and work through our flows as though the weight of two thousand years of yoga lore isn't pressing down on us. 
He said to himself that she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have reflected upon her ostracism or even to have perceived it. Then at other moments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible little organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly observant consciousness of the impression she produced. He asked himself whether Daisy's defiance came from the consciousness of innocence or from her being, essentially, a young person of the reckless class. It must be admitted that holding oneself to a belief in Daisy's "innocence" came to see Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-spun gallantry.
slow doesn't mean easy - the days of abandonment, elena ferrante
Performing something quickly can sometimes be a way to hide areas that are perhaps not as proficient or polished as we'd like them to be. This class is an ode to the work and control that goes into the beauty of simplicity. I chose this Ferrante novel (we'll be seeing more of her) because the story is barely there when viewed objectively - a man leaves his wife and she works through her feelings towards him, herself, and their marriage. This novel's depths are uncharted however, it is brutally honest and raw.
What a mistake, above all, it had been to believe that I couldn't live without him, when for a long time I had not been at all certain that I was alive with him.
HIDDEN ARTWORKS - THE SUMMER WITHOUT MEN, SIRI HUSTVEDT
Hidden artworks are somewhat of a motif in this brilliant little novel (not a hint of the chick lit about it that its title implies). It is so important to express, and acknowledge to ourselves, our inner complexities. We are all so much more than we seem on the surface and that is what we try to display in this class with little tweaks to poses - little quirks. 
Some of us are fated to live in a box from which there is only temporary release. We of the damned-up spirits, of the thwarted feelings, of the blocked hearts, and the pent-up thoughts, we who long to blast out, flood forth in a torrent of rage or joy or even madness, but there is nowhere for us to go, nowhere in the world because no one will have us as we are, and there is nothing to do except to embrace the secret pleasures of our sublimations, the arc of a sentence, the kiss of a rhyme, the image that forms on paper or canvas, the inner cantata, the cloistered embroidery, the dark and dreaming needlepoint from hell or heaven or purgatory or none of those three, but there must be some sound and fury from us, some clashing cymbals in the void.
enjoy the journey - ithaka, c.p. cavafy
In a break from the norm it's a poem that accompanies this class. The focus here is the build up and not the outcome. Who cares if the destination is reached today, along as the journey was savoured, every last second.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
 
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
apocalypse now - snow falling on cedars, david guterson
I wrote this class during a time of great political upheaval (Gee, 2016, wonder what that could have been?) and so dramatically gave it its title and set about making it my most stable class, literally. The asanas and flows are all about firm grounding and sure footedness. I ended up choosing David Guterson's beautiful novel from the political context that this class was born from, a dominant theme throughout the book is 'fear of the other', we're all alike, we're all the same inside and to deny that has deeply inhumane consequences.
The snowfall obliterated the borders between the fields and made Kabuo Miyamoto's long-cherished seven acres indistinguishable from the land that surrounded them. All human claims to the landscape were superseded, made null and void by the snow. The world was one world, and the notion that a man might kill another over some small patch of it did not make sense.
run your own race - the age of innocence, edith wharton
I fall for comparing myself to others every time and there is nothing down that road but misery. This class is about concentrating on your own path, no one else can walk it like you do so why compare yourself, your life, to those around you? We take that emphasis and we place it literally on the poses here, yoga is a personal practice and it matters not one jot what the person on the mat next to you is doing. This determination to be true to oneself in the face of superficial criticism from society is well born out in the character of Ellen Olenska in this charming and yet emotionally acute novel from the skewering pen of Edith Wharton.
Everything may be labelled- but everybody is not.
missing the point - the remains of the day, kazuo ishiguro
Ishiguro tells the tale of a butler who pours his whole self into his service and leaves nothing left, he is so focused on performing his duty that he lets so many of life's pleasures pass him by, namely loving someone and being loved in return. In this class we worry less than usual about precise execution of asanas and sink into the flow so that we don't miss the point of attending a yoga class - which I won't detail here as you all have your own reasons. 
