What books have influenced your world view?

[smithcommajohn]

Some amazing books listed in this thread! I can't wait to start looking into ones I've not read yet!

When I was younger I was strongly influenced by Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged.

My most recent book of interest was Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Keep 'em coming!

 

[NoMan]

Oh, and links for ye:


http://tinyurl.com/CarlSaganDemonHauntedWorld
http://tinyurl.com/FeynmanLecturesOnPhysics
http://tinyurl.com/AlanMooreWatchmen

 

[digital angel]

People have listed excellent books. I look forward to reading the one's I haven't read.

Some of the books that I've enjoyed include Shakespeare's works, Jane Austen's works...(mind goes blank).

 

[gilliatt]

The books I think are important:

Human Action & Socialism by Ludwig Von Mises
Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
The Toilers of the Sea & The Man Who Laughed & Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo
The Earth Chronicles by Zecharia Sitchin
The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson
The Law & Economic Sophisms by Frederic Bastiat
The Mainspring of Human Progress by Henry Grady Weaver
For a New Liberty & The Ethics of Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard
The Tariff Idea by W. M. Curtiss
Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
Capital and Interest & Shorter Classics by Eugen Von Bohm-Bawerk
The Road to Serfdom & The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich A. Hayek
Principles of Economics by Carl Menger
Free Market Economics A Syllabus & Free Market Economics A Basic Reader by Bettina B. Greaves
The Philosophy of Ayn Rand & The Voice of Reason by Leonard Peikoff
The Works of Aristotle
Studies in Tape Reading & Stock Market Ventures and Adventures by Richard D. Wyckoff
The Short Stories of O'Henry
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes & Works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Discovery of Freedom "Man's Struggle Against Authority" by Rose Wilder Lane
I Pencil & The Works by Leonard Read
The Driver by Garet Garrett
The Works by Frank Chodorov
The Works by Albert Jay Nock

Just to name a few-----"Long live the Republic"

 

[Polaris]

Actually, the essay "Crop Rotation: An Attempt at a Theory of Social Prudence" (among other works by the author) by Søren Kierkegaard was a source of amusement and bafflement in my younger years.

It starts something like this:

"People of experience maintain that it is very sensible to start from a principle. I grant them that and start with the principle that all men are boring. Or will someone be boring enough to contradict me in this?"

I recommend.

 

[Iamnotbutter]

Harry Potter- First book that I truly fell in love with. I remember staying up past my bed time and lugging it around with me during the day,so I can read it during reading time . Also it was the first book I ever felt proud of finishing.

A child called it- It really opened my eyes to what some kids around my age (at the time) were going through and it also made me more appreciative my family.


Flowers for Algernon- Great book!
The Prince- Machiavelli- This essay brought me to one of my all time favorite quotes
Right now i'm in the process of reading Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
Any thoughts on it?

 

[ecsange]

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It was from this book I wrote my first story at the age of 10.

ecsange
Book Marketing Manager: Cathedral of Dreams by Terry Persun; A Kingdom's Possession, Nicole Persun
Booktrope Publishing
www.booktrope.com
www.booktropepublishing.com

Read for free.

 

[Systems]

Hmm.. Limits to Growth and Thinking In Systems have really influenced my way of thinking. Opened up for a whole new way of thinking - feedback loops instead of oneway causality..

Hence my name.

 

[downsowf]

Man. This is a hard one. I'm sure there were many books that influenced my world view in some way.

