The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. —Marcel Proust
The books we have chosen to include in this special category are books that most of us (“us” being the “baby-boomer” generation) read many years ago. We think that if you re-read many of these choices you will certainly “Grok” things you may have missed the first time around. If you missed some of them the first time around you have a treat in store for yourself.
A small number of these books were required reading in high school or college. A few others were on the various best-seller lists. Many achieved “cult” status among us in those halcyon days of our youth when we thought we were the first generation to discover sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.
We believe these books are classics and are worth reading again, either for the sheer joy or it, or because they are capable of providing fresh insights into the eternal problems and concerns of mankind. These are books that often provide equal or greater pleasure the second or even third time they are read. Certainly, if you have children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews, or any members of the younger generations who may have missed these books, we think you ought to pick your own personal favorites and give them as gifts so as to provide future generations the rich pleasures and enlightening themes of these “classics”.
Our voyage of discovery should be a lifetime pursuit, and, as described above by Marcel Proust, is not necessarily enhanced by seeking “the new new thing”, but is more dependent upon having young and open eyes and minds; so each full moon or beautiful sunset can be appreciated with new depth and greater understanding. It is in the spirit of the song “Love is better the second time around” that we suggest you browse through these selections and go back and revisit some of your own favorite books to rediscover what it was that made them important to you when you read them. That process will help you rediscover your own roots, and at the same time move forward with your new attitudes, wisdom, life experience, and level of consciousness to experience these great books with new eyes.
- The Alchemist
- The Alexandria Quartet
- Autobiography of a Yogi
- Be Here Now
- Catch 22
- Dancing Wu Li Masters
- The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
- Golf in the Kingdom
- Lonesome Dove
- Narcissus and Goldmund
- Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
- Shogun
- Slaughter House Five
- Steppenwolf
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman
- Tassajara Bread Cookbook
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces
- The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life
