Man and His Symbols is the last work undertaken by Carl Jung before his death in 1961. The principle aim of “Man and His Symbols” is an introduction to Jung’s work and ideas.  It is an examination of man’s relation to his own unconscious, emphasising the importance of dreams in the life of the individual.  

The book was first published in 1964 and is divided into five parts, four of which were written by Jung’s closest associates in the world of analytical psychology. 

One of the most important part of the whole book is his idea of individuation, the process by which consciousness and the unconscious have learned to live at peace and to complement one another. This addresses the essence of Jung’s philosophy of life: Man becomes whole when (and only when) the process of individuation is complete.

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Man’s Search for Meaning was published by Viktor Frankl in 1946. Frankl is the founder of logotherapy. The most important force in a man’s life is his desire to find meaning.   While Freud speaks of a “will to pleasure” and Adler speaks of a “will to power,” Frankl focuses on a “will to meaning”, as the primary motivational force in man.  

The book sold over 10 million copies at the time of Frankl’s death in 1997, and continues to this day to inspire many to find significance in the very act of living. The success of the book may be a symptom of the "mass neurosis of modern times" since the title promised to deal with the question of life's meaningfulness.

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No Exit (Huis Clos) is one of Jean Paul Sartre’s most interesting existentialist short stories. The book is the source of one of Sartre’s most celebrated phrases: “Hell is other people”.  

Sartre brilliantly emphasises that hell is not so much a specific place, but a state of mind. It is connected with his idea of the Look, which explores the experience of being seen, as we are always under the eyes of others.   

The conflict of being a subject (an agent of one’s life) and being an object that other people are observing, alienates us and locks us in a particular kind of being, which in turn deprives us of our freedom, because we are unable to escape the “devouring” gaze of the other.   

Sartre illustrates the difficult coexistence of people, as the entire social realm is based on adversarial aspects.

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The Plague was published in 1947 and is widely considered as Albert Camus’s most successful novel. It tells the story of a plague epidemic in the Algerian coastal town of Oran, where thousands of rats are found dead all over the city.  

Camus’ absurdist philosophy is at the background of the novel. He stresses the powerlessness of the individual to affect his destiny in an indifferent world.   

Illness, exile, and separation are themes that were present in Camus’ life and his reflections upon them form a vital counterpoint to the allegory. This makes his description of the plague and the pain of loneliness exceptionally vivid and heartfelt.

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The Metamorphosis is a book written by Franz Kafka and published in 1915. It has been called one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century as well as a classic absurdist fiction novella.  

It starts off with one of the most iconic opening lines in literature: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”  

Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis embodies an absurdist tone with ordinary daily concerns (such as being late for work) even after Gregor Samsa's extraordinary transformation into a monstrous vermin. It is an allegory of modern society's alienation and angst. The story mostly takes place in a single confined room.   

The cause of Gregor’s transformation is never revealed, and Kafka himself never gave an explanation.

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The eternal recurrence is a central notion of Nietzsche’s thought. It supposes that you’d have to experience the same life, with the same events and same experiences, repeated for eternity.   

Nietzsche suggests that most people would consider this a curse and that it would require the most impassioned love of life: to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal.  

The idea is horrifying and paralysing as it carries the burden of the “heaviest weight” imaginable. However, it is also the ultimate affirmation of life, it is the rock the fills the emptiness and weightlessness void of nihilism.

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The Gay Science is one of Nietzsche’s most beautiful and important books. He describes it as “the most personal of all his books”.   Gay Science has the overtones of a light-hearted defiance of convention; it suggests Nietzsche’s “immoralism” and his “revaluation of all values”. 

In Nietzsche’s own words, one must strive to be an “artistic Socrates”, a philosopher with both an intellectual conscience and with a feeling for art.  The book contains Nietzsche’s first proclamation of the death of God, as well as the eternal recurrence. 

It also contains some of his most sustained discussions on knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience, and the miseries that accompany religion and morality, warning us against the “preachers of morality”.

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Jean Paul Sartre’s first novel, Nausea, gave a name for existential angst. He considered it as one of his best works. It is a philosophical novel with existentialist vibes, that delves into the pure absurdity of the world with Sartre's wild imagination and explores the randomness and superfluity of the world.   Some of the most important themes include the sensation of "nausea", contingency, freedom, bad faith and Sartre's philosophical idea of existence precedes essence.

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The Antichrist was written in 1888 one year before Nietzsche’s descend into madness and immediately after his Twilight of the Idols. Both books should be read under the aspect of the last words of his final original book, his autobiography Ecce Homo: “Dionysus against the Crucified.”  

The German title can be translated as either “The Anti-Christ” or “The Anti-Christian”. It was likely meant to mean both. Dionysus has two opponents, one worthy of him, the other unworthy.  

The name Nietzsche gives to his worthy opponent is Christ – hence Dionysus is the Anti-Christ.   “In reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.” – The Antichrist §39  

As Nietzsche discusses Christ, the tone becomes ever warmer and even ecstatic. It becomes one of the most moving and powerful parts of the book.  

The unworthy opponent is the Christian, who is undeservedly dignified by being treated to such elaborate condemnation.   The book is directed to a minority and is relatively short composed of 62 sections, mainly devoted to attacking Christianity in its institutional form.

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Fear and Trembling is a book by Søren Kierkegaard written under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio. Through the biblical story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, Kierkegaard, as a great explorer of human psychology, looks into the anxiety that must have been present in Abraham when God commanded him to offer his son as a human sacrifice.   

Kierkegaard coined the term angst to refer to the dizzying awareness of one’s freedom of choice. It is the anxiety of freedom when considering infinite possibilities and the immense responsibility of being able to choose. This proved to be very influential in Existentialism.  

Fear and Trembling contains some of Kierkegaard most important concepts such as the knight of infinite resignation, the knight of faith, the leap of faith, the teleological suspension of the ethical and the stages on life’s way (aesthetic, ethical, religious).

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