I'm reading Wilkie Collins's "The Moonstone," in which one of the characters obsessively reads and re-reads "Robinson Crusoe," and espouses the belief that Daniel Defoe's novel holds the answers to most of life's questions. He, in essence, treats "Robinson Crusoe" as his bible. This brings me to my question for Constant Readers: what book comes closest to being your bible -- a book that you believe holds the solution to many or most quandaries encountered in life? (For some people, of course, the answer will be the actual Bible. But what other books occupy a similar place for folks here?)

Well, besides the Bible I would say first Little Women

I may come up with a couple of others but have to think a bit.

Well, I don't have one now. But between my late teens to mid-tweens, I was very into Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, and A Journey in Ladakh by Andrew Harvey.

There's no one book for me, but on the ups and downs of friendship and relationships in general I have found considerable insight and a lot to ponder in the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian.

Walden is probably the best non-biblical guide to life I have read even if I have mostly ignored Thoreau's advice. Can you imagine him out at his pond writing posts on his PC?

At least he would have had the good sense not to walk around with a Bluetooth Headset.

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears his Bluetooth. Let him step to the music which he hears however measured or far away(?)"

I vote for Walden also, but Great Expectations has much to say about the nature and importance of friendship, family, love and wealth.

Oh lord, I am a booktrollop. I have spread my love around too widely.

For me, it's Dune. Although a novel, it's a novel about everything.

There are books that I have read and re-read over the years, but to call one “my bible” just seems too strong.

But I just wanted to note that after Barbara mentioned “Waden” on the creative non-fiction thread, I decided to read it, and have ordered it yesterday. I am surprised that it got mentioned here again today. My curiosity about it is widening the more that literary serendipity keeps pointing me towards it.

I probably have a huge list of books that might be "like a Bhagavad Gita" to me. (sorry not a Christian)

I actually nicknamed such a very list called "The World Peace Reading List" and have it easy at hand for such moments!

:)

One River by Wade Davis
King Lear by Shakespeare
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
David Copperfeild by Charles Dickens
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Water by Marq de Villiers
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Hamlets Mill by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechand
Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare
Guns,Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Collapse:How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
The Ape and The Sushi Master by Frans De Waal
A History of God by Karen Armstrong
Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud by Thomas Walter Laquer
Life and Death of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality by Dr. Mary Jane Sherfy
The Biology of Violence by Barbara Niehoff
Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner
Mans Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl
Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Our Kind by Marvin Harris
America by Jon Stewart
The Ingenuity Gap by Thomas Homer-Dixon
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence by Robert Prisig
Health and The Rise of Civilization by Mark Nathan Cohen
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
The Story of B by Daniel Quinn
The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers and The Shaping of the World by Hugh Brody
Dune by Frank Herbert
Upheaval of Thought by Martha C. Nussbaum
Culture and Consumption by Grant McCracken
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
Life Against Death by Norman O. Brown
Cities of the Red Night by William Burroughs
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

No self-help books?

I was recommended Feeling Good about eight years ago. Manic Andy enters stage left.

I was also into the whole Tom Robbins American Mysticism thing when I first started college.

One of Vonnegut's characters makes a bid for Brothers Karamozov in the Slaughter-House Five:
"Everything there is to know about life is in 'The Brothers Karamazov'... "

And my favorite quote from Octavio Paz:
"Poetry is the secret religion of the modern age."

Okay..self help books. I actually consider all the books on my list "self-help books" Andy.

...but you're right, they deserve some attention. I am quite inteested in reading slelf help books. Not because I LIKE all of them, but I like to know what trends are going on out there. I probably could make a list of those as well specifically. But honestly, several of the books on my list are books that could inspire transformative experiences in some readers.

Self Help books I DO like...they have all been put int he "self help" section of book stores I've worked in despite their sometimes assignation as "novel" or "business":

Mans Search For Meaning by Vicor Frankl (I love this book and re-read it often...it's gorgeous and tough and powerful and tragic. He proposes "tragic optimism")
The New Earth by Eckart Tolle (this is a rehash of Hinduism and Buddhism for novices, pretty well done actually, has potential to help Western mindset and "old think" get more loosened up!)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence by Robert Prisig (thiis is still an inspiring books usually noow for young people)
Journey To the East by Herman Hesse (okay it's a novel but it's still about the ego and how to live)
Conversations With God by Neale Walsh (this is unusual for me...but I thought it was an incredible revisit and rehash of Christian ethics and I would compare it to Gilead as really getting to the meat of the spiritual side of Christianity)
What Colour Is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles(this is so popular and useful its been reissued for decades!)
Transitions by William Bridges (this is kind of dated, but it helped me when I was in therapy...I like the idea of "endings, beginnings and germination" as representing lifes changes. I notice it has a 25th anniversary revised edition...so maybe it's not dated in this publication version)
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfilment of Your Dreams by Deepak Chopra (i think he's a hoot, "we are all particles and love". I think pretty much all his books are very interesting and helpful)
The Audacity of Hope by Obama
The Art of War by Sun Tzu (what can I say, this one is a classic...it's very good if you like game theory)
Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success by Russel Simmons (I liked this whole hip hop spin on things. WORD)
The Double Flame by Octavio Paz (I find this one of the most inspiring book I've ever read and I have several quotes I love to read over and over)
The Child, The Family and The Outside World by D.W. Winnicott. (love all of Winnicotts revolutionary works on child and family and neotony and transitional objects!)
The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search For The True Self by Alice Miller
Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts
The Education of Oversoul Seven by Jane Roberts

