OTHER BOOKS BY GARRETT JONES

I wrote my first book in 1978, This was a secondary school text book, Faiths of the World [Holmes McDougall]. It covered major world religions, then went on to include modern ideologies: communism, existentialism and scientific humanism. It is out of print but I have a couple of copies left.  Email me if you want one.

If you want to buy any of the paperback version of the books listed below you can buy using paypal by clicking the "Buy Now" button.

Next came:

TALES AND TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA                           

 [SECOND EDITION  2001    ISBN 1877275212]

Cybereditions

The first edition was published by Allen and Unwin in 1979       

Now out of print, this was a study of the Páli Canon in relation to the  Játaka Tales, a vast fund of folk tales which  purported to relate former births of Gotama in human or animal form.

It  established itself as a standard work and is referred to in the International Encyclopedia of Sexology:

“As for other sections of the Buddhist canon, John Garrett Jones (cited in Cabezón 1993) has concluded that there is an implicit affirmation from the silence regarding homosexuality, and the silence is certainly not due to the lack of material.

Whereas the canon is silent about homosexuality, the Jataka literature, in which the previously mentioned tale of Prince Vessantara is embedded, is replete with sentiments about same-gender affection. One example can be found in the eloquent past-life stories of the Buddha and his disciple and attendant, Ananda. In one scenario, the Buddha and Ananda are depicted as two deer who always went about together... ruminating and cuddling together, very happy, head to head, nozzle to nozzle, horn to horn. In another story, a serpent king who falls in love with Ananda encircled the ascetic with snakes folds, and embraced him, with his great hood upon his head; and there he lay a little, till his affection was satisfied (Jones 1979, quoted in Cabezón 1993, p. 89). These examples are but a few of many instances which articulate same-gender affection in the context of friendships between men in the Jatakas. Considering the enormous number of warnings about the dangers of heterosexual relationships, Cabezón argues that the absence of warning about same-gender relationship is remarkable. It suggests that the attitude toward homosexuality in the Indian Jataka texts is one of acceptance, and occasionally even a eulogy, of these feelings." [ International Encyclopedia of Sexology, volume 3, section 5 in the chapter on Thailand]

This revised edition is available either as an e-book or a paperback from the publisher or from Amazon. I have a few copies available to customers outside USA  for £14 (surface post paid).

After that came:

ALFRED AND ARTHUR      ISBN 0 7552 0055 1   2002

Published by   AUTHORS ON LINE

 Alfred and Arthur takes the lid off the secrecy surrounding Alfred Tennyson’s bisexuality, in spite of his efforts to be quite open about it. This is a remarkable story and one not often told because Tennyson, unlike Byron, Keats and Shelley, lived into his eighties, was made a peer and became part of the Victorian establishment. His undergraduate love affair with Arthur Hallam ended abruptly when Arthur died soon after leaving Cambridge. But it did not end.  Tennyson published In Memoriam seventeen years after Arthur's death and the love which inspired that poem was the backcloth of the poet's life right to the end.

You can read the first section of the book by going to:                    

The Founding of a Friendship

£10  [Paperback post paid only from this site]

         

My most recent book is:

 

OURTOPIA                                 ISBN: 07552 0132-9     2004

Published by Authors on Line

 

An enthusiastic Iranian reader has translated this little book into

Persian for use as a discussion document.  This was before the present government came to power.

On 1 Feb 2006, my translator sent me the following email:     

"  Negaah-e Now (New Look) is a Persian scholarly

and quarterly journal. At the end of each year it

allocates a chapter to the best books. The editor of

this journal has selected OURTOPIA as the

best book in 1384s/2005, and has written 2 columns

 about it. He (Mr Ali Mirzaa'i) admires the

 author's specifications in this book: simplicity,

directness, commitment and sincerity. "  

[I expect you were as puzzled as I was by the 1384s but I remembered that 2005 will be 1384 on the Islamic reckoning and the 's' would be the equivalent of our 'AD']

 

What spurred me to write this book is the extent to which the modern world is bedevilled by primitive tribalism, but a tribalism armed with all the latest weapons. There are lots of other problems - pollution causing accelerating climate change; junk foods and daft lifestyles causing an obesity epidemic; rogue rulers practising genocide or threatened by an almost equally roguish coalition of 'pre-emptors'. Simply turning off and escaping into the world of drugs and narcotics is not going to help our children. Something much more integrated and constructive is urgently needed.

Paperback: £6 surface post paid from this site.

 A Microsoft Reader version of the electronic version of the book is available free if you email me.