The best books for people on a spiritual search

Many years ago, I read Paolo Coehlo’s The Alchemist in one afternoon, then I set it down in a daze, feeling like I had been transported, maybe even transformed by Coehlo’s parable about Santiago, a young Andalusian boy searching for hidden treasure. The story has a seductive, timeless quality that helped ignite my quest to live a spiritually rich and adventurous life. No spoiler alerts here, but reading this book is a reminder of the power of honoring the “soul of the world” when on any search, but especially one for life’s greatest riches. My favorite takeaway line: When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

Oneness by Rasha is one of those books that appears when you are ready for it. I’ve recommended it to people who say they don’t get it. And I’ve gifted copies to friends who later ask, “How did you know I needed to read that?” Rasha created her book by channeling the spirit of Oneness, so take that that however you want. I regularly re-read my dogeared copy like a sacred text that reminds me to energetically align with Source as a path to realizing my own limitless potential. If you’re feeling earthbound these days, and want a path to other realms, this could be it. The line that I repeat like a mantra: You are a spark of divinity in the throes of activation.

When I teach creative nonfiction writing, I tell my students that the more personal you can make your story, the more deeply readers will connect with it. Broad generalizations just won’t do. Devotion by Dani Shapiro is one of those intimate, inward-looking memoirs that opens the reader to her own journey, even if that journey is completely unlike Shapiro’s own quest. In Devotion, Shapiro is struggling to help her infant son who has a life-threatening illness, while simultaneously undertaking a search for what she believes, for her faith. Her prose is lyrical. Her insights wash over you like ancient truths. By the end of the book, you will feel entertained, but also enlightened.

The Untethered Soul: the journey beyond yourself, by Michael A. Singer is my go-to book for getting out of my head and opening up inner space. The spare prose and wise insights work on the reader in profound ways, helping to calm inner chatter and offer a path of peace. My copy of The Untethered Soul is annotated and underlined, because no book has been so singularly helpful in pointing me toward freedom from my own self-imposed suffering,  especially in times of high stress.

The comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell is probably best known for A Hero with a Thousand Faces, but it’s another book—Pathways to Bliss—that I turn to like a travel guide to my own spiritual journey. In prompting readers to explore archetypes to help them create their personal mythology, Campbell believes that life should be a journey to finding our bliss. This is a book about personal growth for people who want to self-discovery in a larger—mythical—context.