[yagr]

My daughter asked me once, which twenty books I would recommend if she were retiring to a desert island for the rest of her life. I gave the matter some thought and came up with this list. As we both believe that spirituality is the most important aspect of a person's life, she expected, and was not surprised that each was spiritual in nature. I decided to share that list here - in case anyone would like some ideas. Feel free to add your own ideas.

Who ordered this truckload of dung - Ajahn Brahm. A collection of true stories told by a great storyteller and Theravada monk. Very funny.

The Key: And the name of the key is willingness - Cheri Huber. Cheri is the founder of the Zen Mountain Monastery. This book is worth getting just because of the font - but the essay in the back of this book changed my life instantly.

Desert Wisdom - Yushi Nomura. Delightful stories and sayings of Christian monastics and hermits in the fourth and fifth centuries in Egypt.

Be Here Now - Ram Dass. The journey from Richard Alpert to Ram Dass; Harvard to the Himalaya's. Hindu influences.

The Sermon on the Mount according to Vedanta - Swami Prabhavananda. Simply the most beautiful commentary on the Sermon on the Mount that I have been privileged to hear.

The Wandering Taoist - Deng Ming Dao. The first book of three. Six year old Deng Ming Dao's journey to the Taoist temple and his life there.

The Tao is Silent - Raymond Smullyan. The author is hilarious and yet he expresses his thoughts and interpretations of the Tao in a way that is beautiful to me.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach. A new copy landed in my hands in 1971 and promptly changed my life.

Illusions - Richard Bach. A quick but powerful spiritual read.

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior - Dan Millman The first of three transformative books. Inside the cover is a quote from a 15 year old girl named Hope that says it all. "This book changed my life." It's that kind of book. Made into a movie with Nick Nolte and Amy Smart.

Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior - Millman The second book in this series yet a stand alone book if you haven't read the first. Also a great introduction to Huna.

The Journey of Socrates - Millman This is the third book but it pre-dates the first two historically. This book is based on a true story and contains the single greatest act of forgiveness I have ever heard. It is my yardstick and encouragement when I find forgiveness hard to offer. Thinking on this story has never failed to prompt me to forgive.

Yhantishor - Daniel Shahid. A whimsical spiritual journey in a land that never was and always is.

When you can walk on water, take the boat - John Harricharan. Okay, to tell the truth I bought it because the title rocks...but so did the story.

Parables from other Planets - Hugh Prather. Ditto and ditto. Short stories you digest on the couch in an evening or one at a time while on your toilet.

How to live in the world and still be Happy - Hugh Prather. Prather is the king of great titles - and the title is accurate, that's what he discusses.

Love is letting go of fear - Jampolsky. The only psych book on the list...because of the subject matter: love and fear

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

Kara, the Lonely Falcon - Joseph Girzone

Don't Just Do Something - Sit There - Sylvia Boorstein

[Skeezyks]

[Sanne]

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach. A new copy landed in my hands in 1971 and promptly changed my life.

This one sounds interesting to me, thanks for sharing you list a few of these are going on mine!

[yagr]

Originally Posted by Sanne

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach. A new copy landed in my hands in 1971 and promptly changed my life.

This one sounds interesting to me, thanks for sharing you list a few of these are going on mine!

Interesting side bar...I just wrote a book - a spiritual fantasy for middle graders. It was inspired by the effect this book had on me and so I dropped a e-mail to Mr. Bach and shared that he was the inspiration for my book and that I figured it made him the grand-author. Basically, it was just a thank you from my readers who would never know the influence he had on my book being written.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang. It was my childhood hero calling to thank me.

[Silent_Efforts]

Thank you for sharing your list. Very helpful.
Here is a little list of books commonly read that I feel have a great impact on the reader and the significance of which has been lost through time: (each followed by a quote from the book cause I don't have the expertise to write a summary of why i like the book for all books):

1.Blink (The Power of Thinking without Thinking) - Malcolm Gladwell
-“We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don’t really have an explanation for.”
-“allowing people to operate without having to explain themselves constantly turns out to be like the rule of agreement in improv. It enables rapid cognition.”
-“Often a sign of expertise is noticing what doesn't happen.”

2.The Tao of Pooh and Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff
-“When we give up our images of self-importance and our ideas of what should be, we can help things become what they need to be.”

3.A Short History of Nearly Everything -Bill Bryson
-“Life just wants to be; but it doesn't want to be much.”

4."The Little Prince" -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
-“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
-“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

5.Who Moved My Cheese? -Spencer Johnson
-“What would you do if you weren't afraid?”
-“Smell the cheese often so you know when it is getting old.”

6.Notes To Myself -Hugh Prather
-“Today I don't want to live for, I want to live.”

7.The Power of Habit -Charles Duhigg
-The problem is that brain can’t tell the difference between good and bad habits

8.Tao Te Ching -Lao Tzu
-Adapt the nothing; because change is permanent

9.The Kite Runner -Khaled Hosseini
-“Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.”

10.Cosmos -Carl Sagan
-“we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers”

11.Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
-“...It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.”

12.Pride and Prejudice -Jane Austen
-“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

13.The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us -Christopher Chabris
-“the confidence people express often reflects their personalities rather than their knowledge, memory, or abilities.”

14.Diary of Anne Frank
-"We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.”

15.Great Expectations -Charles Dickens
-“I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”

I'd like to add a little thought on what you said about spirituality and why you picked the books you did.

Books, I believe are one of the most powerful weapons created by man. They can on all levels of consciousness and orientation of the mind, body and soul, influence parts of people they may never even know existed.

What I'm saying is, reading with passion, being lost in each word and what it screams, be it anything, can be a spiritual experience.
And it is for most who love reading.

Even fairy tales and comics that don't use the words "Tao" or "How to be Happy" in their title directly have such an immense spiritual influence on those who read it with that much passion and intent and depth.

As G.K.Chesterton very wisely put:
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

[Silent_Efforts]

Originally Posted by yagr

Interesting side bar...I just wrote a book - a spiritual fantasy for middle graders. It was inspired by the effect this book had on me and so I dropped a e-mail to Mr. Bach and shared that he was the inspiration for my book and that I figured it made him the grand-author. Basically, it was just a thank you from my readers who would never know the influence he had on my book being written.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang. It was my childhood hero calling to thank me.

A bold request, if you wouldn't mind sharing the book you wrote? Would definitely like to read it. If not publicly, in PM?
I understand if you prefer not to, and that is fine. I'm sure as a writer you understand the curiosity leading to make this request, the desire to read and the relevance of inspired books.