I don't know...Andy that's off the top of my head.

I've always been fascinated by the slef help book business because it's one of the most stable publishing genres and I really think some suck and some are great.

I also think they are interestning becaue different writers touch different people.

I love the idea of transformative literature...and find it to be found in many genres...not just self help.

Um Vonnegut's got to be added to my "world peace reading list" I am inspired!

There was a used bookstore near me that had this great display of self-help books. My favorite title: What's Wrong With You

Actually, I kind of want to get this one so I can read the case studies. I like to read case studies.

My roommate is studying to be a psychologist. (Ugh. The last person I'd ever tell my problems to, BTW.) I've been devouring his group therapy textbook. The case studies are brilliant, they remind me of the basic structure of short stories: Person has a problem. Person interacts with other people, different energies exposed to each other, their problem presents itself in an unexpected manner. More interaction. Person either sees his problem in a new light or doesn't. Person changes for the better or person changes for the worse. I hope he gets some more case studies books soon, they are a lot of fun. I'm hoping specifically for some examples of borderline personality disorder, that's a fun one...

Hmm, I think the first book I should get when I borrow my brother's Kindle is Man's Search for Meaning as the book has minuscule font, which just isn't right when you think about it.

Ha ha ha. I thought the meaning of life was written on the head of a pin somewhere...

Anything LM Montgomery to pick up my spirits.

Now that I think of it some more, what does serve as a religious experience for me is listening to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Sorry to go off-topic.

It is an amazing song, Yulia. Here's Leonard.:--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzWeN-bVD...

Like many others, I especially like Jeff Buckley's version. Spine-tingling. Here's a take with a long slow quiet intro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AratTMGrH...

Yes, I'm always debating which I prefer, but I think I lean towards Leonard Cohen on his best of CD, not live. I love how his voice has aged. Of course, the Buckley version can't help but be haunting always. And, yes, now that I'm able to watch it, I do love the slow beginning. Cohen rushes his.

Love all versions of Hallehuiah...once in 2005 I was outisde in car in an Alberta winter evening with the "big sky" all illuminated and K.D. Langs version came on my radio..my sister called because she was having the same moment and we both were moved to tears...

here is a live performance...and probably the version I heard as she had just performed it an a Canadian awards show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbo...

Thank you for introducing me to her version! I'd never known of it before. How amazingly powerful and honest. She really does give new meaning to it and I think it's a wonderful fit.

Love the fact that this thread starts with The Moonstone. One of my all-time favorites. My secular bible is anything by Michael Pollan.

Yes, certainly Thoreau:
"Only that day dawns to which we are awake." Walden


"Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." Walden


Whitman's poetry, especially Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking: "The sea whisper'd me."

"And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud"
Song of Myself

St Augustine's Confessions: "My sin grew sleek on my excesses."



Madame Bovary, for the terror revealed in the empty life distracted by pretty illusions.

As long as we're promoting Wilkie Collins, Woman in White is one of the most entertaining reads around, with Count Fosco as the dastardly literary villain I've ever come across.

Hamlet. Not because it holds all the secrets to the universe, but because I never tire of it and it always makes me strive to be a better writer.

Watching the various versions of "Hallelujah" was amazing, and also completely draining. That song always wipes me out - my favorite Leonard Cohen song by a mile. That song always feels like more than the sum of its parts, that it carries something with it that is difficult to identify.

I can't call any book my 'Bible' but the one which I willingly return to, find erudite and wise, is Jorge Luis Garcia 'The Labyrinth and other writings' Any of he works will do though.

You probably meant Jorge Luis Borges, and you're right, he is amazing.

The Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts

Great question. I don't often re-read books, so when I do, it does mean something. I return to these time and again: A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. One Hundred White Daffodils by Jane Kenyon. Donald Hall's Life Work. Rilke's Dueno Elegies.

Yes, Sybil, I did and it was a typo - I was in a hurry to go out.

All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy. Hands down. That, and Jane Eyre. I love Duino Elegies too.

