Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

As a ten-year-old child in South Africa I was given a free album about Krishna Consciousness by an eccentric (even magical) stranger in Fordsburg’s controversial Oriental Plaza. Thank you to that kind gentleman, whoever you were/are. Because that’s basically where my journey began. If yours starts here, then please do have a look at some of the incredible books that have been not only the building blocks but the very joists and mortar of this one.

— Nicola Barker

BOOKS

Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master (The Jupiter Press)

Mahendranath Gupta, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center)

Sri Ramakrishna’s disciples are a uniformly charming bunch, and none more so than Mahendranath Gupta, the secretive “M.” This would probably be my number one go-to book on the guru, just because of its honesty and loveliness and modesty.

Swami Chetanananda, They Lived with God (Advaita Ashrama)

Swami Chetanananda, Ramakrishna as We Saw Him (Vedanta Society of St. Louis)

Swami Chetanananda has scrupulously detailed everything known about the guru in these two wonderful books. My humble effort owes most of what is good about it to the learned swami.

Akshay Kumar Sen, A Portrait of Sri Ramakrishna (The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture)

Lex Hilton, The Great Swan: Meetings with Ramakrishna (Larson)

Lex Hilton’s work is both mesmerizing and extraordinary.

This is the Isherwood section. Christopher Isherwood writes brilliantly about Ramakrishna, but my favorite book by him— My Guru and His Disciple —is not actually about Ramakrishna as such but about Isherwood’s touching relationship with his own guru, the glorious Swami Prabhavananada.

Christopher Isherwood, ed., Vedanta for the Western World (Unwin Books)

Christopher Isherwood, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (Advaita Ashrama)

Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple (University of Minnesota Press)

Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananada, trans., The Song of God: Bhagavad-Gita (Mentor)

The Bhagavad-Gita is an exquisite work of art, and this translation is just superb.

Elizabeth U. Harding, Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar (Nicolas Hayes)

I owe Ms. Harding a giant expression of thanks for this brilliant, beautifully written, and meticulously researched work.

June McDaniel, Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls (Oxford)

Not only is this an amazing book on goddess worship, but Ms. McDaniel was also immensely kind and helpful to me when I approached her for help during the writing of The Cauliflower .

Bardwell L. Smith, ed., Hinduism: New Essays in the History of Religion (Leiden/ E. J. Brill)

Sakhi Bhava, Transgender Spirituality: Man into Goddess (self-published)

I truly cannot overstate what a startling and revolutionary little book this is. It’s spiritual and philosophical dynamite!

Tapati Bharadwaj, Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1881) and a Nineteenth-Century Subaltern: Rani Rashmoni (1793–1861): Creating Our Feminist Genealogies (self-published)

Susie Tharu and K. Lalita, Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the Early Twentieth Century (Pandora)

Brian Kolodiejchuk MC, ed., Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Rider)

Desmond Doig, Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work (Fount)

Ashok Mitra, Calcutta Diary (Frank Cass)

Krishna Dutta, Calcutta: A Cultural History (Interlink Books)

Geoffrey Moorhouse, Calcutta: The City Revealed (Penguin)

Emma Roberts, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society , Volume 1 (Elibron Classics)

Amit Chaudhuri, Calcutta: Two Years in the City (Union Books)

Frank Finn, The Birds of Calcutta (Hardpress)

Thomas A. Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Penguin)

I mention this wonderful book because it was Swami Vivekananda’s favorite.

FILMS

Satyajit Ray, The Apu Trilogy (Artificial Eye)

Satyajit Ray, The Goddess (Mr. Bongo Films)

Louis Malle, Calcutta (Pyramide)

RADIO

Tessa Dunlop, The Enigma of Sara-la-Kali (Heart and Soul, BBC World Service)

MUSIC

Ananta, Night and Daydream (Touchstone)

NICOLA BARKER is the author of eleven novels, including The Yips (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), Darkmans (shortlisted for the Booker and the Ondaatje Prize and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Clear (longlisted for the Booker), and Wide Open (winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), as well as two story collections, including Love Your Enemies (winner of the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award). Two of her stories, “Dual Balls” and “Symbiosis,” have been adapted for British television, and the former was shortlisted for a BAFTA. Barker was named on Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists list in 2003, and her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She lives in London. You can sign up for email updates here.