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.
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.
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?
Marcus Aurelius Meditations
@maturin1919 That would be me
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!
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.
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.
“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.
"A Generation of Vipers" by Philip Wylie, and "Invitation to Philosophy: Issues and Options" by (if I remember correctly (Honer and Hunt).
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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Wow, ill try to narrow it down to just a few.
Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. If you have not read this, please please do so.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirzig
The Demon Haunted World, by Carl Sagan
Tao of Jeet Kune Do, by Bruce Lee
Universe, Earth and Atom, by Alan Nourse
I would say the first proper book I read had the most effect. Not because of it's content or story, it was The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but because it opened up the idea of reading. I never read anything in my own time and only read what I had to at school to get me by. John Wyndham opened up a universe of wonder.
Waaaay too many to enumerate. i know my writing style was more influenced by john lennon's books than by books i consider better written than those; i can't help it. they influenced me. but my worldview, apart from my writing style? hmm. maybe... oh gosh, i could list hundreds. before my eyes went bad i used to read an awful lot. i wish i still could. be that as it may, here are a few... or a few dozen... let's see how far i get before i have to stop myself. in no particular order: cancer ward and pretty much anything else by aleksandr solzhenitsyn, edith hamilton's greek mythology, cry the beloved country by alan paton, the danny kaye around the world story book, stranger in a strange land and pretty much anything else by robert a heinlein, the manchurian candidate, gentleman's agreement, the works of harlan ellison but in particular the glass teat and the other glass teat, all the books i could get my hands on by elie wiesel, elizabeth foreman lewis, chaim potok, stephen becker, charles dickens, thomas hardy, fyodr dostoevsky, primo levi, joanna russ (omg everyone go read all of her nonfiction, not that her fiction isn't wonderful, but her nonfiction is amazing), antoine de saint-exupéry (and pardon me if i have misspelled him), louisa may alcott, robert louis stevenson, mark twain, j d salinger, even albert payson terhune, though thankfully i did not adopt his racism, nevil shute, laurens van der post, desmond morris, robert graves, edward eager, maya angelou, ogden nash, robert lowell, john berryman, i am leaving out a boatload of important influences for sure but these came off the top of my head. oh, lewis carroll and edward lear. nonsense influenced me an awful lot, which is why lennon made such an impression, and that reminds me i should add s j perelman and h h munro to that mix. okay i'll stop but there are so many more....
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The God Delusion
Cosmos
God Is Not Great
The Brothers Karamazov
Probably have to say Anarchist Morality by Peter Kropotkin. I rarely quote it anymore but it lead me down a long path and many of the others that influenced me greatly I may never have read if it wasn't for this book.
Fredy Perlman's Against His-Story - Against Leviathan, a Jaques Ellul's The Technological Society are both in my top 3 as well.