The dining table in my livingroom is graced with three piles of books. Two of them are surprisingly tall, whereas the third one is embarrassingly low by comparison, and it contains mainly journals. The piles contain my favorite books, some of which I read nearly every day. Time and again, I feel the urge to make a list of all the books on my dining table, but I do my best to quash the urge on such occasions. Until today, that is. The three piles tell a good deal about me, and thus they have a rightful place in my magnum opus. At any rate, here goes the list by author’s surname, with books by unknown authors on top:

Biblia Sacra Vulgata, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994.

The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vols. I-IV, London and New York: Routledge, 1986.

Sayings of the Buddha, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Upanishads, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973.

Dario Alberi, Istria: Storia, arte, cultura, Trieste: LINT, 2001.

Apollonius of Rhodes, The Voyage of Argo, London: Penguin, 1959.

Jacques Attali, Devenir soi, Paris: Fayard, 2006.

James H. Austin, Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1999.

James H. Austin, Zen-Brain Reflections: Reviewing Recent Developments in Meditation abd Consciousness, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2006.

Ranko Bon, Residua, London: The Hereford Salon, 1996.

Ranko Bon, Why I Am Perhaps Not an Artist, London: The Hereford Salon, 1996.

Ranko Bon, Toward a Short History of Motovun, Munich: Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag, 2010.

Ranko Bon, What is to Be Done? Climate Change for Beginners, Belgrade: HESPERIAedu, 2014.

Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, New York: North Point Press, 2009.

C. Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Iugurthinum, Vienna and Prague: F. Tempsky, 1894.

Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009.

Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, London: Bloomsbury, 2015.

Roberto Franzosi, From Words to Numbers: Narrative, Data, and Social Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Homer, The Iliad, London: Penguin, 1987.

Homer, The Odyssey, London: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Joseph Joubert, Notebooks, New York: New York Review of Books, 1983.

Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, London: William Heinemann, 2005.

Ben Lewis, Hammer & Tickle: The History of Communism Told through Communist Jokes, London: Phoenix, 2008.

James Lovelock, A Rough Ride to the Future, New York: The Overlook Press, 2015.

A.A. Milnei, Winnie ille Pu, New York: Sumptibus Duttonis, 1987.

A.A. Milnei, Domus anguli Puensis, Londonii: Sumptibus Methuen, 1997.

Daniel Odier, Meditation Techniques of the Buddhist and Taoist Masters, Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2003 (first published in 1974).

H.H. Ørberg, Lingva Latina per se illvstrata: Familia Romana, Rome: Edizioni Accademia Vivarium Novum, 2014

Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, Paris: Gallimard, 1999.

Sri Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Buckingham, Virginia, 2007.

David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Yogani, Deep Meditation: Pathway to Personal Freedom, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2005.

Yogani, Asanas, Mudras, and Bandhas: Awakening Ecstatic Kundalini, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2006.

Yogani, Samyama: Cultivating Stillness in Action, Siddhis & Miracles, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2006.

Yogani, Spinal Breathing Pranayama: Journey to Inner Space, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2006.

Yogani, Tantra: Discovering the Power of Pre-Orgasmic Sex, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2006.

Yogani, Diet Shatkarmas and Amaroli: Yogic Nutrition & Cleansing for Health and Spirit, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2007.

Yogani, Self-Inquiry: Dawn of the Witness and the End of Suffering, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2007.

Yogani, Bhakti & Karma Yoga: The Science of Devotion and Liberation through Action, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2008.

Yogani, Eight Limbs of Yoga: The Structure and Pacing of Self-Directed Spiritual Practice, Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England: AYP Publishing, 2008.

Right now, there is forty-one book on my dining table. And I relish every single one of them. By now, the three piles are part of me. Whence this belated piece of writing, as well. If nothing else, the three piles give me comfort. Actually, solace. They feel like a mighty shield from the weird world out there. Indeed, they are formidable in their height and weight. Which is why visitors to my house in Motovun often stare at the three piles for quite a while. Mesmerized, they squint and tighten their lips. And I keep quiet unless they ask me a question or two about my many books, which they rarely do out of fear of breaching the tacit boundaries of intimacy. The three piles belong to another world, to be sure.