"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labelled 'this could change your life'," wrote book collector and editor Helen Exley. Indeed, such is the power of books that American political satirist and author P J O'Rourke felt moved to suggest, "always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
Before the Internet and other electronic forms of communication became tools of subversion, books and their authors - especially those with radical or challenging new ideas - were often burnt at the stake.
If you consider the book that's had the greatest impact on you, whether it was political, philosophical, business, travel or pure pleasure, what would it be? Some of the people I spoke to were anguished they could mention only one, some insisted on talking about six and others were lyrical in describing their passion for a particular book.
Marko Saravanja, CEO of Regenesys management, education & training institute, was 15 years old when he read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. It's the story of a monk's travels and search for life's meaning, purpose, truth and God. "It had a huge impact on me and my life's been similar, for I was a monk, businessman, family man, explorer and traveller," says Saravanja. "There's a saying that we read what we need to read and at a time when we need it."
Rory Gallocher, CEO of Joshco (Johannesburg Social Housing Company) loves books so much he talks passionately about six of them. One is about motorcycles and the meaning of life, the other is a romance; but top of his list is On Route in South Africa compiled by B P J Erasmus. This is so well-worn it has yellow sticky tape holding the tatty pages together. "It's done several thousand kilometres more than most books do."
Another favourite is Johannesburg Style Architecture & Society 1880s-1960s by Clive M Chipkin. "If you've ever walked through certain parts of New York City and wondered why it felt so much like parts of inner Jo'burg, this book will provide the answer," he says, intriguingly. It features many of the city's architectural treasures. "I've worked in the Jo'burg inner city since 1996, spending time there just for fun, so this is definitely my kind of book."
He had applied the theories of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point long before reading it and believes that if organisations ensure little things are done right, they w ill eventually succeed with the big things.
Lindiwe Sangweni-Siddo, CEO of Zatic Hotel & Resorts Management, read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom many years ago. She was so touched by the story of student Mitch learning life's great lessons from weekly visits to his dying professor that she plans to read it again. "I have a feeling it's going to have an even greater impact second time round. Basically, it's about life being simple. We really do create our own mountains."
Another book she loves is Geraldine Mitton's Anti-Ageing Handbook, which emphasises nutrition, brain fitness and spiritual wellbeing. When Sangweni-Siddo was manager of the InterContinental Sandton Sun & Towers she got chefs to make antioxidant food from it.
Robert Appelbaum, corporate lawyer with Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs, puts The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, translated and introduced by Gregory Hays, at the top of his list. Some of Hays' comments are the templates by which he lives his life. Some of them are: "What is it in ourselves that we should prize?"; "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."; and "How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it?"
Appelbaum's love of India comes through in his choice of Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, "and it contains my philosophy on life". The birth of the central character, Saleem, coincides with that of modern India, and what follows is his story intertwined with India's, as well as a meditation on the intersection of individual and public life, of personal history and the historical record.
Holy Cow by Sarah Macdonald is, says Appelbaum, "a most charming read about the eccentricity of India".
Elizabeth Kumalo, vice-president, human resources for the Africa region of mining & construction company Sandvik, favours High Five - The Magic of Working Together by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. "It's about individuals who may work brilliantly on their own but do not fit into a team. None of us is as smart as all of us.
"One story in High Five details the return home of a devastated man who's been fired and cannot understand his boss's injunction that, this is nothing personal and no reflection on your work. Some people simply destroy others around them'," says Kumalo.
Alan Knott-Craig, retiring CEO of Vodacom, is passionate about books. "They always leave an impression on me. Built to Last by Jim Collins inspired me to write The Vodacom Way, which became our vision. It helped me understand more about myself and why I gave Vodacom increasingly more, even at the expense of my health."
In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz by Michela Wrong gave Knott-Craig the best perspective he's ever read on Africa, "and why things went so wrong for it". Shakespeare's Hamlet created a love in him for "books that were possibly old-fashioned but magnificent".
Nina Morris of morrisjones & co advertising agency says Deepak Chopra's The Deeper Wound changed her life forever. The second half of the book contains "A Hundred Days of Healing", with daily affirmations, exercises and insights. Morris thought it a great way to start each day, finished her one hundred days, and began again. "Five years later it remains a part of my morning routine and the sutras shift my attention from the external to the inner world." The guiding thoughts keep her aware of "the big picture, where ego has no place".
Clem Sunter, future scenarios guru, puts Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers, published in 1836, at the top of his hit parade, "because it shows that human nature never changes. The characters today are the same as they were back then. It's extraordinary when you realise Dickens was only 24 when he wrote it."
A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume, whom Sunter regards as the greatest British philosopher ever, was published in 1740. "He said you should never believe anything unless it's based on experience. Reason is the slave of passion and when people get emotional it starts bending their reasoning," says Sunter, who read the book when he was 19 and at Oxford University. "It's set my tone ever since, which is to always ask for empirical evidence."
David Kau, stand-up comedian and communications specialist, says his love of books was fuelled by his grandmother, whose little Soweto house was always filled with comics. The book that's left vivid and lasting images with him is Bryce Courtenay's The Power of One, a coming-of-age story of a young white boy and the obstacles he faces in a country rife with racial discrimination and hatred. At a young age he learns to box out of a desire to defend himself. "It's a powerful story about a strong individual's journey and of overcoming challenges."
Allan Heyl - ambassador for Primedia's anti crime initiative, Crime Line - spent 27 years in prison for his role in the Stander gang's crimes. Heyl says Man's Search for Meaning by concentration camp inmate Viktor Frankl inspired him when his morale was at its lowest. "It made me acutely aware there are always others who have coped with situations far worse than our own."
Books Heyl read in jail literally changed his life. "Henri Charriere's Papillon acknowledged that, in spite of being wrongly imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, Papillon was guilty of the ultimate crime - having led a wasted and meaningless life."
Applying the techniques in Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain, best-selling author and internationally renowned teacher of consciousness, enabled Heyl to transform himself from, "a wretched, dysfunctional personality, and to emerge from a lifelong mental imprisonment. I had been my own worst enemy for half my life."
Dawn Marole, human resources executive at African Bank, has two favourite books. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter M Senge, director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management, resonates with her. "Deep down, human beings are all learners and any team can learn how to produce extraordinary results. Peter's tools are powerful, especially the concept of personal mastery."
In Synchronicity - The Inner Path of Leadership, Joseph Jaworski expounds his belief about true leaders making a fundamental choice to serve "Life". "This choice creates leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The book made me realise we all have the capacity to make an impact on life."
Neil Jacobsohn, CEO of FutureWorld SA, says: "I was stirred and challenged by FutureWorld founder Wolfgang Grulke's Ten Lessons from the Future." Jacobsohn was in management at a major media company, "and tried really hard to plan strategy by thinking into the future and then looking back'."
He enjoys fantasy and Stephen Donaldson's trilogy The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever is a favourite, along with Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. "Both sets moved me in terms of language and the ability to paint a picture. I have reread them, often finding another nugget each time I do."
