books for understanding Honey

[snugglekitty]

I saw a post from bearsir a while back asking what books you would suggest someone read in order to understand you.

I've been thinking about that, and thought I would make a list.



This is in order of importance, as perceived by me.

The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk crystallized a lot of my thinking about community, and is still a pretty good reflection of my experience of my spiritual path, although I'm not a pacifist.
The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis is a book I have been working with for a number of years, which has shaped my understanding of the way my past affects my present.
The Spiral Dance by Starhawk is the pagan book I come back to again and again.
Edna St Vincent Millay: Selected Poems is probably my all-time favorite book of poetry. (There are multiple books with this title - this is the one with ISBN 0-06-092288-5.)
Dreams of Light and Dark by Tanith Lee explains a lot of my obsession with fairy tale retellings, simply by being as wonderful as it is.
Gossamer Axe by Gael Baudino helped me realize I like women, and also has some thoughts about being a witch in the modern world that I liked.
Illusions by Richard Bach shaped a lot of my thinking about the extent to which we shape our own lives.



Does anyone else have titles that have shaped them, or would help someone understand them, that they would like to share?

Comments

[aillecat.livejournal.com]

1) Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand - My first exposure to a rational way of living/philosophy based in objective reality, I still borrow many large points of it for my own philosophy.

2) The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran - given to me by my best friend's mother as a high school graduation present. It is, without a doubt full of some of the best advice for living I've ever seen.

3) Waiting for Godot (play) - Samuel Beckett - This effected me profoundly, to me it didn't make sense to waste time waiting for Godot... and maybe that was the point.

4) The Design and Implementation of 4.4BSD - This feeds the geek within. I devoted several years of my life to this and related.

5) Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism - Patrick Califia - Trans-feminism, and the hurdles us as transpeople have to get over before we can be in a good spot. History from Jourgenson to the present. Patrick has put together an amazing book.

[jirikido.livejournal.com]

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann - the discussion of morality vs blessedness formed my ideas on how living within one's own moral code was not only a good idea, it is your destiny

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - in an odd way, I credit this book with my curiousity and wanderlust for our world, which is at 26 countries now and shows no signs of letting up

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - I came to view this book as a Westernized introduction to the Eastern views of karma, which led me to try and tackle those philosphies more directly

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell - It helped me see that we are in fact in a time of the strongest mythmaking period in history, the "Ameroman Empire" :) and led me to explore his four book series on comparative mythology

When Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase - the first time I had really met one of us and knew what had to be done, which has set me on my true Healing Path, which undoubtedly will continue to the end of my days

Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving by Charles and Caroline Muir - Some years ago my partner and I fould a loving Tantra teacher who started us down the path of true connection, and this was the first book and video I had seen on it

How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found by Doug Richmond - it was a deeply fascinating and simple read, and I remember thinking that there was a way to find freedom if I really needed it