Some writers attempt to conceal the literary influences which have shaped their thinking-but not Henry Miller. In this unique work, he gives an utterly candid and self-revealing account of the reading he did during his formative years. In The Books in My Life he shares the thrills of discovery that many kinds of books have brought to a keenly curious and questioning mind.

Some of Miller's favorite writers are the giants whom most of us revere - authors such as Dostoevsky, Boccaccio, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Lao-Tse. To them he brings fresh and penetrating insights. But many are lesser-known figures: Krishnamurti, the prophet-sage; the French contemporaries Blaise Cendrars and Jean Giono; Richard Jeffries, who wrote The Story of My Heart; the Welshman John Cowper Powys; and scores of others.

The Books in My Life contains some fine autobiographical chapters, too. Miller describes his boyhood in Brooklyn, when he devoured the historical stories of G. A. Henty and the romances of Rider Haggard. He tells of the men and women whom he regards as "living books": Lou Jacobs, W. E. B. Dubois, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and others. He offers his reminiscences of the New York Theatre in the early 1900's - including plays such as Alias Jimmy Valentine and Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model. And finally, in Miller's best vein of humor, he provides a satiric chapter on bathroom reading. In an appendix, Miller lists the hundred books that have influences him most.

亨利．米勒是美國文壇知名的情色懺悔大師，著有《北回歸線》等多部引人爭議的小說。《我一生中的書》是亨利．米勒的長年下來的閱讀筆記。不同於有些作家，他們喜歡把影響他們思想形成的文學作品隱藏起來，祕而不宣，米勒則完全相反。在這部風格獨特的著作中，他以徹底的坦白和自我剖析精神，道出形塑他性格的閱讀經歷，把每一本書曾經帶給他的震撼與欣喜，傳達給讀者。

米勒鐘愛的作家中，有公認的文豪巨匠，如杜斯妥也夫斯基、惠特曼、喬伊斯、托馬斯．曼、及老子等。但也有較不為人知的人物，如性靈大師克里希那穆提、法國當代作家布萊斯?桑德拉爾等。

《我一生中的書》還包括了米勒自傳性的敘述，他提到那些在不同階段影響自己生命的男男女女，稱他們為「活生生的書」。書的最後，米勒更以他慣有的幽默，與我們分享在廁所裡看書的經驗，表現出十足的米勒風格。

Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American writer and painter. He is known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of "novel" that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.

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美國小說家。他的一生充滿傳奇色彩，年輕時從事過許多不同的工作，曾當過計程車司機、圖書館員、甚至還一度流落巴黎街頭乞討為生。他結過五次婚，在第二任妻子的支持下開始寫作，此後一生寫作不輟，著作極豐。重要的著作《北回歸線》、《黑色的春天》、《南回歸線》謂其自傳三部曲，內容大膽、坦率、赤裸地描寫性愛，在巴黎出版後，造成極大的震撼，然而卻在英美國家遭禁，一直到一九六一年經過一場具有歷史意義的訴訟後，《北回歸線》終於在美國出版，米勒成為一個家喻戶曉的作家，被六０年代反主流文化譽為自由和性革命的先知，而他作品中的直接和徹底更使他被視為懺悔文學的典範。米勒著有《色史》、《在巴黎的屋頂下》等。

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