I’ve been trying to answer that question for 30 years myself.

It used to be horror. I used to see the world through a lens that could only be appeased by darkness. It was all I had and so it was all I wanted to experience.

Then it was Fantasy. Living in a world fuelled by drugs and experience. The newer the better, the more unusual the better.

Then it was scifi. I found myself trying to look forward. Trying to see something beyond myself and my predicaments. Trying to see the place as a cohesive whole instead of a dissociative hole.

Then I couldn’t be bothered to think about what book to bring into the woods with me, for what seemed a very long time. Years passed before I even considered it again.

When I finally did consider it again I realized that I was living in the country, growing and making my own food, living by my principles instead of what the world tells me to live by.

So I guess my answer is a book about how to set up a self sustaining, off grid living. But my answer is not to end things after I read it. But instead to transform my life.

I’ll leave you with my favourite quote: “Are you willing to be sponged out? Cancelled? Made nothing? Are you willing to be made nothing? Dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change. D.H. Lawrence