Books Map

Meditation is not an escape, quite the opposite. It is the courage to look at and be present with the world, with all the noise, suffering, and delusion.

If one has the capacity to be present, concentrated, unpolarized – one can read any book and face any reality with clarity. If one reads unprepared – one is in danger of being poisoned, if one reads not at all – one is in danger of consequences of naivety. Concentration is developed first and foremost in recognition of and disconnection from impulsive consumption of distractions: information, entertainment, relationships, unnecessary habitual activities, electronics. Capacity and skilfulness to be comfortable with silence, aloneness, one’s mental noise and mental pain takes time and effort to develop, guided meditation helps in the beginning. Once one can comfortably stay silent, still, alone, non-consuming, undistracted for an indefinite period, further refinement of concentration can be developed in silent meditation.

Here are some writings on humanities from different times, cultures, perspectives, and depth of analysis that I found worth reading at different periods of my own life, in the pursuit to understand human, humanity, life, the current state of affairs of civilization. This is by no means a list of best books there are, nor an objective perspective, neither books of absolute truth, nor a tacit agreement with what is written, rather a list of books I would recommend reading to my own children.

Peace

The 16 Exercises of Mindful Breathing by Gautama Buddha
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Key to Liberation by Ajahn Chah
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein
The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now by Thich Nhat Hanh
No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh
Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama, Howard C. Cutler
The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor by Eddie Jaku
Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela
Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor E Frankl
The Life Of The Buddha by Bikkhu Nanamoli
The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah
Path Of Purification, by Buddhaghosa
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami Satchidananda
Shobogenzo by Eihei Dogen

Family

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman
Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by John Gottman , Julie Schwartz Gottman
True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart by Thich Nhat Hanh
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld, Gabor Maté
Surviving Parental Alienation: A Journey of Hope and Healing by Amy J.L. Baker

Friendships

Maro Up: The Secret to Success Begins with Arigato: Wisdom from the “Warren Buffet of Japan” by Janet Bray Attwood, Ken Honda
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Business

Managing Corporate Lifecycles by Adizes, Ichak Kalderon
Winning by Jack Welch
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Psychology

Understanding Our Mind: 51 Verses on Buddhist Psychology by Thich Nhat Hanh
A Game Free Life. The definitive book on the Drama Triangle and Compassion Triangle by the originator and author. The new transactional analysis of intimacy, openness, and happiness by Stephen B. Karpman
Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric Berne
Scripts People Live: Transactional Analysis of Life Scripts by Claude Steiner
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Maté
Letting Go of Good: Dispel the Myth of Goodness to Find Your Genuine Self by Andrea Mathews
Behave by Robert M Sapolsky
The Black Books by C. G. Jung
A comprehensive manual of Abhidhamma. The philosophical psychology of Buddhism by Bikkhu Bodhi

Evolution

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner

Nature

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

Philosophy

The Republic by Plato
The First & Second Treatises of Government by John Locke
Politics by Aristotle
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
The Analects by Confucius
The Book of Lord Shang by Shang Yang
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer
The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, The Critique of Judgment by Immanuel Kant
Groundwork of the Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant
Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality by Ronald Dworkin
A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick
The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A Hayek
On Liberty and Other Essays by John Stuart Mill
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Treatises by Baruch Spinoza

Economy

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
The Capital (Vol. I, II, III) by Karl Marx
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money: With the Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes
The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises

Investment

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham
Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charles T. Munger
The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation by John C. Bogle

Statecraft

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton
Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger
Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy by Henry Kissinger
World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History by Henry Kissinger
Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit by Eric Schmidt, Henry A. Kissinger, Craig Mundie
On China by Henry Kissinger
The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew by Lee Kuan Yew
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehumen Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama
Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama
State Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century by Francis Fukuyama
Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama
The Political Testament of Cardinal Richelieu by Armand Jean du Plessis
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky

Religion

A History of Religious Ideas (vol. I, II, III) by Mircea Eliade
Opera Omnia Collection (I-XIII) by Raimon Panikkar
The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation by Upton Sinclair
The Mystique of Enlightenment: The Unrational Ideas of a Man Called U.G. by U. G. Krishnamurti

Propaganda

Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by Noam Chomsky
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes by Jacques Ellul
Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics by Joseph S. Nye Jr.

War

History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
On War by Carl von Clausewitz
A History of the Second World War by B. H. Liddell Hart
A History of the First World War by B. H. Liddell Hart
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The Art of War by Niccolò Machiavelli
The Art of War by Baron de Jomini

History

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond
Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade 1750-1950 by Carl Trocki
The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970 by John Darwin
The Jews of Lithuania: A History of a Remarkable Community 1316-1945 by Masha Greenbaum

Atrocities

Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse
Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History by Matthew White, S. Pinker
The Massacre of the Jews of Lithuania by Karen Sutton
Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum
The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (vol. I, II, III) by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
If This Is a Man by Primo Levi
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang
The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924 by Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi
An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 (The Lamar Series in Western History) by Benjamin Madley
The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Robert Spencer
The Inquisition Revealed in Its Origin, Policy, Cruelties, and History, With Memoirs of Its Victims by Thomas Timson
Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
Slavery: A World History by Milton Meltzer
The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Chol-Hwan Kang
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning