Read Siddhartha

Harry Haller, half man and half wolf, and the Magic Theatre; Hesse's midlife crisis.

Seven years in a Davos sanatorium arguing about Europe before 1914.

Sogyal Rinpoche's Buddhist guide to death for Western readers.

Read the Tripitaka (Pali Canon), the foundational scriptures of Theravada Buddhism

Meursault shoots an Arab on a beach because of the sun; Camus in a hundred pages.

Oran quarantined, Dr Rieux at work; Camus's novel of the Occupation and every epidemic since.

Roquentin in a Normandy town discovers that existence is absurd, starting with a chestnut root.

Two tramps wait by a tree for someone who does not come; the play of the century.