A list of books that have been fundamental to my education – Social, Political & Spiritual. Twice in my life I have given away a library of more than 3000 books .. I miss the ability to just reach out and draw a tome off a bookshelf whenever I need it. But, such is life and my circumstances no longer allow me to carry these around with me … What I can carry, I carry in my head, which perhaps accounts for the state of my mind at times .. these have fed my soul.

The Tyrannicide Brief – Geoffrey Robertson.
The Rights of Man – Tom Paine.
ABC of Anarchism – Alexander Berkman.
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice – William Godwin.
Chuang Tzu – Burton Watson’s translation.
Wittgenstein – Ray Monk.
Orwell – Ray Monk.
Blake – Peter Ackroyd.
Zealot, Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth – Reza Aslan.
The Improvement of the Understanding/The Ethics – Benedict de Spinoza.
A Theological-Political Treatise/A Political Treatise – Benedict de Spinoza.
A Separate Reality – Carlos Castaneda
Roget’s Thesaurus – Peter Roget.
Os Sertoes – Euclides da Cunha.
History of Art – Elie Faure.
Areopagitica – John Milton.
The Complete Lewis Carroll – Lewis Carroll.
Why I am Not a Christian – Bertrand Russell.
The Essential Trotsky – Leon Trotsky.
The Owl of Minerva – Gustav Regler.
Sir Thomas More – Peter Ackroyd.
Straight & Crooked Thinking – Robert H. Thouless.
Descartes’ Error – Antonio Damasio.
Donnybrook, The Battle of Bull Run 1861 – David Delzer.
The White Spider – Heinrich Harrer.
Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins – Robert Murray, Roger Brucker.
The History of Western Philosophy – Bertrand Russell.

… And I thought I could make a list of 10! These books, looking back at them in a list all have something in common; they’re about progress and courage and enlightenment in the world of man and his world of ideas – they’re my education. They’re not in any order – they are all fabulous books.

Growing up in the Western Civilization of the 2nd half of the 20th C, I’ve been immersed in Greek Mythology, the Bible, Harry Messel’s Science books, an aversion to war, Rock Music and a belief in Democracy. My childhood was also the time of Look & Learn Magazine, Beano & Eagle annuals, Tin Tin, Asterix and Lucky Luck .. I realise I could list hundreds and hundreds of books, but for anyone interested in books, the books above link to other books just by being the books they are in themselves and in the subjects they cover.

I went through a time when I read everything I could get my hands on in the way of English Literature .. novels & poetry etc .. but I’m not so taken by fiction anymore, I have favourite books and authors but … Well, how do you change the world without a knowledge of its history? You can only try and not repeat mistakes that have been made before by knowing when they were mistakes and why they were mistakes & while I’m repeatedly told that everything depends on ‘from where one views the World’ .. I still would like to believe that it’s a shared World and that we humans can not only share it with each other in peace – but with all the other little creatures that are unfortunate enough to inhabit this shared Earth with us. I think books hold the key .. but you gotta read em, and it ain’t a popular thing to do these days. One of my grandmothers once sent me bookplates for me to create a library, I remember one particularly well – ‘Books Fall Open, You Fall In’ – thanks grandma!