A list of books and sex.

Showing one's bookcase is vulnerable like sharing a record of sex encounters.

Society has certain connotation about how many books/sex we have, or have not. Looking at the names of books/lovers fills others with imaginations of our spirit and qualms. It may elicit a, "aah, now that explains why..." or a "I know how to solve your problems. You must read/go out with this [candidate] instead." But to maintain social security, most judgment are unmentionable.

Our list is an admission that those words, ideas, people have power over us, that they have left imprints in our psychology. It unveils what we care and dream about in a somewhat visible yet elusive way. Our emotional topography therefore can be traced but those lines are only implications and never confirmations.

Here is a list of several books that are important to me. Most of them are non-fiction unless indicated otherwise.

• Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Aniela Jaffé and Carl Jung
• How Children Learn by John Holt
• Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller
• Communion: The Female Search For Love by bell hooks
• Số Đỏ (Dumb Luck) by Vũ Trọng Phụng (satirical fiction)
• The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Einstein
• A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
• Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
• The Inner Sky by Steven Forrest (astrology)
• The Importance of Living by Lin Yu Tang
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing & Life by Anne Lamott
• The Heart To Start by David Kadavy
• The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale by Jeanne Birdsall (children's lit)
• Hiệu lực cầu nguyện by Thích Nhất Hạnh
• The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill (children's lit)
• When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace (memoir)