1. The Giving Tree: Shel Silverstein
2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Mark Twain
3. Brave New World: Huxley
4. Fahrenheit 451: Bradbury
5. 1984: Orwell
6. Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead: Rand
7. Crime and Punishment and Notes: Dostoevsky
8. The Genealogy of Morals: Nietzsche
9. Poetry, Language, Thought: Heidegger
10. Spurs: Derrida
11. Alexander Hamilton: Ron Chernow

 

[gilliatt]

Books for kids:
Where the free being are----Maurice Sendak
Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel---Virginia Lee Burton
Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Whatever happened to penny candy---Richard Maybury
The adventures of Huxtable Holmes and Sprockett Watson---Glen Frank
The adventures of Jonathon Gulllible---Ken Schoolland
Shadow Children---Margaret Peterson Haddix
How an Economy Grows and Why it Doesn't----Irwin Schiff
An Island called Liberty---Dr. Suess
YouTube--Duck Tales in Inflation Lesson(not a book, a video)
Time will Run back---Henry Hazlitt

photo of actress Taylor Schilling who played Dagny Taggard in movie Atlas Shrugged

 

[J-man]

Two books instantly come to mind:

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
This book destroyed every shred of doubt in me that Christianity (and belief in general) is a delusion, and I am very grateful for that.

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
This book serves as a reminder of the nature of living in a human mind and our relationship to our thoughts. It is very important to me.

 

[Chronomar]

[...]the essay "Crop Rotation: An Attempt at a Theory of Social Prudence"

[....]
I recommend.

Thank you.
...

Starting with young children's books (very influential!):
- Dr. Seuss books, most notably Yertle the Turtle, The Lorax, Green Eggs and Ham, and I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today!

- A multitude of eyewitness books, and my "Big Encyclopedia of Science" that I carried everywhere

- The Old Man Who Loved Cheese by Anne Wilsdorf. This reminded me as a child that sometimes it wasn't good to pursue my own interest to the detriment of those around me. I had needed the reminder.

- Stone Soup, the version by Jon J. Muth with the 3 monks, we read this every year in elementary school and made the soup as a school.

- The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. I'm not sure how this one influenced me...but I read it so many times it must have.

A very incomplete list out of books read post-Kindergarten:
The Social Contract, The Federalist & Antifederalist papers, Goethe's Faust, The Dispossessed, Consilience: the Unity of Nature, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!...

 

[Oedipus]

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut would be one.

 

[puer curiosus]

I'd consider myself a critical rationalist if anything at all. So, in that regard, I'd say that quite a number of popular science books have influenced me, primarily "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark"," Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium" and "Pale Blue Dot" by Carl Sagan; (I admire him very much, truth be told)

In the realm of political philosophy, I'm very much apolitical and the only maxim I go by is that one has unlimited freedom to do anything one wishes to do so long as that individual doesn't use that freedom to restrict the freedom of another individual and in that respect, the many (or few) dystopian books I've read play a big role, such as, 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, We, Player Piano, Snow Crash (also, the Diamond Age), Neuromancer (also other works of Gibson such as Mona Lisa Overdrive, Pattern Recognition and Count Zero), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (also Martian Time Slip and Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said) among others. There're probably more than those but I guess I'll stop here.

 

[keekins]

I used to read mostly typical fantasy/medieval type books, which didn't really change my world view. I took a looong break from reading after reading a certain trilogy, I think it was because I just couldn't find a book that lived up to the three I'd just read. Out of the books I've read or nearly finished, these have probably affected my views the most.

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. Animal Farm by George Orwell
3. Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
4. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
5. Eating Animals (can't remember the author. a GREAT book, though I'm still quite the carnivore.)
6. Night (can't remember the author of this either.)
7. Milkweed (like the previous, it's about WW2 and concentration camps. this book was... astounding.)

 

[Enne]

Cat's Cradle
The World Is Flat
Hyperspace

 

[Question Authority]

6. Night (can't remember the author of this either.)

Author was Eli Weisel. I think he wrote a couple after that about his life post-Auschwitz, but they didn't get nearly as good reviews.

As for books that influenced my worldview? Not too many. My worldview was pretty much solidified prior to when I began to read any books of value, but there were a few I suppose that I can cite as allowing my worldview to crystallize:

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Claude Gueux - Victor Hugo
Les Miserables - Again, Hugo

There are others, I'm sure, but I can't think of them at the moment.

