We live in a world of media over-saturation—tens of thousands of streaming movie options, thousands of TV series, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and so many others. It may be hard to believe that my childhood home had ZERO computers, televisions, or cell phones.
Yet, with all these options, I still do not believe there exists a better medium than books for conveying challenging, nuanced, original, and critical new narratives to our minds. A recent CNN interviewer asked my friend and best-selling author Philip Yancey, “Why do you think you were able to change your ideals when so many other people who were ‘born and bred to be racist’ never evolved?
Philip’s first four words say it all, “I was a reader.”
A fascinating article in “The Atlantic” about books we read too late prompted my thoughts for this post. It opens with this sentence, “One of the great bittersweet pleasures of life is finishing a book and thinking how it might have affected you—if only you’d found it sooner.”
Here are eight books I wish I had read earlier, organized by the four aspects of my theory of being that I outline in “The Quest.” Tragically, all of these books would have been censored or banned by the institutions that controlled my life until age fifty-two.
BODY
1. Phallos: Sacred Image of the Masculine by Eugene Monick. For most of my life, I was filled with shame and guilt about my penis, my phallos.
Key phrase from the book: “People are uneasy with the correlation of sexuality and religion. Christianity, especially, has separated the two in a way that would make them appear to be irreconcilable. Young or old, males suffer when their phallic identity is threatened.”
2. Emmanuelle by Emmanuelle Arsan. Pleasure is one of the most controversial of the essentials of being. It is denounced from pulpits and fiercely associated with terrible punishments in never-ending afterlives. My preachers, parents, and teachers taught me that if I did certain things that gave me pleasure, I would burn in hell, but if I abstained, I had the outside chance of inhabiting an air-conditioned mansion in heaven. Unfortunately, we see all too clearly as we approach the mid-term elections that censoring pleasure is not only the business of religion, education, and parents. Governments (particularly right-wing conservatives) also decide whether some bodily pleasures are criminal, others questionable, and still others highly taxable.
Key section: “If you’d actually given yourself to all the men you’ve imagined doing it with,” Marie-Anne observed one day, “you’d be an accomplished woman.”
“You mean I’d be dead,” retorted Emmanuelle, laughing.
“Why?”
“Do you think a woman can make love with men as often as she can make herself come by her own efforts?”
“Why not?”
“Listen, it’s tiring to be taken by a man!”
“And caressing yourself never tires you?”
“No.”
“How often do you do it now?”
Emmanuelle smiled modestly. “I did it a lot yesterday. At least fifteen times, I think.”
“There are some women who do it that often with men.”
MIND
1.) The Joy of Reading by Charles Van Doren. This passionate book about 189 of the world’s best authors and books is a delight to read on its own. I discovered this book in 2006, and although I have now read 79 of them, I fear I do not have enough years to read them all.
Key phrase: “The most important lesson I learned in college was that I was free to read any kind of book…I gained the confidence to attempt almost any book… for years, I thought everyone shared this confidence, but now I know that not too many possess it. One of my main goals in writing this book is to try to instill that confidence in other readers.”
2.) Modern Man in Search of a Soul by Carl Gustav Jung. I first found this book in a list of the most influential books of all time. And thankfully, Mr. Van Doren had given me the confidence to read any revered book, no matter how daunting—not to depend on what others say about it. Although the word soul is in the title, this is absolutely the book that gave me the courage to delve into the inner depths of my mind, my unconscious. It is not an overstatement to say this book changed my life for the better—forever.
Key phrase: “To discuss the problems connected with the stages of human development is an exacting task, for it means nothing less than unfolding a picture of psychic life in its entirety from the cradle to the grave. We wholly overlook the essential fact that the achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of a diminution of personality. The wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; oftentimes, it grows turbid. A man consumes his large supply of masculine substance and has left over only a smaller amount of feminine substance, which he must now put to use. It is the other way round with women; she allows her unused supply of masculinity to become active.”
SOUL
1) Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. This book examines the earthshaking impact that early relationships with our parents or caregivers have on the people we become. And that our need to have a close relationship with one or more people is embedded in our genes. It also offers a wealth of advice on navigating our relationships more wisely and stresses the immense importance of knowing one’s attachment style and that of our partner. It is an eye-opening look at the science behind love and offers a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections.
Key phrase: “Attachment theory designates three main “attachment styles,” or manners in which people perceive and respond to intimacy in romantic relationships, which parallel those found in children: Secure, Anxious, and Avoidant. Basically, secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving; anxious people crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with their relationships, and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back; avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness. In addition, people with each of these attachment styles differ in: their view of intimacy and togetherness, the way they deal with conflict, their attitude toward sex, their ability to communicate their wishes and needs, their expectations from their partner, and the relationship.
2) The Magus by John Fowles. Of the thousands of books I have read in life, it may have grabbed my soul the most, and would not let go. I have now read this book three times, and I felt my heart pounding out of my chest each time. It is a book about a young man’s quest who befriends a dangerous and alluring millionaire when he accepts a teaching position on a remote yet idyllic warm, sunny Greek island. It is an artistic and erotic feast about the purpose of life and escaping oppressive authority figures and includes a bizarre social experiment.
Key phrase: “I envy you. You have the one thing that matters. You have all your discoveries before you. There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be. You are too young to know this. You are still becoming. Not being. Not all powers have to be discovered; some have to be regained. I believe that the Muses are not a poetic fiction; but a classical insight into scientific reality we moderns should do well to investigate.
SPIRIT
1.) Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell. It is technically not a book; it is an essay Russell delivered on March 6, 1927. But it may have more intelligent observations than any book I have read. Unbelievably, I was unaware of this profound dissertation until just a few weeks ago.
Key passage: “We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world—its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is, and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face.”
2.) Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe by Greg Epstein. Epstein is an atheist and a humanist, meaning essentially that he believes humans can be moral and ethical without the guidance of religion. He is the first atheist chaplain in Harvard’s storied religious history. This articulate and straightforward book caused me to consider myself a Humanist rather than a reluctant agnostic.
Key phrase: “Those of us who don’t want to worship an invisible being or spend our days fretting about punishment in Hades do want to be able to share what we hold dear with our families and the broader world, and we want to be understood and appreciated for who we are. To do so we need community…Consciousness is an incredibly mysterious thing, so much so that many theologians and religious thinkers have argued that it must simply have been given to us by God. But our minds are so much more complicated not because God said they should be so, but because, as Carl Sagan described them, our brains have ten to the eleventh power or so of neurons and ten to the fourteenth power of synapses…If the only way to get to heaven is by worshipping a God who had the power to prevent the Holocaust but chose not to, no thank you. But if God was not capable of preventing a tsunami, or a genocide, or even small disasters like the death of a spouse or a child or the loss of a limb, because only people can prevent those things, then why would we need God? This is what has caused so much of the religious war and sectarian hatred—people who agree wholeheartedly with one another that we must follow God’s purpose but slaughtering each other over sometimes tiny differences of opinion about what God said his purpose happened to be.”
WHAT IF?
What would my life have been like if I had encountered these books in my twenties or thirties? Would I have been able to read them with an open mind and spirit as I withered away in the stranglehold of an evangelical cult? I honestly cannot answer that question. But I do think they would have given me the courage to find freedom much sooner than at the age of fifty-three.
With the open eyes of hard-earned experience, I realize that each of us has walked a different path, and therefore we have radically different perceptual views. However, I commend these books to you. Regardless of your life’s journey, these books contain a wealth of universal wisdom that will stand us all in good stead. Enjoy.
