From an Amazon Book Review:
This is one of the best introductions to meditation I've read in my twenty years of practicing and learning about meditation. The simplicity of the writing and the mundane nature of the topics covered successfully disguise the fact that the author is very highly regarded and probably the most prolific translator of the original Buddhist Pali texts in the United States. He is also a lifelong monk with 40+ years of meditation experience. Though nothing can replace learning meditation in person from someone skilled at it, read this book carefully from cover to cover, and then again a few more times, and don't be fooled by the simplicity. A lot of this is a direct distillation and modernization of instructions straight from the mouth of the first Buddhist. (and if you want to know more about that, seek out some of his other books)