And I suppose I should list Atlas Shrugged, though the reason is that I reacted to it the same way I react to undercooked chicken. You never forget your first violent outbreak of food poisoning.

 

[MizKodomo]

Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (This series was a huge part of my up bringing)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Beneath the Wheel and Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse

Slowly picking my way through the Fountainhead... I'm still on the fence about how I feel about this.

 

[Pyropyro]

The Bible, especially Solomon's books such as the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (best book for cynics).
The Art of War and Machiavelli's "The Prince" for strategy and tactics (TiNe Fodder)
The Art of Woo when words and negotiations rather than strategy are needed (NeFe fodder)
CS Lewis's books especially Mere Christianity and the Screwtape letters.

 

[Sosekopp]

The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
1984 by George Orwell
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

 

[SteelEye]

Eliminating all those already mentioned and those I simply fail to recall right now:

Theory of Nothing by Russell K. Standish (free PDF! )
Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott (free HTML! )
Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman (free PDF! but it's a download...)

Merge textual criticism with multiple dimensions and...well...nothing, and you pretty much have a good basis for my worldview (and as I just noticed, free apparently doesn't hurt either). The worldview itself is still in the works.

 

[EnigmaticSoutherner]

When I was a kid...2nd or 3rd grade... my mom bought World Book and Childcraft (encyclopedias) and brought them home (I think they were an older edition because we were broke lol) and I recall reading those things cover to cover over and over again.... I was a very curious kid and so when curiosity struck, inevitably I found myself digging into the World Book set seeking an answer... Often finding there was no entry.... This led me to my elementary school library... Where as a 3rd grader I read every biography (kid sized) that I could find... once I exhausted my school library.... this led me to my local public library....and the race was on...I was often frustrated by the limited selections at my public library.....and so in college I was pleased to wander the stacks...picking up and reading periodicals here and there as time allowed.... . While typing this it struck me that the World Book encyclopedias ca.1971 were nothing more than a miniature form of the "internet" as we know it today.....

As to "books" , lately I only read when I am bored and I do my best to avoid boredom.... and I don't enjoy fiction as much as I feel I should..... but Confederacy of Dunces and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance are 2 that I recall very fondly ...... I also very much enjoy the writing of Thomas McGuane.... Keep the Change / Bushwacked Piano / 92 in the Shade/ Nothing But Blue Skies... et al.... I really like writing that features unusual / eccentric characters and a particular feeling of semi-melancholy that is hard for me to describe...

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

In order of influence:

1. The Monkeywrench Gang- Edward Abbey

2. The Story of My Experiments With Truth- Mohandas Gandhi

3. Biophilia- E. O. Wilson

4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain

5. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed- Jared Diamond

6. The Lorax- Dr. Suess

 

[MsAnthropy_Indefatigably]

Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics!

 

[BridgeOfSighs]

Paint It Black by Janet Fitch

That's the only one I can conjure at the moment. I suppose it's so influential because it has to do with all that fun stuff (suicide, sex, lies, Oedipal complex, furry jackets, etc.)

 

[CBadfeather]

"The Portable Jung" by Carl Jung - A good intro into some of his awesome theories about psychology and the way our minds work. Highly Recommended

"100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The language is so smart, it makes me want to learn spanish just to read it in the native prose. It introduced me to a different perspective on time that I wasn't expecting. And even though there's such a huge cast list, I got pretty invested in everyone's stories.

"Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku - I read this in high school and the way he uses simple metaphors (especially the fish in the koi pond) to explain complex physics concepts like higher dimensions was genius to me.

"All the Pretty Horses", Cormac McCarthy, also "No Country for Old Men" and "Blood Meridian" - I think of his writing as modern versions of the epic poem. I'll read anything he writes after having read those. The movies (especially all the pretty horses) don't even come close

"Yoga Guide" by Swami Jyortir Maya Nanda - Picked this up in a used bookstore out of curiosity and it turned out changing my worldview a little bit

"Valis" by Phillip K Dick - Most epic sci-fi novel I've ever read. All those mind bending theories about life and all the meta references just makes this one of my favorites.

