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.
"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
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.
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.
"The Pearl" by John Steinbeck.
It was assigned reading in high school and it is also the book that first got me interested in reading a lot more books. In Steinbeck's nonfiction book "The Sea of Cortez", he mentions the inspiration for the story was based on a story he heard from local villagers of supposedly actual events. "The Pearl" and "The Grapes of Wrath" both together show harsh relaities and put me in touch with the real world, after having been raised in an insulated religious home which left me very sheltered from reality.
It was not long after that I also read "Animals Farm" an d"1984" by George Orwell, which showed me tht although reality was harsh, things could always be/get much worse.
Those four books flipped me from the conservative mindset i ws brought up to have, to a progressive mindse, seeing fairness and equality for all.
"Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin.
"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and "Cancer Ward" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"The Art of Loving" by Erich Fromm.
"The Pearl" by John Steinbeck.
"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck.
"Nine Stories" by J.D. Salinger
"The War Prayer" by Mark Twain.
"Side Effects" by Woody Allen.
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell.
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.
Cutting it down to 3 is still substantial.
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
The Creature from Jeckyl Island by G. Edward Griffin
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.
The satanic bible by anton lavey or the god delusion by Richard Dawkins
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.
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.