Books on Being Human?

Recently, I sent a request to any readers on the Open Space Technology and Seattle Integral listservs who have ever pondered what it means to be human and invited people to share the books that had taught them the most about being human.  To my delight I received several responses from people all over the world (all but two from the OSlist).  Thank you all for sharing your reading recommendations, as well as the personal notes accompanying many of your responses. 

Here, for anyone curious, is a list of the books that taught various folks something about being human, in no particular order.  Each group of recommendations is one person’s response (I've included some of my favorite books at the end):  

Playing and Reality, D. W. Winnicott
Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, D,W. Winnicott 
Sexual Personae: A History of the feminine from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Camille Paglia
The World of Pooh, A.A. Milne
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graham
The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abrams

Living Beyond the End of the World, Margaret Swedish
The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein
Ornament of the World, Maria Rosa Menocal
Cultural Creatives, Paul Ray
The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida
Breaking Ranks, Ronit Chacham
Better, Atul Gawand
The Hidden Connections, Fritjof Capra
Sketching User Experience, Bill Buxton
The Miners of Windber: the Struggles for New Miners for Unionization, Mildred Beik

Burning All Illusions, David Edwards, 1995 (Also published under the Title “Dare to be Human”)

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
Illusions, Richard Bach
One, Richard Bach

Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World, Kathleen Dean Moore
The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
Coming to Life, Polly Berrien Berends
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
All Sickness is Homesickness, Dianne Connelly

Imagining Argentina, Thornton
Prophetic Imagination, Brueggeman

Crucial Conversations
The Way of the Peaceful Warrior (series), Dan Millman

Books, tapes, online et al: anything by Esther and Jerry Hicks
The Alchemist, Paulo Coehlo
Creed for the Third Millennium, Colleen McCullough

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
…Everything I have read by Parker Palmer and Frederick Buechner, nonfiction and fiction alike…

How We Became Human, Joy Harjo
Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restoring Hope to the Future, Margaret Wheatley

The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell

Bring Me the Rhinoceros, John Tarrant

The Secret, Rhonda Byrne
A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
Loving What Is, Byron Katie

The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck

 

Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
The Alchemist, Paolo Coelho
Women Who Run with Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle
Turning to One Another, Meg Wheatley
Grace and Grit, Ken Wilber and Treya Killam Wilber
poetry of Neruda and Rumi
Coming Back to Life, Joanna Macy

On Being Human, Ashley Montague
Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl
I Am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj
Metta: The Practice of Loving Kindness, Nagabodhi

Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

Life is a Verb, Patti Digh

Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore

The Chalice and the Blade, Riane Eisler 
The Occult Significance of Forgiveness, Sergei Prokofiev. 
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Michael Chabon
Man on the Threshold, Bernard Lievegoed (and anything else this guy ever wrote)

Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama of Tibet, His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne

Le Petit Prince, Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince in English)

Bible
Spiral Dynamics, Don Beck & Chris Cowan
Courage to Be, Paul Tillich

Winning Through Enlightenment : Mastery of Life, Volume I, Ron Smothermon

New and Selected Poems, Mary Oliver
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
I and Thou, Martin Buber
Ishmael, Daniel Quinn

Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, Alice Miller (also, The Drama of the Gifted Child)
If This Is a Man, Primo Levi (in United State published as Survival in Auschwitz)
The History of Childhood, Lloyd deMause 
The Emotional Life of Nations, Lloyd deMause

In a Different Voice, Carol Gilligan  
Island, Aldous Huxley

Beloved, Toni Morrison
Tree of Knowledge, Huberto Maturana
Eternal Echoes, John O' Donohue
Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, Suzanne Langer
Harold and the Purple Crayon, Crockett Johnson

The Fourfold Way, Angeles Arrien
Harmful Advice [Vrednye Sovety], Grigorii Oster (Oster is described as a children's writer read by primarily by adults. His contrarian rhymes and poetry caused a huge uproar when he came out in print during Perestroika. Sadly, last time I checked he was not available in English…he also has a line of "Harmful Textbooks")

Finally, for those of you who enquired, some (and there are so very many) favorite books about being human that I recommend are:

The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo, The Inner Journey Home: Soul's Realization of the Unity of Reality, A.H. Almaas, Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness, Jon Kabat Zin, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, Evan Thompson, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker, The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran, and The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams...to name just a few. 

Enjoy!

Comments

[Aart]

Hello!

I'm a big fan of Paulo Coelho! You will love this! He's the first best-selling
author to be distributing for free his works on his blog:
www.paulocoelhoblog.com

Have a nice day!

Aart

[Suzanna]

Great resource list!!

While I missed the original request, I would like to add that while not a book, The Human Design System assists us in navigating this walk as human in a very precise way, based on our personal uniqueness, giving you the greatest opportunity to fulfill our potential and to love yourself.

Best,
Suzanna

[Chris Corrigan]

Great list Karen!

[karen]

Thanks Aart, Suzanna, and Chris, for stopping by and adding to the conversation... I appreciate your comments.