- Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton: "Reading this, I discovered for the first time, that there was this whole interior world....the inner life of the soul...where we connect with what is the deepest thing in us, that divine spark in us....the relationship with the divine within..."
- Time and the Soul by Jacob Needleman: "...It about how we relate to time and that need to be attentive and present in the moment. It's an old, old story, but presented in a beautiful way."
- An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943 by Etty Hillesum: "I think of this as Anne Frank for grown-ups. Hillesum wrote a lot of it before she went to the concentration camp. How she carried on as she faced what was coming, how she chose to live, how she was able to find some kind of joy anyway....."
- The House of Belonging by David Whyte: "I read poetry if I get stuck. There's nothing like either a walk on the beach or walking into a poem that can pull us back into our own work. David Whyte's work is fantastic, especially the poem "Sweet Darkness." I can quote it when he says "Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong," and " Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you."......If you read a poem with great attentiveness, often you experience a little rebirth."
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin: "Chopin writes about a woman's, Edna Pontelliler's, struggle against the limitations of her culture. I read it when I was 19 and it woke me up to my own journey, breaking through the limitations of growing up as girl in the '50s, coming of age in the '60s in the South, pre-feminist America. I had to find my own truth, my own voice and not one that was the voice imposed upon me. Reading this book, I became aware."
- The Known World by Edward P. Jones: "....a masterpiece. I found it so morally complex and enlightening. I want a novel to move my heart, mainly, but I love it when I can learn something that I didn't know before --and I did not know until I read this book that African Americans owned slaves...At the time I was reading it, I didn't know I was going to be writing a book about slavery.....But, when I was writing The Invention of Wings, I thought back on this book. I wanted that same feeling of realness."
What books move you? What books are sitting on your desk, next to your bed, the ones
that you are most thankful for?