Which book do you recommend most often to others, and what makes you pass it on?

Ever since adolescence, [my elder sister Anna] has been an enthusiastic admirer of the great Swedish writer, the Nobel Laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and she infected me so much with her enthusiasm that I decided to become a writer and describe Italian saga "à la Lagerlöf". But things were to take a different turn.

In Ge Hong's A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies (肘后备急方), I noticed one sentence "A handful of Qinghao immersed in two liters of water, wring out the juice and drink it all" (青蒿一握, 以水二升渍, 绞取汁, 尽服之) when Qinghao was mentioned for alleviating malaria fevers. Most herbs were typically boiled in water and made into a decoction before taken by the patients. This unique way of using Qinghao gave me the idea that heating during extraction might have destroyed the active components and the high temperature might need to be avoided in order to preserve the herb's activity.

There is one in particular. It’s called Atlas Shrugged , which is my favorite book.

Yes. One is a translation of Lao Tzu by a man named Witter Bynner. It’s called The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu . It’s beautiful translations. And I find those verses which were the sole output of this philosopher to be remarkably right on. Another book that I’ve given out a lot recently is We by Robert Johnson, a Jungian psychoanalyst that’s subtitled The Psychology of Romantic Love . A very short, easily read book about the traps that people get themselves into in romantic relationships. That’s one that I like very much. Jeez, I have a whole bunch out there.