Gee, Kathryn. ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is your Bible? I remember that as pretty grim. I don't want to think what your altar call is like.

I guess you could have picked BLOOD MERIDIAN.

Kathryn wrote: "All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy. Hands down. That, and Jane Eyre. I love Duino Elegies too."

Kathryn, I'm wondering, what it is in particular about All the Pretty Horses? I loved it, too (one of those books that the movie industry seems to have ruined for many).

Candy wrote: "I probably have a huge list of books that might be "like a Bhagavad Gita" to me. (sorry not a Christian)

I actually nicknamed such a very list called "The World Peace Reading List" and have it eas..."

Candy--Disgrace was devastating--one of his best, I think. It surprises me sometimes that this novel did not generate more intense, ongoing discussion about race ("post-institutional-racism relations").

All the Pretty Horses is the *least* grim of McCarthy's work. Sonya, I agree, the movie was a complete failure. I love McCarthy's prose but I also loved the grandeur of the boy's love for the Mexican girl and the scene where the grandmother gives him advice. There's a long passage about her own maiming and recovery that I have as one of my, no *the*, all-time mantras of how to live a life. "Courage is a form of constancy. It is himself that the coward abandons first." Or something close to that.

This is a wonderful topic! I've just finished posting in the introductions thread, but I can't resist jumping in here. My choice would have to be Jane Eyre. I read it for the first time when I was fourteen, in that sort of reading trance that it seems only children can really fall into (or at least I can't manage it anymore). I fell madly in love with Mr. Rochester, but I also fell in love with Jane herself, and I actually memorized sections of the book to recite to myself (yes, I was and still am a book geek).

"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. ... I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad--as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... They have a worth--so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane--quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot."

It's similar in feeling to the quotation that Kathryn mentioned above. Thanks for mentioning that, Kathryn, I'm going to add it to my official Geeky Quote Database. :)

Yay, Laura! Let me find the exact quote and I'll post it, because the passage is indeed so beautiful.

Yours has to be from just before Jane's initial try at marrying Edward, when our heroine Jane was deeply in love with Mr. R., before the wedding was dashed to the rocks by the appearance of the weak, evil brother-in-law.

Or perhaps it was just after, in that darkest of nights when she remains sleepless, ponders her fate, just before she sets off to leave?

Oh, it's right in the middle of the passionate scene where Mr. Rochester attempts to convince her to come away with him as his "wife". And he is so passionate. *sigh* In any case, in a moment of self-doubt she questions her own resolve to leave him, wondering why she shouldn't stay because "[w:]ho in the world cares for YOU? or who will be injured by what you do?"

She answers herself with the quote I posted above. As a nerdy, self-conscious teenager it was a novel idea to me that self-respect was worth as much (or more) than the respect of others.

Good grief, I am rambling on about this! I guess you can tell I've read the book about 8 times, can't you?

If you have time I'd love to have the exact quote - thank you!

wow. What a memory and what a great thing for me to (re) hear. I've probably read "Jane" four times; so you've got me beat, but I think I should read it again!

It's a wonderful statement about how to make decisions--moral ones--and I remember that scene so clearly, and I also remember wanting desperately for her to choose him, he seemed like he would take such wonderful care of her; and yet, underneath it all, it was completely immoral and even though no one would be hurt (in theory)...somehow, she would, and who she was and why she loved him would be made lesser...yes.. The Brontes rock, deeply...on so many levels...

Thanks, Laura!

Kathryn, I love that scene with the grandmother as well--the grandmother's character altogether. There is such sadness and loneliness in her strength--which is a McCarthy theme in all his books (the ones I've read anyway). Here's a quote from "The Road": "All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain." Jane (and the Bronte's) might agree!

Laura, that passage makes me think of this quote from Anne Lamott's "Bird By Bird": "Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die."

Beautiful, Sonya. Thank you! I read "Pretty Horses" when I was twenty years younger and I was dumbstruck at its beauty. Thank you for remembering that scene...I promise I'll bring the quote to work tomorrow and post it. Or maybe tonight from home.

Anne Lamott is a local here and I've gone to see her speak. She's hysterically funny and is another one I'd put way up there as a deathless prose stylist. Her essays are some of the finest I've read...I just wish she was still teaching...I loved Bird by Bird .

Sonya, I love that quote. I love that whole book, actually. It would be another good choice as an answer to this thread. Now I want to go back and re-read it again.

Kathryn, I'm jealous that you got to hear Anne Lamott speak! Sometimes when I finish a book I wish I could have a conversation with the author and she's definitely one of those.

And yes, I always find myself rooting for Jane to stay with Mr. Rochester, even though I know it ends happily and that the choice she makes is the right one for her.

