The story of the Buddha has been told time and time again, and various accounts of his life story have been recorded in books, films, and other media. This version, Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment, was written by Deepak Chopra, an alternative medicine advocate in the New Age movement. I hadn't read any of Chopra's other books prior to this one, so I approached this book with very few expectations.
The book is broken up into three main sections: "Siddhartha The Prince", "Gautama The Monk", and "Buddha". Each section describes the stages of the Buddha's development and evolution. Before the Buddha became the Buddha, he was Gautama, a wandering monk. And before Gautama came Siddhartha, a prince stuck in his father's walled kingdom. Chopra goes into great detail on the topic, throwing in a lot of intriguing anecdotes of which I was previously unaware.
I really enjoyed this one. I've read and listened to several variations of the Buddha's story, but none that were this in-depth and engaging. I'm sure it won't be the last Buddha book that I read, but for now, this has been the best!
5/5 stars. 292 pages.