Gallway, Timothy, The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance. Random House (1977).
Disguised as a manual for harnessing the “inner skills” necessary to compete on the tennis court, this easy-to-read manual translates to any endeavor. It might be easy to categorize this book as another of the “east meets west” genre; however, such a description would miss the pragmatic wisdom of the exercises and examples that inspire new approaches to old challenges.

Illich, Ivan, Toward a History of Needs. Pantheon Books (1978) and Tools for Conviviality. Marion Boyers Publishing (new edition 2001).
From a unique perspective that’s never been replicated, Illich illuminates and challenges many of the purported immutable cultural “habits” that determine the course of education, health care, the legal profession and economics. These books lay a good foundation for discussing new relationships between law and society, and more specifically, the lawyer and client.

Lipton, Bruce, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles. Elite Books (2005).
Dr. Lipton is a molecular biologist, who has contributed cutting edge research to the emerging science of Epigenetics: how biology and genetics are influenced and even controlled by environment, stress, emotions and beliefs. Understandable, entertaining and informative, this book gives simple, concrete examples of how “connections” within any system determine the health and advancement of that system more than any other factor – thus emphasizing that law, as the means by which our society regulates its relationships and connections, is a healing profession.

Pink, Daniel H., A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Penguin Group (2006).
Dan Pink motivates today’s professional to explore a new resource for problem solving and client-relations. Whether the reader interprets the “right brain” metaphorically or literally, Pink makes a case for why and how more creative thinking is not just useful, but required for success.

Wilber, Ken, A Brief History of Everything. Shambala Publications (2000).
Among the more accessible of Wilber’s works, this particular book offers some basic vocabularies and conceptual tools to aid analysis and discussion of any “transformational” process. His analysis of holons and the evolutionary dynamic of “transcend and include” are seminal pieces of post-modern systems theory. In addition, this work sets the stage for one of Wilber’s more brilliant and original ideas: the “pre/trans fallacy,” an idea that identifies the problematic tendency we have to “long for the good old days” to the detriment of original transformation.