Walden
by Henry David Thoreau | 
Holy the Firm
by Annie Dillard | 
Reveries of the Solitary Walker
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 
Mysticism and Logic
by Bertrand Russell | 
Teaching a Stone to Talk
by Annie Dillard | 
Waiting for God
by Simone Weil | 
Present Concerns
by C. S. Lewis | 
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
by Alan Lightman | 
A Letter to a Hindu
by Leo Tolstoy | 
The Problem of Pain
by C. S. Lewis | 
Thus Spake Zarathustra
by Friedrich Nietzsche | 
Mystery and Manners
by Flannery O'Connor | 
Mortality
by Christopher Hitchens | 
One Man's Meat
by E. B. White | 
Teaching a Stone to Talk
by Annie Dillard | 
Self-Reliance and Other Essays
by Ralph Waldo Emerson | 
Heretics
by G. K. Chesterton | 
For the Time Being
by Annie Dillard | 
Varieties of Religious Experience
by William James | 
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
by Soren Kierkegaard |
A Confession -- an essay by Leo Tolstoy on his religious thoughts -- shows the great author in process of looking for answers to profound questions that trouble all who take them on: "What will come of my life?" and "What is the meaning of life?" these are questions whose answers were an absolute requirement for Tolstoy. In the course of the essay, Tolstoy shows different attempts to find answers on the examples of science, philosophy, eastern wisdom, and the opinions of his fellow novelists. . . . finding no workable solution in any of these, Tolstoy recognizes the deep religious convictions of ordinary people as containing the key to true answers. The first attempt at its publication took place in 1882 (Russkaya Mysl, No 5), but Tolstoy's work was removed virtually from the whole edition of the journal by Orthodox Church censorship. The text was later published in Geneva (1884), in Russia as late as 1906 (Vsemirnyj Vestnik, No 1).