100 books on spirituality from Steve Jobs's bookshelf

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Daniel Kottke was one of Steve Jobs's closest friends. They met in college before Apple was founded. Subsequently, they traveled to India in search of spiritual enlightenment. A few months ago, Kottke shared a list of 100 books that were on Jobs's bookshelf.

Daniel Kottke, like Steve Jobs, attended Reed College. The two students had many common interests: engineering, technology, oriental culture. Unsurprisingly, they almost became best friends in college. When Kottka was 20 and Jobs 19, they traveled to India to seek spiritual enlightenment.

Upon their return, they continued to communicate. Kottke helped Jobs and Wozniak build the first Apple I computer and helped build the Apple II, Apple III, and the first Macintosh. Kottke and Jobs remained on friendly terms until Steve's death in 2011. And Daniel was well acquainted with Jobs' tastes, in particular with books.

At the Dent Conference in March this year, Kottke shared a list of hundreds of Jobs' favorite books. Conference participant Ellen Lins posted this list on Medium. We found ten books that are available in Russian:

1. “Be Here and Now,” Ram Dass.
2. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.
3. Ramakrishna and His Disciples by Christopher Isherwood.
4. Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Boeck.
5. The Way of the White Clouds by Lama Govinda.
6. Meditation in Action, Chogyam Trungpa.
7. The Zen Way by Alan Watts.
8. On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
9. Dharma Tramps by Jack Kerouac.
10. “A Guide to Enlightenment for the Lazy,” Tadeusz Golas.

Some other books are also translated into Russian. However, most of them are only available in the English version. Below is a complete list.

According to Daniel, many of these works played an important role in Steve's life. At the same time, the depth of reading books varied. Some Jobs reread several times. Others received only a cursory glance. Still, the number of books that Jobs read only on this topic is impressive.