FIFTY FAVORITE BOOKS

A Facebook Friend recently posted a link to David Bowie's list of his 100 favorite books.  I am amazed that anyone can have 100 favorite anything.  I thought I would go through my library and see if I could find 100 favorite books but I could only come up with 50, and that was a bit of a stretch.  Not all of them are favorites because they are good - in fact some are favorites because they are so very bad, crazy or bizarre - but all of them have been or continue to be a significant influence on me in some way.  Many of them are novels which stand out in my mind as superior or unique, to which my mind often returns.  There are other books which have also been great influences but are not now in my library - this is just what I have on hand.  They are presented in the order in which I found them, with no annotation or description, the downy cheek of the best next to the scaly jowl of the worst.

The Avadhuta Gita of Dattatreya

An Autobiography - Mahatma Gandhi

The Androgynous Christ - Edward L. Kessel

Systemantics - John Gall

Optimism One - F. M. Esfandiary

How to Think Straight - Robert H. Thouless

The Greatest Adventure - John Taine

Beast In View - Margaret Millar

The Devil is Dead - R. A. Lafferty

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa - Jan Potocki

est: Playing the Game the New Way - Carl Frederick

The Greatest Power in the Universe - U. S. Anderson

A Small Classical Dictionary - E. H. Blakeney 

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

The Enchiridion - Epictetus

Etidorhpa - John Uri Lloyd

Galaxy 666 - Pel Torro

The Clones - P. T. Olemy

Werner Erhard - W. W. Bartley III

Oahspe: A New Bible

Hawkers and Walkers in Early America - Richardson Wright

The Mound Builders - Robert Silverberg

Dictionary of Symbols - Liungman

The Real Rain Man ... Kim Peek - Frank Peek

Neo-Tech Power - Frank R. Wallace

The Omega Seed - Paolo Soleri

The Bathroom - Alexander Kira

Alice in Wonderland etc. - Lewis Carroll

Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters - Jean Shepherd

Sunset Magazine's New Western Garden Book

Joe Gould's Secret - Joseph Mitchell

The Split Atom: The Last Human Pair on Earth: A Whirling of Ideas - Dr. B. Belove

America Betrayed - Albert D. Nelson

The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach

The Plungers and the Peacocks - Dana L. Thomas

The Bridge on the Drina - Ivo Andric

Mucusless Diet Healing System - Prof. Arnold Ehret

Enzyme Intelligence: Whence and Whither - Nels Quevli

Kitsch - Gillo Dorfles

Mayhew's London

Cut It Down To One Page, I'm In a Hurry - John Believer

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - Mackay

Hard Cash - Charles Reade

Nightmare Abbey - Thomas Love Peacock

The Book of the SubGenius

Kooks - Donna Kossy

Ritual in the Dark - Colin Wilson

Marjoe - Steven M. Gaines

Dare To Be Great - Rudy Maxa