But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points', one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one's life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one's relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.
break down to build up - the accidental, ali smith
Ali Smith's writing style is unique and utterly intriguing, try any of her works and you'll see what I mean. The Accidental deals with the sudden arrival of a young woman into the holiday home of an 'ordinary' family. She breaks them apart, she fragments their lives, and through that they gain some clarity. This class is all about how fragmentation can lead you to grasping (at) the truth. We break down key poses into stages, we take them apart and examine their insides so that when we put them back together we understand far more than we did before.
Oh. To be filled with goodness then shattered by goodness, so beautifully mosaically fragmented by such shocking goodness.
engage - h is for hawk, helen macdonald
A visit to non-fiction land! After an emotional devastation Helen Macdonald buys a hawk, completely isolates herself with it, and begins to experience an erosion of her humanity. This book is an exploration of grief and a tale of a woman finding her way back to the surface. In this class we focus on how withdrawal is temporary solution and engagement is the ultimate healing hand. 
Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all affliction,’ wrote John Muir. ‘Earth hath no sorrows that earth cannot heal.’ Now I knew this for what it was: a beguiling but dangerous lie. I was furious with myself and my own conscious certainty that this was the cure I needed. Hands are for other humans to hold. They should not be reserved exclusively as perches for hawks. And the wild is not a panacea for the human soul; too much in the air can corrode it to nothing.
the tyranny of the past - rebecca, daphne du maurier
This novel needs no introduction from me and I won't condescend to you by giving one. This class is all about how the past is not forgotten but definitely gone. It's tempting to let what has happened rule our present but it's a terrible mistake. The present is always its own shining flash to be enjoyed if possible, learned from if not, and then left behind - a beautiful sunset in the rearview mirror.
Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.
face yourself - the outrun, amy liptrot
Oh everyone, EVERYONE, should read this beautiful beautiful book. It's an account of one woman and the work she puts in to retrieving her life from the jaws of alcoholism. It's poetic and honest and sparse and rich and contains some excellent passages on life in Orkney if that's your bag. In this class we took a trip inside to face ourselves honestly and understand our fears and what drives us. Yes, you can find that out with yoga. 
I'm repairing these dykes at the same time as I'm putting myself back together, I am building my defences, and each time I don't take a drink when I feel like it, I am strengthening new pathways in my brain. I have to break the walls down a bit more before I can start to build them up again. I have to work with the stones I've got and can't spend too long worrying if I'm making the perfect wall. I just have to get on with placing stones.
Go with the flow - like water for chocolate, laura esquivel
This is a delicious (literally) and lyrical novel in the magical realism style. The central character, Tita, learns, usually the hard way, that there are so many elements in this life that we can't control and so she keeps her heart open and her mind flexible, taking what comes her way and shaping it where possible. This attitude is exactly what we try to maintain in this class, working with the poses and not against them or ourselves.
Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves; we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle would be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. For a moment we are dazzled by an intense emotion. A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by, until a new explosion comes along to revive it. Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul. That fire, in short, is its food. If one doesn't find out in time what will set off these explosions, the box of matches dampens, and not a single match will ever be lighted.
patience - persuasion, jane austen
Jane Austen's last novel, published posthumously, is a hymn to that old adage 'good things come to those who wait'. Long (not that long) story short - she gets the man and is patient and kind throughout. What's not to like? It inspired this class where we concentrate on embracing the discomfort, resisting the urge to run away, and seeing what we can learn about our bodies and, more importantly, ourselves.
'The last few hours were certainly very painful,' replied Anne: 'but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.'
balance - wild, cheryl strayed
There are so many ways to deal with a soul in turmoil and Cheryl Strayed's solution was to walk the Pacific Crest Trail with no training or proper preparation. Perhaps not that advisable but I'm not sorry because it lead to this wonderful book of walking through the storms into the clear day. I wove this into a class that was all focused on balance. There is nothing like balancing on one leg to bring a sense of calm and to distil your mental paths into peace. Try balancing and thinking about something else, it's tricky, better to just focus your energies on staying upright, like Cheryl, you'll see how peace invades.