"Hero With a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell - the review below is pretty much dead on

- “I have returned to no other book more often since leaving college than this one, and every time I discover new insight into the human journey. Every generation will find in Hero wisdom for the ages.”
— Bill Moyers

 

[snafupants]

"The Portable Jung" by Carl Jung - A good intro into some of his awesome theories about psychology and the way our minds work. Highly Recommended

"100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The language is so smart, it makes me want to learn spanish just to read it in the native prose. It introduced me to a different perspective on time that I wasn't expecting. And even though there's such a huge cast list, I got pretty invested in everyone's stories.

"Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku - I read this in high school and the way he uses simple metaphors (especially the fish in the koi pond) to explain complex physics concepts like higher dimensions was genius to me.

"All the Pretty Horses", Cormac McCarthy, also "No Country for Old Men" and "Blood Meridian" - I think of his writing as modern versions of the epic poem. I'll read anything he writes after having read those. The movies (especially all the pretty horses) don't even come close

"Yoga Guide" by Swami Jyortir Maya Nanda - Picked this up in a used bookstore out of curiosity and it turned out changing my worldview a little bit

"Valis" by Phillip K Dick - Most epic sci-fi novel I've ever read. All those mind bending theories about life and all the meta references just makes this one of my favorites.

"Hero With a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell - the review below is pretty much dead on

McCarthy has always struck me as a poor man's Faulkner, who stylistically was arguably a poor man's Conrad, with his exaggerated and not-so-unorthodox use of the word "save" and copious and mildly nauseating adjective strings.

Both Jung and Dick, although they took drastically different routes, seem to have collected a lot of real knowledge in their lives.

Crap, I need to read One Hundred Years...maybe I'll have to reshuffle and put that on tap. Well, anyway, based on your preference for that you might also like Transparent Things by Nabokov.

 

[CBadfeather]

Well, anyway, based on your preference for that you might also like Transparent Things by Nabokov.

Checked it out just now, sounds pretty cool. I'll see about getting a copy of it soon

I didn't start getting way into Cormac McCarthy until my ENTP buddy told me about his nerd cred: how he lived in poverty until he got his first genius grant and about how he's a member of this mysterious science think tank called the Sante Fe Institute which basically sounds like the 'dream intp think-tank situation.' in real life.

I've heard that about him and Faulkner but I've only read 'Sound and the Fury' by Faulkner. Judging just from that though, it seems like they might tackle alot of similar thematic territory but the overall worldviews seem different somehow.

 

[snafupants]

Checked it out just now, sounds pretty cool. I'll see about getting a copy of it soon

I didn't start getting way into Cormac McCarthy until my ENTP buddy told me about his nerd cred: how he lived in poverty until he got his first genius grant and about how he's a member of this mysterious science think tank called the Sante Fe Institute which basically sounds like the 'dream intp think-tank situation.' in real life.

I've heard that about him and Faulkner but I've only read 'Sound and the Fury' by Faulkner. Judging just from that though, it seems like they might tackle alot of similar thematic territory but the overall worldviews seem different somehow.

They do tackle a lot of the same humanistic territory, and they probably conceive of literature and its limitations the same way. Yeah, I knew CM lived in New Mexico because, for a spell, I contemplated living in New Mexico, like Mr. Forster and Cormac McCarthy. I was turned on by the weather of the Southwest: Sante Fe reportedly has three hundred plus days of sunshine per year. If you want to read more Faulkner, read Sanctuary, then Light in August, then Absalom, Absalom! The latter two are incredibly brilliant but in different ways. LIA reminds me of a Dickens novel were everyone is sort of Calvinistically predestined for good or bad paths; these roads are essentially outlined beforehand by their names. A, A! is just inexpressibly good, that book easily makes my all-time top ten. With the accessible physics stuff, in reference to your second to last post, Brian Greene might be worth a read; he can definitely do the math behind String Theory and all that but he doesn't incessantly make you feel like an idiot for not being able to, you know? Greene's first two books are way better than his latter two; unfortunately, though, his second book basically shamelessly repeats his first book. That's not really a slight against the guy but it does reflect how little the theory morphed in the interim and how much he covered in the first book.

