The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle

If there is one book everyone should read, this is it. One of the clearest guides to being in the present moment that I know. His focus is on being aware of the sense of presence in one's "inner body," and through that stepping out of the egoic mind with all its worry and fear. I've found his simple tips invaluable. Plus he brings enlightenment down to earth in a healthy way.   ISBN:1577311523

The Atman Project/Up From Eden, Ken Wilber

These are two of Ken's earlier books, both of which resonated very much with my own thinking twenty years ago. They are now available together as Vol 2 of his Collected Works. Wilber defines the "Atman Project" as the "drive of God toward God," the evolutionary game that Spirit is playing from the fetus to the ego to God. In Up From Eden he shows how each stage in human evolution has been marked by an increase in consciousness, and the goal of evolution is the discovery of an absolute/divine level of consciousness.   ISBN:1570625026

Lost in the Cosmos, Walker Percy

The subtitle - The Last Self-Help Book - is a little wry. A brilliant collection of probing multiple-choice questions that make you aware of how caught up you can become in yourself. For instance: "A UFO crashes obliterating half a small town. Are you (a) mortified by the tragic loss of life, or (b) secretly pleased that there is finally proof that UFOs are real?" Or "You see a photo of a group of people that includes you. Why is it that the first person you look for is yourself? (a) Because you don't know what you look like? and so on...   ISBN:0312253990

Conscious Loving, Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks

Through their own marriage and through twenty years' experience counseling more than a thousand couples, therapists Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks chart the stages relationships go through and share the strategies they've discovered that help create successful relationships. Two aspects that I particularly like are "telling the "microscopic truth" and valuing the need for each partner to have their own "space". But there's much much more. The most important relationship book I know.   ISBN:0553354116

A Course in Miracles

This book has been a continuing source of inspiration for me over the years, as important to my own inner awakening as the practice of meditation. It's goal is to facilitate the shift from the ego's "thought system" (interpretation of reality) to God's so that we can find true peace of mind. The second of its three parts is a series of 365 "lessons" that take the reader gently on this journey. Some people are put off by the Christian flavor of the language, but the insights it offers into the nature of forgiveness and love make it worth suspending judgment.   ISBN:0670869759

ET 101

One of the wittiest books I have read for a long time. And also one of the wisest and most profound. It surveys the painful consequences that our dysfunctional thinking has on ourselves, our relationships, our society and the planet. We are, it says, part of a mission sent to help Planet Earth make an evolutionary leap. Before departing we were each given a manual on how to cope with the dysfunctional systems we would encounter. But we didn't bother to look at it. As a result we have totally forgotten our mission. So the Intergalactic Council decided to make available this 'emergency remedial edition' of the original manual.   ISBN:0962695807

Essential Spirituality, Roger Walsh

Integrating thirty years of spiritual exploration Roger Walsh looks at seven basic spiritual practices common to the world's major religions, With gleanings from Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, this book also provides many exercises to help incorporate these practices into everyday life. This integration of deep wisdom with practical tools makes it a book that I come back to time and again.   ISBN:0471392162

Global Mind Change, Willis Harman

Willis Harman challenges many current assumptions about human nature and the world in general, and opens up new perspectives on science, business, ecology, and religion. He challenges some of the fundamental assumptions that science has made about the nature of reality, and highlights the fundamental role of consciousness in our future evolution.   ISBN:1576750299

I am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj

This book offers one of the best contemporary insights into the core of Indian philosophy. Its author was an illiterate factory worker in Bombay who assiduously followed his own master's instructions and achieved the self-realization that so many great saints and teachers have spoken of. One of those books that I can open at random and always find deep wisdom.   ISBN:0893860220

The Impersonal Life

A short book, written anonymously in the 1920s, that very simply and very lucidly expounds the position that God is the "I am" we each know as our essence. To read passages from this book touches my inner knowing in a unique way. One book I would want with me on a desert island - and one that I am always buying to give to friends.   ISBN:0875163017

Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder

If you ever wanted a book that summarized the whole history of Western philosophy from Pythagoras to Marx, and in a simple enjoyable form, this is it. The book is written as a novel in which Sophie meets the mysterious character Alberto who leads her into an exploration of the great questions that have intrigued philosophers over the ages. The only book on philosophy that I couldn't put down.   ISBN:0425156842

OK, so there's eleven books in my top ten. Anyone complaining?