India, April 26 -- Every time I am asked to list my favourite books, Lin Yu Tang's The Importance of Living is always there. I know many readers may not have read it, or even heard about it. But it was a best-selling classic when published in 1938, reprinted umpteen times, and left an indelible impression on me as a college student when I first read it. It still remains a constant primer that I often dip into whenever I need to restore sanity, wisdom, and humour in my life.

Lin Yu Tang was a Chinese writer who settled in America later in life, a man deeply immersed in both the known and obscure texts of his native country's philosophy and traditional wisdom. From these, he culled out a philosophy of life that was humorously humane and ge...