Book #1
Title: Siddhartha
Author: Hermann Hesse

Topic: Life Principles, Biography, Happiness, Inspirational, Life Purpose, Religious Aspects, Self Realization, Self Actualization, Spirituality

How it influenced my life:  A classic story told by a master that addresses the universal spiritual quest for transcendence as young Siddhartha leaves his wealthy home enclave to become a renunciate before finding the middle way, bridging heaven and earth, flesh and spirit. This is Hesse's love-letter to humanity, his fictional guidepost pointing the way to balance for all seekers.

Book #2
Title: Grapes of Wrath
Author: John Steinbeck

Topic: History

How it influenced my life:  This heart-wrenching story of poor migrant workers during the Great Depression, seeking to find a way out of the dust-bowl, a family piled into an old car, what might become a maudlin or depressive tale turns into an uplifting testimonial to the human spirit and reminds us about what is important in life. Most of all it lends perspective on our own lives and reminds us to count our many blessings.

Book #3
Title: The Once and Future King
Author: T.H. White

Topic: History

How it influenced my life:  Who has not wondered what might have been and what could be if Camelot had been a real place, that lofty peak of our highest ideals of valor and honor, heart and service represented by the knights, in a story woven around a little boy named Arthur and his old mentor, Merlin. When magic, wisdom and insight combine, Camelot was born in the fertile mind of T.H. White and shared with us all as a reminder of a time that (perhaps) was, and might still be.

Book #4
Title: The Cowboy and the Cossack
Author: Clair Huffaker

Topic: Entertainment

How it influenced my life:  Chances are this title is new and unfamiliar to nearly all readers, but Huffaker was also the author of High Noon, made into an old classic film with Gary Cooper as a marshall torn by love and duty, fear and honor. Like that better-known book, but in my view far surpassing it, this is one of the great adventure tales in which cultures collide then find common ground, and men face their mortality and learn what it means to fight and sometimes sacrifice for a higher cause. Similar in tone to the wonderful book Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, but narrowly edging it in my top ten.

Book #5
Title: The Last Temptation of Christ
Author: Nikos Kazantzakis

Topic: Spirituality

How it influenced my life:  I am drawn to speculative, imaginative, iconoclastic books that ask why, why not, and what if, and that look beyond accepted truths. This heretical, loving portrait of not only the divinity but the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth touched my heart and opened me to higher truths and to new possibilities beyond consensus reality. It seems a sort of litmus test that sorts true believers from the open-minded, and religious dogmas from spiritual truths. It is simply a novel that explores one possible reality of many in the inner life of the man we call Christ.

Book #6
Title: The City of Joy
Author: Dominique Lapierre

Topic: Spirituality

How it influenced my life:  In the abject poverty of Calcutta's slums emerged, like the lotus growing from the mud, love and caring and kindness. A city of joy born of human connection and mutual support and survival as the emaciated denizens reached out to one another. Here is a novel based upon and reflecting acts of selfless service, and gives us empathic entry into the lives of those to whom life has given little and asked much. It breaks the belief that "those who are willing to work can make something of themselves" and shows how circumstance, fate, karma may corral, propel and condemn some souls to heavy labors and great sorrows. But even in the worse of places and times, City of Joy reveals the beauty of the human spirit.

Book #7
Title: Constructive Living
Author: David K. Reynolds

Topic: Instructional

How it influenced my life:  After I had been writing and teaching for some years, and imagined myself as pretty wise and sophisticated, a simple book by anthropological psychologist and expert in Japanese psychotherapies, David K. Reynolds, shook me "up" and took me to the next level of my work — back down to earth from metaphysical theories and abstract concepts to a new grasp of reality and how it applies to everyday life. His book and the "life-way" it describes, is sane and sensible, and points out (much like the little boy who spoke the truth about the "emperor's new clothes") that we do not need to fix our insides to live well; that focusing on constructive action (despite our thoughts or feelings) leads to a functional life. The book is full of aha moments and useful reminders, a breath of fresh air and antidote to a sea of new age magical thinking so popular today.

Book #8
Title: Zen in the Art of Archery
Author: Eugen Herrigel

Topic: Spirituality

How it influenced my life:  There's sitting Zen and then there's moving Zen. Stillness in action, action in stillness. Plenty of excellent books on sitting meditation (try Kapleau's Three Pillars of Zen) or on Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig). But to understand the essence of Zen — transcending the separate self-sense through immersion in a practice — you can't beat this pithy volume that gets right to the heart of the matter like an arrow to its target. It is not as much about archery as it is about life.

Book #9
Title: Total Fitness in 30 Minutes a Week
Author: Laurence Moorehouse, Ph. D.

Topic: Wellness

How it influenced my life:  The title of this paperback book first struck me as hyperbole, but since it was written by a medical and physiological professor and researcher, I started reading. The author quickly won me over with his common sense approach to integrating "exercise" into an active lifestyle. His influence in my own practical teachings and in my lifestyle was immense. Moorehouse states early on, "If you want to be fit, your training will depend upon what you wish to be fit for." In other words, if you aim for the Olympic triathlon, that requires one kind of training; but if your aim is a sense of general vitality and well-being in everyday life, then Moorehouse proposes a workable approach for anyone.

Book #10
Title: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
Author: Dan Millman

Topic: Spirituality, happiness, life principles, perseverance

How it influenced my life:  Although it feels strange to list my own book as one that changed my life, I would be remiss if I left it out. Because no book I could possibly read could influence my life as much as one I wrote. I've written fourteen books so far, each with different content and purpose, and all are close to my heart. But Way of the Peaceful Warrior was my first. C. Day Lewis said, "I write not in order to be understood; I write in order to understand." In the writing came understanding; the the creative journey was the gift. But the book also opened doors for me as it did for millions of readers in over twenty languages so far.