This is a book review of the book No nonsense meditation by Steven Laureys. I read it in the context of a personal literature review project on the topic of productivity and well being.
I read this book almost in its entirety but I did skim a few parts and skipped a chapter.
I read this book because I was looking for a meditation manual that wouldn't fuse its instructions with a complete life philosophy or religion. That was not what this book is or tries to be. Instead, the bulk of the pages is spent defending and justifying the benefits and non-religious status of meditation. Answering to attacks I did not care about. I wouldn't say this is a good popular science book either. It lacks structure and the argumentation is at times quite shoddy. Some rigor and subsection titles would have been a great help. Yet, it might very well be the best book to read in terms of popular science on meditation done by someone with the right background. At least, I do not know of a better one.
Note that this book was written by a neuroscience researcher who spoke to a couple of very knowledgeable meditation masters and has himself done a lot of meditation.
While this book isn't necessarily a time waster I would advise to read it only if either of the following is true.
The book contains testimonies I did not especially like. If you want to skip them you should know they always conclude chapters. Hence you can skip to the beginning of the next chapter.