READING LIST

This is a partial list that includes books which helped me greatly in my development. They are loosely categorized but not in order of preference, or order assigned. Each person starts in a different place and has a different goal. The “First 10” is merely a suggestion of some gentle places to start in order to enter on the readings in the proper frame of mind.

My object is to tailor the reading list for each student, but I can only do this for people I have met. This is a list of starting places, not an all inclusive road map. Just a note of caution, I do not agree with everything in these books, nor do I expect you to do so. Each of them should provide you with some things to consider, and that consideration is the real object.

George Leonard is the only person on the “First 10” list with more than one book. One of his students has another. It was one of his Essays (Mastery) in Esquire that started me on writing these. His writings have made an enormous impact on me He is clear and accessible but doesn’t reduce the content. Great stuff! If you want to see some more about his Way visit my ITP site.

This list will change and expand as items come to mind, books are returned to me, and I remember or look up the authors. This version is current on 6 January 2000 .

FIRST 10

• Stranger in a Strange Land
  Robert A. Heinlein
• The Life We are Given
  Leonard/Murphy
• Illusions
  Bach
• Tao of Jeet Kune Do, (et al)
  Bruce Lee
• Absorb What is Useful (et al)
  Dan Inosanto
• In Search of the Warrior Spirit
  Richard Strozzi Heckler
• The Path of Mastery
  George Leonard
• The Book of Five Rings
  Musashi
• The Art of War
  Sun Tzu
• The Sufis
  Idries Shah

RELIGION

• The Bible
• The Quran
• The Bhagavad Gita
• The Upanishads
• Zen Mind, Beginners Mind
  Shunryu Suzuki
• Religions of the World

MARTIAL ARTS

• Zen in the Martial Arts
  Joe Hyams
• Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere
• Strategy in Unarmed Combat
  Paul Maslak
• The Meaning of Aikido
  Richard Strozzi Heckler
• The Ninja books
  Stephen Hayes

SCIENCE AND LEARNING

• Loom of Language
• Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's 9th
• Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes
• The Tao of Physics
  Fritjof Capra
• The Dancing of Wu Li Masters
• Synchronicity (et al)
  Buckminster Fuller
• Space and Time
  Albert Einstein
• A Brief History of
  Time Stephen Hawking
• High Colonies
  Gerard K. O'Neill

EASTERN PHILOSOPHY

• Magic Monastery (et al)
  Idries Shah
• Autobiography of a Yogi
  Yogananda
• The Awakening of Kundalini
  Gopi Krishna
• Light on Yoga; Light on Pranayama
  B.K.S. Iyengar
• Being in Mindfulness
  Thich Nhat Hanh
• I Ching
• Analects
  Confucious

EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY

• Republic/Dialogues
  Plato
• So Sprach Zarathustra; Beyond Good & Evil
  Nietsche
• Everything
  Augustine
• Leviathon
  Hobbes
• A Critique of Pure Reason
  Kant
• Everything
  Aristotle
• Most Everything
  Aquinas
• Golden Bough
  Fraser

NEW WORLD PHILOSOPHY

• Goddesses in Every Woman; Gods in Every Man
  Jean Shinoda Bolen
• Eagle's Quest
  Fred Alan Wolfe
• Godel, Escher, Bach; The Mind's I Douglas Hofstadter
• Drawing Down the Moon
  Margot Adler
• Teachings of Don Juan (et al)
  Castaneda
• The Tao of Pooh
  Douglas Hoff
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  Robert Pirsig
• Way of the Shaman
  Michael Harner
• Drumming on the Edge
  Mickey Hart
• Walden
  Thoreau
• Atlas Shrugged
  Ayn Rand
• Stranger to the Ground; Johnathan Livingston Seagull
  Bach
• The Awakened Warrior
• The Way of the Warrior
• No Matter Where You Go-There You Are
  John Kabat-Zinn

SCIENCE FICTION

• Starship Troopers;
• Time Enough for Love;
• (and everything else) Robert Heinlein
• Falkenberg Novels
  Jerry Pournelle
• Childe Cycle
  Gordon Dickson
• 1984; Animal Farm
  George Orwell
• Fahrenheit 451
  Ray Bradbury
• Lost Horizons
• Brave New World
  Aldous Huxley
• The Matador Series
  Steve Perry
• Chronicles of Tornor
  Lynn Abbey
• The Kundalini Equation
  Steve Barnes
• Dune
  Frank Herbert
• Lens of the World Series (et al)
  R.A. MacAvoy
• Scaramouche
  Rafael Sabatini

MYTH & LEGEND

• The Hero of a Thousand Faces
• The Power of Myth;
• The Atlas of Mythology;
• and everything else by Joseph Campbell
• Arabian Nights
• The Ulster Cycle (Cu Chulann)
• The Mabinogion
• La Morte d'Arthur
• The Fenian Cycle (Fionn MacCumhail)
• die Niebelungenlied

CLASSIC LITERATURE

• Foucault's Pendulum
  Umberto Eco
• Siddhartha
  Hesse
• Ulysses
  James Joyce
• Aesop's Fables
• The Divine Comedy
  Dante
• Utopia
  Thomas Moore
• Essays
  Emerson
• Candide (et al)
  Voltaire
• The Prince; The Republic
  Machiavelli

“KID’S” BOOKS

• Grimm's Fairy Tales
• The Pooh Books
  A.A. Milne
• The Oz Books L.
  Frank Baum
• Alice Beyond the Looking Glass
  Lewis Carroll
• Gulliver's Travels (et al)
  Jonathan Swift
• Shel Silverstein's Poetry

PSYCHADELIC

• Illuminatus Trilogy
  Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
• Other Illuminatus Books
  Robert Anton Wilson
• The Mind Vampires
  Colin Wilson
• Holy Blood, Holy Grail
  Baigent/Leigh
• The Aquarian Conspiracy
• Natural Healing; From Chocolate to Morphine...
  Andrew Weil

PSYCHOLOGY

• Motivation & Personality
  Abraham Maslow
• Jung Anthology
• Freud Anthology
• Personality Plus
  Littauer
• Please Understand Me
  Keirsey/Bates
• That's Not What I Meant
  Deborah Tannen
• Walden II B.F.
  Skinner
• Type Talk
  Kroeger & Thuesen

BUSINESS & POLITICS

• Compassionate Capitalism Rich DeVos
• How to Win Friends & Influence People and everything else
  Dale Carnegie
• Think & Grow Rich (and everything else)
  Napoleon Hill
• The Peter Principle
  Lawrence J. Peter
• Das Kapital; Communist Manifesto
  Karl Marx
• Mein Kampf
  Adolf Hitler
• The Federalist Papers
• The Anti-federalist Papers
• Two Treatises of Government
  Locke
• Wealth Of Nations
  Adam Smith
• What Color is your Parachute

HISTORY

• The Knight in History
• Book of the Courtier
  Castiglione
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
  Alex Haley

MAXIMUM POTENTIAL

• In Search Of Excellence
  Tom Peters
• Peak Performance
• The Future of the Body
  Michael Murphy
• Smart for Life
  Michael D. Chafetz
• Psycholinguistics
  Maxwell Maltz
• The Path of Mastery (and everything else)
  George Leonard
• Golf in the Kingdom
  Michael Murphy