This is a list of non-fiction books and articles which have greatly influenced me – making me see the world differently or act in it differently. They are listed chronologically according to when I first encountered them.
- 2024 – Nikki Mark [2023]: Tommy’s Field: Love, Loss and the Goal of a Lifetime. Union Square.
- 2023 – Clare Carlisle [2018]: “Habit, Practice, Grace: Towards a Philosophy of Religious Life.” In: F. Ellis (Editor): New Models of Religious Understanding. Oxford University Press, pp. 97–115.
- 2022 – Sean Hewitt [2022]: All Down Darkness Wide. Jonathan Cape.
- 2022 – Stewart Copeland [2009]: Strange Things Happen: A Life with “The Police”, Polo and Pygmies.
- 2019 – Mary Le Beau (Inez Travers Cunningham Stark Boulton, 1888-1958) [1956]: Beyond Doubt: A Record of Psychic Experience.
- 2019 – Zhores A Medvedev [1983]: Andropov: An Insider’s Account of Power and Politics within the Kremlin.
- 2016 – Lafcadio Hearn [1897]: Gleanings in Buddha-Fields: Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far East. London, UK: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company Limited.
- 2015 – Benedict Taylor [2011]: Mendelssohn, Time and Memory. The Romantic Conception of Cyclic Form. Cambridge UP.
- 2010 – Hans Kundnani [2009]: Utopia or Auschwitz: Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust. London, UK: Hurst and Company.
- 2009 – J. Scott Turner [2007]: The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself. Harvard UP. (Mentioned here.)
- 2008 – Stefan Aust [2008]: The Baader-Meinhof Complex. Bodley Head.
- 2008 – A. J. Liebling [2008]: World War II Writings. New York City, NY, USA: The Library of America.
- 2008 – Pierre Delattre [1993]: Episodes. St. Paul, MN, USA: Graywolf Press.
- 2006 – Mark Evan Bonds [2006]: Music as Thought: Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven. Princeton UP.
- 2006 – Kyle Gann [2006]: Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice. UCal Press.
- 2005 – Clare Asquith [2005]: Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare. Public Affairs.
- 2004 – Igal Halfin [2003]: Terror in My Soul: Communist Autobiographies on Trial. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard UP.
- 2002 – Philip Mirowski [2002]: Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science. Cambridge University Press.
- 2001 – George Leonard [2000]: The Way of Aikido: Life Lessons from an American Sensei.
- 2000 – Stephen E. Toulmin [1990]: Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. University of Chicago Press.
- 1999 – Michel de Montaigne [1580-1595]: Essays.
- 1997 – James Pritchett [1993]: The Music of John Cage. Cambridge UP.
- 1996 – George Fowler [1995]: Dance of a Fallen Monk: A Journey to Spiritual Enlightenment.
Doubleday. - 1995 – Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch [1992]: Thinking Body, Dancing Mind. New York: Bantam Books.
- 1995 – Jon Kabat-Zinn [1994]: Wherever You Go, There You Are.
- 1995 – Charlotte Joko Beck [1993]: Nothing Special: Living Zen.
- 1993 – George Leonard [1992]: Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment.
- 1992 – Henry Adams [1907/1918]: The Education.
- 1990 – Trevor Leggett [1987]: Zen and the Ways. Tuttle.
- 1989 – Grant McCracken [1988]: Culture and Consumption.
- 1989 – Teresa Toranska [1988]: Them: Stalin’s Polish Puppets. Translated by Agnieszka Kolakowska. HarperCollins. (Mentioned here.)
- 1988 – Henry David Thoreau [1865]: Cape Cod.
- 1988 – Rupert Sheldrake [1988]: The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature.
- 1988 – Dan Rose [1987]: Black American Street Life: South Philadelphia, 1969-1971. UPenn Press.
- 1987 – Susan Sontag [1966]: Against Interpretation. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- 1987 – Gregory Bateson [1972]: Steps to an Ecology of Mind. U Chicago Press.
- 1987 – Jay Neugeboren [1968]: Reflections at Thirty.
- 1985 – Esquire Magazine Special Issue [June 1985]: The Soul of America.
- 1985 – Brian Willan [1984]: Sol Plaatje: A Biography.
- 1982 – John Miller Chernoff [1979]: African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical Idioms. University of Chicago Press.
- 1981 – Walter Rodney [1972]: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Bogle-L’Overture Publications.
- 1980 – James A. Michener [1971]: Kent State: What happened and Why.
- 1980 – Andre Gunder Frank [1966]: The Development of Underdevelopment. Monthly Review Press.
- 1980 – Paul Feyerabend [1975]: Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge.
- 1979 – Aldous Huxley [1945]: The Perennial Philosophy.
- 1978 – Christmas Humphreys [1949]: Zen Buddhism.
- 1977 – Raymond Smullyan [1977]: The Tao is Silent.
- 1976 – Bertrand Russell [1951-1969]: The Autobiography. George Allen & Unwin.
- 1975 – Jean-Francois Revel [1972]: Without Marx or Jesus: The New American Revolution Has Begun.
- 1974 – Charles Reich [1970]: The Greening of America.
- 1973 – Selvarajan Yesudian and Elisabeth Haich [1953]: Yoga and Health. Harper.
- 1972 – Robin Boyd [1960]: The Australian Ugliness.
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