As a child, nature in poetry was life changing for me. Recently someone left a poem at my door, titled, ‘The summer day’ by Mary Oliver. It moves me no matter how many times I read it. A great beach book for plant lovers is ‘The Orchid Thief.’ As a bookseller, many patrons thanked me for recommending it.

the holy bible. definitely - one can NEVER know it completely, nor completely understand it.

Tao Te Ching by LaoTsu because i find it the most feminine of sacred texts All of the poetry books by Joy Harjo. Within her poetry where ancient keys that unlocked my soul. Ammachi, A Biography of Mata Amritanandamayi by Swami Amritaswarupanada I had seen her face in my mind’s eye for many years, but did not know who she was until i saw her picture on the book. I read her book and could follow an energetic imprint that was similar to the women in our world as we have and continue to emerge from patriarchal dominance. I was set free at deep levels and claimed back the feminine expression of God which is so needed in our world today.

“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” especially the parts that dealt with the torture/experiments on prisoners opened my eyes to the true cockroach nature of evil.

No single book has changed my life but quite a few have influenced my world view. Certainly To Kill a Mockingbird and The Color Purple as well as One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Diary of Anne Frank all opened my eyes to cruelty and beauty. Fahrenheit 451 and Enders Game introduced me to science fiction. The Little Prince, which I struggled through in the original French, led me to read Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s other books. The House of the Spirits brought me to the incredibly beautiful writing of Isabel Allende. I’ve read and taught almost all of Mark Twain’s works, including his more cynical later writing. When I was young I read all of Daphne du Maurier. And I fell in love with Richard Halliburton’s Great Book of Marvels when I was about eight. I’m captivated by the writing of Arundahti Roy. I’ve read dozens, maybe even hundreds of historical biographies and fiction and they’ve given me insight into the growth of nations and cultures. The Feminine Mystique was a revelation to me and led me to read works by other important feminist authors. Reading the Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock gave me a new perspective on collage and has influenced my art work. So, my answer to the question would have to be that books have always been my teachers, my companions and my connection to other individuals and worlds, and I can’t choose just one as the most important.

The Bible because it has everything, and offers everything whenever you are open enough to receive it. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, because of the astonishingly beautiful prose and how it told some many stories in a deceptively simply way. It is also one of my favorite movies. The Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing, because it opened my eyes to the many layers of being a woman. The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh, because it packs so much of everything into such a slim book: spirituality, lack of spirituality, brutal humor, amazing turns of phrase, insightful observations about alienation and the human condition, and on and on.

I grew up in a home that didn’t have many books; we couldn’t afford them. We depended on the local library. When I was seven years old I was stuck in bed, sick for a month, so I picked up the Montgomery Ward catalog and made up stories about the pictures and people. My mother, a stay-at-home mom with me as the youngest of five kids, looked puzzled when she saw me poring through the catalog for hours at a time and not asking for a single thing. (She was a wonderful woman, the embodiment of encouragement and creativity and I miss her deeply. She died when I was 10 years old, a year after my father died.) Swiftly after my catalog adventures I was back in school, writing stories which my grade school teachers often read to the class (laughing at the funny parts) while I cringed at my desk. My favorite book was (drumroll, please) Webster’s Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus was a close second. No one in my large family noticed they were missing. I carried a paperback Webster’s with me constantly. When I was working my way through college one boyfriend commented that I always had a book with me, even when we were on a date. He meant it in a jealous sort of way, which I never understood. I stopped seeing him after a few months, but my Webster’s and I never parted ways.

Isak Dennison,the Barones von Blixen

I should add that Les Miserables was certainly an eye-opener. Love the book—I try and read it again every year or so.

So many books, but when I was young I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I think that was when I realized how much a book can transport you away.

J.S. Mill’s On Liberty did it for me. I knew I wanted to teach political thought after reading Mill. The romance of trying on ideas and discussing what was written then and what it means now is still thrilling 25 years later.