Nagusami / 24

Few books are willing to go anywhere. Some insist on cappuccinno and a snazzy café, some call out for beer, others rarely venture out of the classroom. What we’re looking for is a book that will accompany one without wincing or shrinking and provide good company anywhere, whether one is waiting one’s turn at a public sexually transmitted disease clinic or savoring a spare solitary moment in the cathedral at Chartres.

I am forever in search of inspirational reading that does not require, as a prerequisite, virtue.

Some suggestions: Stories by Kawabata Yasunari or Lucia Berlin. Tibetan Seven Point Mind Training. De Caussade’s Abandonment to Divine Providence. Richardson's biography of Thoreau, Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book. Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen.

Please send your additions.