I know that many of us are on here because we don't like a book telling us how to think, but books are still important ways to share ideas and spark conversations. I think that the paths to thinking a certain way are many, and I'm curious to know what that journey has been like for you.
The Immense Journey, by Loren Eiseley, for its natural history.
The Golden Ass, by Apulius, for its irreverence.
The Rievers, by William Faulkner, for its young protagonist who stole a car, jockeyed a race horse, and got cut up in a knife fight in a whore house all before his tenth birthday. And for his genuine remorse and the compassion he was shown by his grandfather, the owner of the car.
Siddhartha, by Herman Hess, for its commentary in the world of the possible.
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, for its look at greed and obsession.
The Golden Shore, by Patrick O'brien, for its tale of perseverance and resourcefulness in the face of extreme privation and suffering.
The God Delusion.
The Age of Reason.
God is not Great .
A Short History of Nearly Everything.
A short history of nearly everything is one of my favorites.
A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking.
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, by Carl Sagan.
Death by black hole by, Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson.
There have been many more, but these three are the ones that I've re-read the most. I get something more each time I read them.
God: A Human History by Reza Aslan
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the America City by Desmond Matthew
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters by Atul Gawande
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America All by Barbara Ehrenreich
We Are Our Brains from the Womb to Alzheimers by Dick Swaab
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in The Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.
May seem a bit silly but I read Mists of Avalon years ago, and although it is fiction it made me start to realize how competitive religions were in controlling world views. I started to question mine. I grieved when I finished the book.
Surprising that no one has said this, but the Bible opened my eyes to the world in ways my pastor never intended.
From it I learned the lies, deception, hate, fear, abuse and uselessness of religion.
Reading my bible was the worst thing I could’ve done as a religious person.
Non-fiction..
Rights of Man by Thomas Paine.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan.
War is a Racket by Smedley Butler.
@orange_girl I hope you enjoy it!
“The Science of Discworld” V1-4 by Sir Terry Pratchett (STP). Covered human history, science, literature, and religion better than any other text I know of. With the possible exception of “Systemantics” by Gall. It explains systems somewhat more succinctly than TSOD, But not by much.
This looks like an awesome book series. Sounds funny deep and informative I'm going to have to read it thank you for the listing.
At the risk of dating myself a good place for me to start would be 1984, heart of darkness,catch 22. Books like that.
Marcus Aurelius Meditations
@maturin1919 That would be me
The God Delusion
Cosmos
God Is Not Great
The Brothers Karamazov
Book: Fahrenheit 451
Comic book: V For Vendetta
I've always been fascinated about stories of totalitarian regimes and the societal effects brought with. The wondering how people could allow it, how even with so much history we can easily forget and repeat.
Catch-22 and Guns, Germs, and Steel
@Wombat1624 It gave me an equal dose of cynicism and dark humor. Some sympathy for the enlisted people. As well as a healthy distrust of warmongering and warmongerers.
Where are the Snowdons of Yesteryear?
When I was younger it was books like Uncle Tom's Cabin, Little Women and the classics. Then in middle school I read The Third Reich and The Diary of Anne Frank. Lately it's been books by Wamariya (The Girl With The Glass Bead Smile), Jasmyn Ward (Sing Unburied Sing), Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Haruki Murakami. I particularly like non-American authors for their perspective on the world outside of our myopic view.
Hands down for me: Atlas Shrugged. Period.
Seriously? As a semi-science fiction surreal novel, I just simply could not believe the underlying premise. It was just patently ridiculous that the rich would give up everything they had to start over. Also the idea of two CEOs striping off their shirts to hammer at a forge? I dotn' think they would realistically know what to do, let alone lower themselves to actually do physical labor.
What the book totally ignores is that the rich, only use money as a means for getting what htye truly want, which is power, which is what makes the premise ridiculous. They would not just walk away from that.
Ayn Rand hs a great imagination, but her most believable book was "We the living", based partly on her personal experience. Her other novels were just not believable.
@snytiger6 yes, seriously.
All is Quiet on the Western Front , Erich Maria Remarque. I read it as a teenager, had to take it out of the library under the pretense that my father wanted to read it.
there have been so many, so VERY many. i don't think one book changed my WHOLE world view, but many books changed many parts of it. a spaniard in the works and in his own write changed my view of writing itself, which is important as i am a writer. stranger in a strange land was seminal. if i listed them all the computer would explode.
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Most of the ones I've read. Though learning about the Kardashev Scale via Michio Kaku has influenced me. Also Kahlil Gibrans many books. And the sensitive dependence on initial conditions thought process from Chaos is a big one that helps. Though I am fond of Alyosha The Pot too.