 

[thelithiumcat]

I reckon Tamora Pierce's books have really influenced me. There are a lot of strong, female heroines. The very first one I read, and which I have read a lot, is about a tomboy who disguises herself as a boy in order to become the first female knight in... I think it's over a hundred years. I could always really identify with her. The other heroines she wrote were also strong and independent.

 

[masterpeez]

I have been very influenced by Somerset Maugham. His books The razors's edge and specifically Of Human Bondage make it very obvious that he himself was an INT. And therefore he writes very thought-provoking books all about the human experience and the meaning/lessness of life.

 

[Jah]

Influence, by Robert Cialdini.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence:_Science_and_Practice

 

[kora]

La Nausée- Jean Paul Sartre
Catcher In The Rye- J.D Salinger
Sophie's world- Can't remember the author, long time ago
1984-George Orwell
The Bloody Chamber-Angela Carter
The chronicles of Narnia-C.S Lewis

 

[kora]

Actually, the essay "Crop Rotation: An Attempt at a Theory of Social Prudence" (among other works by the author) by Søren Kierkegaard was a source of amusement and bafflement in my younger years.

It starts something like this:

"People of experience maintain that it is very sensible to start from a principle. I grant them that and start with the principle that all men are boring. Or will someone be boring enough to contradict me in this?"

I recommend.

i will most certainly read

 

[Peripheral Visionary]

As I've read through this thread, there are some things that caught my attention.

One was that certain books and authors are surprisingly (or perhaps expectedly) common in INTP's reading

The Tao Te Ching
Sun Tzu's Art of War
The Lorax
The Prince
A Wrinkle in Time
Ender’s Game
Brave New World
Stranger in a Strange Land

and various books by

Orwell
Ayn Rand
Dostoyevsky
Carl Sagan
Nietzsche
CS Lewis
Herman Hesse

I was also amazed at how many of the books people mentioned (beyond the ones listed) I had read as well.

My own list, with commentary.

Fiction

The Fountainhead + Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand- They profoundly influenced me, but I'm not sure in the long run if it was for the better. A better writer than a philosopher; a better thinker than a human being.

The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like the wonders of the ancient world, human beings can build magnificent things in dedication to the imaginary. The first book that made me realize prose can be poetry.

Dune by Frank Herbert- More ideas than you can shake a dozen sticks at. Began me on the path toward exploring human potential.

Pride and Prejudice + Emma by Jane Austen. Austen was a brilliant psychologist long, long before Freud and Jung. Also, the most important decision most people will ever make is in whom they will marry. From a practical standpoint, this makes her works of more value than most "serious" books.

The Brothers Karamazov- F. Dostoyevsky. Jane Austen in a really dark mood.

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. If you focus on the pain and despair, you might miss the transcendence and healing.

Illusions by Richard Bach. The only metaphysics that makes any sense.

The Importance of Being Earnest- Oscar Wilde. Not technically a book, I know. Possibly the funniest thing written in the English language, but I haven't gotten around to reading everything else yet.

Honorable mention to the collected works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Ray Bradbury, Tom Robbins, Michael Crichton, Joseph Heller, G.K. Chesterton and Alan Moore.

Non-Fiction

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. When nothing needs to be said, nothing is left unsaid.

The 48 Laws of Power + The 33 Strategies of War + The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene. The essential 3 works of Greene, who is Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Giacomo Casanova all rolled into one and updated for the 21st century.

