....or yourself and others you know. List your books here that had that particular influence and why.
....or yourself and others you know. List your books here that had that particular influence and why.
No man should die without first reading the world's greatest literature.
Back in high school I read some of the dialogues of Socrates; until then, it never occured to me that obsessive questioning of things was good (it never seems to get to any concrete end). This ignited my desire to learn, anything and everything I could. It was a turning point for me.
“Yet love seeketh not his own! Dear,
You may take my happiness to make you happier,
Even though you never know I gave it you –
Only let me hear sometimes, all alone,
The distant laughter of your joy!...”
Many to list:
Most of the dialogues of Plato, Nicomachean Ethics and Metaphysics by Aristotle, The Complete Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, various essays by Friedrich Nietzsche, C.S. Lewis, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, Arthur Schopenhauer, Pythagoras, Michel de Montaigne, and Dag Hammarskjöld, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Varieties of Religious Experiences by William James, Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism in Ordinary Experiences by James Carse, The Celestine Vision by James Redfield, Memories, Dream, Reflections by Carl Jung, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess and Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain, Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the poetry of Rumi, Emily Dickinson, and E.E. Cummings.
Whew!
mono, I see you've been changing your view about the world for quite a few times
But, seriosy, I admire this! Must be a really exciting experience when your views get changed. Unfortunaley, I can't think of any book that really changed my views. It's like all of them together shaped my viewes and became a part of what I am right now....Each one a little, but no particular ones really...
Kieergarrd's books, Satre's, Heller's Eco's..
I have never necessarily changed my view of the world, but, to me a 'good' book, a book that theoretically changes one's view of the world, agrees and, in a way, elucidates a reader's own views, realizing that what he/she reads corresponds to his/her own beliefs.Originally Posted by nadinka
mono, I see you've been changing your view about the world for quite a few times
But, seriosy, I admire this! Must be a really exciting experience when your views get changed. Unfortunaley, I can't think of any book that really changed my views. It's like all of them together shaped my viewes and became a part of what I am right now....Each one a little, but no particular ones really...
I think if someone felt yanked around THAT much in beliefs, as many books as I have listed above, he/she never began anywhere with independent theories, but lay merely as a blank slate, waiting for fulfilment from the knowledge of writers, philosophers, and poets. I would like to think that we all begin with not a blank slate, but a slate that we may not have the ability to decipher the writing, that, sometimes, gains more understanding with the knowledge of books; they allow us to discover the wisdom within ourselves.
My chased for universal understanding may have begun as early as the day I realized that the framework of mathematics was arbitrary, yet somehow still that as a whole it could hold absolute truth.
In Siddartha and Narcissus and Goldmund, among others I suspect- Hesse hints at the universality of all seemingly disjointed knowlege. This is manifested in the basis of the glassbead's game where Castalians toss around any and all disciplines using the universal language. Essentially, Hesse has reconcilled one last thing in "The Glass Beads Game" and that thing is everything.
Most books have changed something in me, maybe just realizing emotions I have never known myself.
Lord of the flies is very good and reaches the core of humanity that touched me. The dialoges of Socrates and other philosophers
One book I really love is The Last Flower by James Thurber, it's a poem with pictures and it's just great.
I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo
If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, understand it's the way I am- Mr. Spock
Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil. - Baudelaire
The 'Cosmic Trigger' series by Robert Anton Wilson. And 'Prometheus Rising' by the same author. Really worth a read - if you get 'em they're great (met a couple of people wjo haven't grasped the irony/ guerilla ontology).
Gotta agree with mono: every good book I've ever read has changed the way I view the world. And you know what? Life is too short to read crappy books; so as soon as I realize that I'm wading through Ca-Ca, I toss the book onto the dung heap. (How’s that for a scatological metaphor for poor writing?)
Anyhow, good books expand and enrich my understanding of the world, they take me in different directions, make me think of things in different ways, make me question my own assumptions, and all of that necessarily changes me.
Have I mentioned that I like to read?
Uhhhh...
Oh yes,
Bandini, dig the siggy.
My favorite bumber sticker: "I'm sorry my Karma ran over your Dogma"
Uhhhh...
Can you explain further please?
I don't really get your point..
Maugham's "Of Human Bondage"
P.S. subterranian, you have such a magnificent signature... Pleased.
I believe every single book that talk about knowledge is good, i read many things specially over the internet, but what really got my mind was one paragraph of Rumi's words, i read it and it change me forever, but once again i believe every single book is worth reading
The Sacred Tree. I came across the book in an Aboriginal Anthropology class. It is a blueprint outlining North American aboriginal spiritual beliefs, customs, representations of their icons, drawings and some few rituals. It lays out a foundation for a perspective on the world that encourages enlightenment, peace, free will and volition as the driving forces for a successful life of peace and contentment. Fascinating stuff..........
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