When I received the invitation to contribute to the ‘Ten Books' series, I resonated more with the phrase ‘sources of inspiration’ than with the guideline to select books that have had ‘a significant impact on my professional life’. It so happens that this rather unusual challenge is the second to have come my way in recent times. We initiated a similar project for medical students at the University of Melbourne in which faculty members select a text that ‘matters' to them, ostensibly in a professional way, although the request is left intentionally vague. Then, as now, I surmised that the books that have influenced us professionally are not dissimilar to those that occupy a central place in our lives generally.