The Law by Frederic Bastiat. When I first realized there can be a huge gulf between what is law and what is right.

Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Mysteries of Culture by Marvin Harris. The logic behind all those seemingly inane customs and rituals.

The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard. Ah ha. So natural law is not "nonsense on stilts" after all.

The Transformation of War and The Rise and Decline of the State by Martin Van Creveld. The future of war, conflict, and the nation state, according to one of the most prominent military historians and philosophers. Only read if you want your world view shaken, not stirred.

Democracy: The God That Failed by Hans Herman Hoppe. When you want to skip having your world view shaken and go straight for the puree'. Yet it is so obvious you can't believe you didn't see it already.

Honorable mention to the collected works of CG Jung.

 

[gilliatt]

Well, okay

Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises
The Man who Laughs by Victor Hugo
The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson
An Introduction to Logic by W. B. Joseph
History of Philosophy by Wilhelm Windelband
The Weapon Shops of Isher by A. E. Van Vogt
The Collapsing Universe(The story of Black Holes) by Isaac Asimov
Night of January 16TH a play by Ayn Rand
The Law by Frederic Bastiat
The Lady and the Tycoon by Rose Wilder Lane
Our Enemy, The State by Albert J. Nock
We The Living by Ayn Rand
Studies in Tape Reading by Rollo Tape
The Magazine of Wall Street
Where the Money Grows by Garrett
Psychology of the Stock Market by G. Selden
Wall Street Ventures and Adventures by Richard D. Wyckoff
The Earth Chronicles by Zecharia Sitchin

 

[LarsMac]

The Bible, KJV
the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
Shardik, by Richard Adams
Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
The True Believer, Eric Hoffer
A Tale of Two Cities, C Dickens
Great Expectations, C Dickens
Be Here Now, Ram Dass
Foundation Trilogy, Asimov
The Physiology of Taste, Brillat Savarin
the Panda's Thumb, Stephen Jay Gould

to name a few

 

[Silphiums]

Yes, good books listed... I should start to takes notes.

In no particular order:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Adams
Rocks of Ages - Stephen Jay Gould. His concept of NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria) to describe how science and religion relate to one another - and not in conflict.
Happy Yoga: 7 Reasons Why There's Nothing to Worry About - Steve Ross
Scars of Evolution - Elaine Morgan. Heard of the aquatic ape hypothesis? you should.
Our Friend the Atom - No idea on the author, my dad gave it to me when I was four.
Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin - Another SJ Gould book (I love them all, but these two in particular were influential in my world view)
Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Kuhn
The Evolution Man: Or How I Ate My Father - Roy Lewis
A Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold
In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time - Dava Sobel

First ones to pop in my head.

 

[JimJambones]

1984, George Orwell
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
Freethinkers, Susan Jacoby
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
Tao Ti Ching, Lao Tzu
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman

 

[Aeroflot]

The Sabbath Heschel
God in Search of Man Heschel
The Abraham Principle

Various books on Buddhism, including those that critique it. Can't remember exact titles.

 

[gilliatt]

Let's see, oh three books that has influenced my miserable life:

"The Man Who Laughed", by Victor Hugo.
"Economics in One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt
"Anthem" by Ayn Rand

One day we will bury our teeth!!!

 

[Analyzer]

Let's see, oh three books that has influenced my miserable life:

"The Man Who Laughed", by Victor Hugo.
"Economics in One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt
"Anthem" by Ayn Rand

One day we will bury our teeth!!!

Have you ever read Memoirs of a Superfluous Man by Albert J Nock? If so what are your thoughts? Do you think he was a INTP?

 

[Tristitian]

Leviathan - Hobbes

Utilitarianism - JS Mill

All of Kant

Myers Psychology

 

[Analyzer]

Leviathan - Hobbes

I have read this book but I am wondering where did the Levaiathan come from? What was the evolutionary process for it come to be? Have you ever read The State by Franz Oppenheimer ?