How wild it was, to let it be.
Open heart - the more loving one, w.h. auden
The premise of this class is so simple, but so often that's a recipe for success. To accompany this beautiful love poem this class is all about 'heart opening' - that's yoga for back bends. 
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
 should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
together is better - the secret garden, frances hodgson burnett
I have no qualms about including children's books in my classes, they are usually brimming with wisdom and wonder. This was one of my favourite books when I was young, it's all about friendships and how a good friend is the best way to bring joy to your life. As my theme is together is better I made the whole class about binds - hugging ourselves through asana until we can make our way to another human to hug. 
Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow.
Long and strong - winnie the pooh, a.a.milne
There is nothing like Winnie the Pooh, I don't have to talk about him and his friends because you will all know. I made this class the friendship class. A good friendship is made of many things but we can certainly hope that it will be strong and long and so in this class we translate this to our muscles, stretching them out, making them easy going but necessary companions to our daily lives. 
You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.
hope, hope, hope - harry potter, j.k. rowling
I'm allowed to love Harry Potter, I was the target age range when the first book came out and I 'grew up' with the series as people say. As I have said elsewhere children's books are wide ranging and there is a lot to be gained from their pages, even if childhood has been and gone. This class is all about hope, a theme that Harry Potter plays on continually, and is joyful and upbeat. 
Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
all change - matilda, roald dahl
I doubt this will be my first Roald Dahl class but I wanted to start with my favourite - Matilda. A little girl who loves to read and can do magic, I was pretty desperate to be Matilda. This class was all about transience, there really is no such thing as permanence in this life so we remind ourselves to persevere through the bad times and savour the good. 
Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...
what goes around comes around - howard's end, e. m. forster
E. M. Forster's beautiful work has far more to offer in its pages than the simple message I'm taking for this class but sometimes keeping things direct is the most effective path. This class's inspiration is taken from the way that Margaret Schlegel is left a house but never founds out as the will is ripped up, life happens as it does, and she marries the owner of the house and lives there and is left the house again. The message of this class is just to take things as they come, things will turn out all right in the end. The flows we use are all circular in nature, coming back to where they began. 
She could not explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.
claim your agency  - carmilla, joseph sheridan le fanu
I have gone full Halloween with this, one of the original vampire stories. This novella predates Bram Stoker's Dracula and has lashings of that particular Victorian dichotomy - fascination with and disinclination for lesbianism and close female relationships. This class is all about building strength and stamina because if you are a powerful centuries old vampire you do not need a Victorian man with the surname Le Fanu taking away your agency and repeatedly referring to you as 'languid'. 
​But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.
every little bit - the fall of the house of usher, edgar allen poe
Halloween continues! This short story by a master of Gothic is a great example of 'totality' in fiction, ie that every detail matters. The crumbling house represents the crumbling minds and bodies that inhabit it, one is manifested in the other. When the last two members of the House of Usher die the house itself splits apart and collapses into a lake. This class is all about building a strong foundation, physically and mentally, because the two really are inextricable. 
It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty.
Cold snap - the work of robert frost
With these plunging temperatures, that feel so rare these days, we need to get the bones creaking and the muscles squeaking. There's one poet who sums up the pleasure of an icy day, Robert Frost. 
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
getting into the spirit of things - a christmas carol, charles dickens
Whatever your beliefs may be Christmas is hopefully a time of kinship, kindness, and community. These aspects of this time of year need to be held on to and appreciated, no matter how loud the sounds of consumerism get. This is a class full of binds to promote a feeling of togetherness and accompanied by the classic Christmas tale by Charles Dickens. 