I'm re-reading "Bird by Bird" for a class I'm teaching, and it's good food for the soul. Laura, if you don't get to hear Anne Lamott speak, she does read her own audio books--and of course she's terrifically funny. Not the same as an in-person, but the next best thing?

This reminds me of a discussion we had way back when CR first started, titled "Which Book Has Influenced You Most?" Then and now, I have no answer. Books in general have influenced me greatly, and I guess might all be called my bible(s) - which would make me very ecumenical - but I cannot name one or even several that stand above all the rest. I must be a shallower reader than the rest of ya!

Not to say that I don't esteem some books greatly, including many of those mentioned here. Disgrace, for example, is a real wrencher; and try Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K if you liked Disgrace. We had a pretty good discussion about Disgrace a few years ago but I don't know how to link to it. I think it is only available on the Wayback Machine.

I am also a great fan of Rilke. I memorized the Ninth Duino Elegies when I was 19, which might say more about what I was like at 19 than about Rilke as a bible, or at least what my secret self was like, since I would not have dreamed a that age of admitting to anyone else that I was obsessed with this poem ;-) I prefer the Spender translation, and I could probably still recite the entire thing. It still gives me the shivers.

There are also books that I reread over and over, but they aren't really my bibles, more like good friends. Fathers and Sons; Makioka Sisters; The Sound and the Fury. And there are those books that used to be such oft-visited friends, that I may have outgrown - Kundera's Book of Laughter and Forgetting was a good friend in my 20s but doesn't interest me much now. And some books I have not revisited in years, but would be glad to do so at any time - WCW In the American Grain, for example.

Well, I do run on . . .

EDIT: What the heck - some of the links are to not only incorrect but bizarre books. I tried to link Turgenev's Father's and Sons, it resolves to a story by a father about his addicted son; and In the American Grain resolves to . . . The Bible! I can't figure out how to wack goodreads on the hand and set it straight.

Theresa

And we keep pressing on and trying to perform it,
trying to contain it within our simple hands,
in the more and more crowded gaze, in the speechless heart . . .

Theresa, here's the correct Fathers and Sons; and In the American Grain. Usually when you hit that "add book" link it gives you a choice. There are some odd choices there.
Here's a link to our Way-Back Machine discussion of Disgrace:
http://web.archive.org/web/2006110201280...
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the discussion of Life and Times of Michael K. That was really way-back.

Laura,

Here's the complete quote from All the Pretty Horses:


He talked of those things we had spoken of so often at Rosario. So often and so far into the night. He said that those who have endured some misfortune will always be set apart but that it is just that misfortune which is their gift and which is their strength and that they must make their way back into the common enterprise of man for without they do so it cannot go forward and they themselves will wither in bitterness. He said these things to me with great earnestness and great gentleness and I knew that it was my soul he wept for. I had never been esteemed in this way. To have a man place himself in such a position. I did not know what to say.

That night I thought long and not without despair about what must become of me. I wanted very much to be a person of value and I had to ask myself how this could be possible if there were not something like a soul or like a spirit that is in the life of a person and which could endure any misfortune or disfigurement and yet be no less for it. If one were to be a person of value that value could not be a condition subject to the hazards of fortune. It had to be a quality that could not change. No matter what. Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this, all other betrayals came easily.

I knew that courage came with less struggle for some than for others but I believed that anyone who desired it could have it. That the desire was the thing itself. The thing itself. I could think of nothing else of which that was true.

Sonya - thanks for letting me know about her audiobooks. I always have an audiobook going in the car and I just went and added Bird by Bird to my wishlist on audible.com.

Thanks for posting the whole quote, Kathryn. It really is beautiful and I've added it to my database with the tags "courage" and "self-respect".

You're very welcome, Laura. And ditto the thanks to Kathryn for the "biblical" monologue above.

Theresa, you've listed some of my faves. Have you read Waiting for the Barbarians? Haunting. As for Turgenev, one of my favorite (made-up) words is Bazarovian.

Does anyone know if it's "Duino" or "Dueno" Elegies, by the way? I've seen it both ways. Galway Kinnell's translations of Rilke are stunning.

Duino.

Kinnell is a poet--I'll have to look for those. I love his poetry.

I'm sure glad I started this thread. It's given me ideas for several books to read, and given me more motivation to get to a couple books I'd been intending to read anyhow, "The Brothers Karamazov" among them. Thank you for all the fantastic responses.

As for me, I can't say I can point to any particular "bible" among the books I've read. I do, however, often think back to Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions," and believe it may offer one of the more accurate descriptions of the world -- or at least the world I live in. (It's not exactly as uplifting as some of the books mentioned here, is it?) I don't know whether that makes it exactly a guide to life, as Gabriel Betteredge treats "Robinson Crusoe" in "The Moonstone," but I guess it makes it a bible of sorts.