 

[onesteptwostep]

For worldview:
Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker series
The Varieties of Religious Experience - William James
The Social Conquest of Earth - Edward O. Wilson
interwebz

My sense of morality:
The Bible

 

[TBerg]

The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt: Showed me how we all have moral biases that are probably based upon biology. Lifted the veil upon the reality that conservative values might actually be the key to holding a civilization together.

Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali: A dramatic and inspiring invitation to look into the lives of certain Muslims and see someone rise above the attitudes of those around them. I envy her linguistic facility.

Radical, by Maajid Nawaz: Shows me the actual difference between Islam proper and the superficial application of excerpts upon political Islamism, as well as how legitimate grievances can be channelled into illegitimate aims. It also showed me a world of cultish dysfunction and facile worldviews. Inspires me to channel my thoughts into classically liberal causes, without judging anyone by their "membership" in specific groups and instead holding them radically accountable as individuals. This does not negate my sociological conservatism.

Night, by Elie Wiesel: Informs me so dreadfully that we can just survive anything, but that it does not remove the contemptible nature of the situation itself. There is nothing to learn from despairing depravity other than to avoid it at all costs. Fuck the Holocaust. Fuck darkness. Fuck totalitarianism and Orwellianism.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini: Reminds me that some people just get shit their entire lives, shows me the utter depravity of fundamentalism in Afghanistan, and shows me that it deserves to be defeated just as slavery was defeated here.

Analects of Confucius and the Dao De Jing: They lay out an intuitive approach to society and individual morality that can belie many of our conceits as individuals. Confucius showed the necessity of a strong moral order from the top down in preventing catastrophes from happening to societies and states, and Laozi showed how many of our elaborations are decadent frauds we perpetrate upon social life (that we would not need moral philosophy if we had goodness in our hearts in the first place, and that our actions often result in more complication and more despair). Wu xin, wu wei.

 

[Yellow]

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

I read it when I was 18 and it completely restructured the way I viewed the history and future of humanity, culture, education, politics, and our place in the natural world. I honestly don't know if I'd be the same person today without this book. I'm not sure I would have been clever enough to come to the same conclusions on my own. The subsequent novels The Story of B and My Ishmael were also significant because they carry the same message in slightly different ways.

 

[Hat-Wearing MAN]

Mein Kampf.

 

[Sockrates]

Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead
How to Win Friends & Influence People
1984
Animal Farm (Probably my favorite)
The Intelligent Investor

Just a few that I care to name, mainly because I think that all people should read these pieces.

 

[Seteleechete]

Ascension by Gabriel Da Silva. It's a little known book and is the only piece of literature I have ever called a masterpiece. Da Silva steps away from conventional writing and all his books are really unique.

The book itself opened my eyes for myself and heavily influenced me to ask about my own place in the world. I feel into a depression shortly after, that lasted a year so there is that. The book is partially for that happening, but i refuse to lay responsibility anywhere but my own shoulders. I also never cried as hard as i did reading this book. I never finished the last 1/6th of the book and it hurts to much to go back and do so now. Fully possible i am over hyping the book and it just caught me in a bad time, but it is truly a marvelous piece of writing.

Anyway since it is a little known book let me leave this link. http://www.lulu.com/shop/gabriel-da-silva/ascension/ebook/product-17552128.html




"'Ascension' is a dark, twisted, punky, funky kind of sci-fi.
It's set on a world contained within a huge tower.
Hell is at the bottom, Heaven at the top.

Frakture is a humanoid being born limbless who can swap appendages at will.
And she was born in Hell so there's no surprise she's on her way to Heaven.

But as she ventures across the weird and wonderful surrealist landscapes of Babel with only her fiery determination to guide her, you way well find yourself asking the same questions of your life as she does of her's.

How much better does your life have to get before you give up pushing yourself and accept what you've got?"