Though Christmas has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!
new year, no new you - jane eyre, charlotte bronte
I have a real problem with the pervasive phrase 'new year, new you'. It starts from the premise that you are not good enough, that's a pretty negative kick off point and then it carries on to encourage you to make resolutions that frankly involve an almost complete new personality to maintain. That is of course not possible and so the resolutions are dropped and then we feel incredibly guilty. None of that is good, by all means try some new habits, freshen your routine, but don't expect to wake up on the 1st of the year a new person because it won't happen. You are enough as you are so embrace it and love it, just like Jane and Mr Rochester do. I could wax lyrical about Jane Eyre for days but for this I'll leave it at the fact that one of the threads of this beautiful novel is that Jane presents herself exactly as she is and she is wonderfully content with this, it's one of the reasons Mr Rochester falls in love with her, but the reader is left in no doubt that without him Jane would have been no less of her own person, no less strong and willful. 
“I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.”
Valentine's '17 - by grand central station i sat down and wept, elizabeth smart
We can't have a class on or near Valentine's day without at least referencing love, can we? This class is bold and brutal and moving and beautiful - much like love. We work on finding the balance between strength and flexibility and apply that to our relationships (any kind, as long as they are loving) because working on our loves is always always worth it. I decided on BGCSISDAW because it is truly one of the most astonishing pieces of poetic prose that utterly encapsulates in words how it feels to be in love - the heartbreak and the sublime. 
Under the redwood tree my grave was laid, and I beguiled my true love to lie down. The stream of our kiss put a waterway around the world, where love like a refugee sailed in the last ship. My hair made a shroud, and kept the coyotes at bay while we wrote our cyphers with anatomy. The winds boomed triumph, our spines seemed overburdened, and our bones groaned like old trees, but a smile like a cobweb was fastened across the mouth of the cave of fate.
one being multifaceted - the waves, virginia woolf
As you probably know yoga has eight 'limbs', it's not all about the perfect virabhadrasana II. In fact asana, the poses, are only number 3 on the list. Yoga has many facets that make up what yoga is, it's not simple. Virginia Woolf's The Waves has six internal monologues that she said herself she viewed not as six separate characters so much as the many strains of one consciousness. In this class we explore our multi faceted natures and how having one single thread to you or your practice isn't going to get to you to the humanity we're seeking.
How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.
why we love savasana - the return of the king, j.r.r.tolkien
The Return of the King features one of the least subtle metaphors for death in literature - Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf, plus some elves have reached the end of their time in Middle Earth and so they journey to a land where no one dies and the weather is nice. Subtle or no the message is basically a yoga class wrapped up in one - the strivings and the work, the moments of desperation and elation, that we we find and put into our asanas in class are what makes the savasana (corpse pose, our little death) so delicious. Without what we've learned about our minds and bodies on the way we would never appreciate the peace of the rest that was there for us all along.
The grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.
carry on regardless - the man who planted trees, jean giono
An action, taken in isolation, can seem to have no significance but if we take a step back that action and all the other accumulated actions like it can show themselves to be part of a larger plan with enormous ramifications - and this is exciting, this is hopeful. In this class we are encouraging ourselves to always have the bigger picture in mind, so it's not about the pose it's about how the class made you feel, and so we can take this macro and look at our whole lives in this way. Just like the old shepherd in this beautiful apocryphal short story from Jean Giono we can work away and know that in the end we will have created our very own life giving forest.. metaphorically..
 When you remembered that it had all emerged from the hands and spirit of this one man, without any technical aids, you saw that men could be as efficient as God in other things besides destruction.
fear of the other - the crucible, arthur miller
We all know how hard it can be to not give into our fears, sometimes the urge to close in and keep out the beasts is overwhelming and we let fear guide our impulses (spoiler, doesn't work out well). To maintain our cool we need a calm mind and, crucially, an open outlook. Miller wrote his seminal work, The Crucible, as a response to McCarthyism and a call for history not to repeat itself. In this class we fight the urge to close ranks, to hunker down, and we keep our hearts open and our minds steady because we won't be lead by fear. 
Perhaps because there are those who believe that authority is all of a piece and that to challenge it anywhere is to threaten it everywhere.