"A Confession" [1] and "The Kingdom of God is Within You" [2] by Leo Tolstoy. I believe Mahatma Gandhi considered the latter as a core influence for his nonviol

"A Confession" [1] and "The Kingdom of God is Within You" [2] by Leo Tolstoy. I believe Mahatma Gandhi considered the latter as a core influence for his nonviolent resistance philosophy. Also, "The Death of Ivan Ilych" [3] by Tolstoy. I felt like a ping-pong ball in the hands of the author: whichever way he wanted me to think at a certain point in the plot, I did. Masterful insight into the life and death of an ordinary, diligent man. And, above and beyond that, it depicts the rarely avoidable self-centeredness of humans. Oh, and lately, the prominent Finnish deep ecologist Pentti Linkola [4] has been a huge influence on me. In the Nordic countries, he is sometimes called "ecofascist", but this is an obvious cherry-picked overstatement of his views to my mind. I think only one of his books has been translated into English, though: "Can Life Prevail?" [5]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_God_Is_Within_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_God_Is_Within_Y... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Ivan_Ilyich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Ivan_Ilyich 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola and a fan page at http://www.penttilinkola.com/ http://www.penttilinkola.com/ 5: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6397542-can-life-prevail https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6397542-can-life-prevail