This means all of Proust. What can I say? The best way to read Proust is to see your own life through his eyes, and it is quite the trip. You relive and relieve your own memories while facing his. The volumes from Penguin are aptly translated.

A thoroughly captivating book, filled with moments of near silenced breathing on my part. A convincing portrait of a dedicatedly good human being. Williams dramatizes the stuff of everyday life to perfection.

My favorite autobiography, Nabokov presents himself as a man who doesn't "believe in time." The fluidity of his rememberings is an excellent spark for bringing out your own past.

In this volume are Ada, Transparent Things, and Look at the Harlequins! Ada is a wondrous novel with even more hidden secrets than Pale Fire. It chronicles an incestous romance with eroticism while still maintaining the feeling of a fairy tale. It also offers a very original theory of time.

What I feel to be Thoreau's most varied work, his journals are filled with surprises seen and unseen. Find out how Henry may have been as a blogger and get journal samples at: http://blogthoreau.blogspot.com/

A very realistic portrayal of Russian life in the 1870s, this offers world literature's best descriptions of adultery, birth, spiritual awakening, and society life almost reaching Proust's level.

My favorite childhood reality, and by far one of the most readable children's tales for adults. You're never too old for pirates and mermaids, and this time piece will remind you of that with its steady ticking - full of life still.

The perfect recording? Filled with charm, grace, and accessibility, Mozart's music is nonetheless profound and lasting.

If Mozart's piano concertos are the individual within society, Beethoven's spectacular series of piano sonatas are the individual facing himself. The late ones are especially spiritual and ecstatic.

It is important to appreciate both books of the WTC, but I give sole emphasis to Book II as it is the one which I return to more regularly. Easily some of the most addictive listening you'll come across in your lifetime. All of Gould's Bach is worth listening to...

The most envigorating music to begin your day with, but also very challenging. This has the potential to change your ideas of what music is just as much as Schoenberg. Realized by Grumiaux in an eminently poetic style that gives way to pure love of the musical architecture, this is the version to get.

My favorite film, it bridges the gap between a dying mother and rustic childhood adventures in Sweden.

An very complete and convincing intimate epic. Using much of Janacek's chamber music, this film chronicles a womanizer and his women after the short-lived Prague Spring in 1968. Moving and elegantly paced, it has several nice surprises and touches of philosophy.

Much of what is so lovable and poetic about Chaplin's films, including the sentimentality, is present here. Of all the films on this list, this is the one I wish I'd been introduced to earlier in life.