My friend who does practises meditation regularly handed me this book from his collection when I asked him for advice. I read through the book while I was attending meditation classes at university in the last few weeks. Turning The Mind Into An Ally is written by Sakyong Mipham, a Tibetan Buddhist lama. The book is aimed at beginners to meditation, so was perfect for me. The prose flows like a graceful and simple brook going from the nature of the mind, to getting started on meditation, to the problems faced during meditation and finally to the different objects that one can place the mind on during meditation. The book is a breezy read, mainly because the author takes care not to get heavy in the details and peppers every other page with analogies from real life. Buddhism (the religion) aspects are present a bit in the beginning and towards the end, but the book for the most part is free of religion. The book ends with some appendices which have practical tips for meditation. I found the book quite useful to go along with my meditation classes. I will have to get back to the book sometime in the future again since I couldn't really take away a lot of the latter part of the book.