Books that shake the world

[NecroCombine666]

I'm interested in shattering books. Not super cute romance, but books with insane gore, books with shattering concepts, risky claims, books that could ruin a mind if they fell into the wrong hands. Extreme books if you will. Books like David Icke writes. Books that are so wild and out of this world you would never believe. Books you hate for the claims they make or content they old. Books that disgust you. So if you've got a book that meets any of this criteria add it to the list. For me I have none. Or at least haven't came across one yet and I doubt I will considering I'm into this stuff. Lets see what kind of books we dig up.

Please no mentions of the bible. We all know that would start a giant fight.

[NickAdams]

Works of fiction like Marquis de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom, or are you also interested in non-fiction works like those written by Galileo and Einstein?

There's actually a book about this subject. I think it's called Books to Ruin a Mind, or something like that.

[NecroCombine666]

I'm looking for anything.

[NecroCombine666]

hmm i did a search for "Books to Ruin a Mind" and found nothing

[amalia1985]

Τhe Clockwork Orange or American Psycho. Just a suggestion.

[armenian]

Mein Kampf

[NecroCombine666]

ha I remeber Mein Kampf. My hippie teacher encouraged me to read it. Telling me how it was banned and burned in all kinds of places. After that I used to walk around school to see what stares I got with books like "The Serial Killer Files" and the Satanic Bible.

[armenian]

its overhyped for what it is and boring

i read it when i was younger and thought going against decency ment i had an open mind

[NecroCombine666]

yeah. It's nice to dig just deep enough to find out the shock value but with most books once its discovered its worthless and you see that the media and religon overhypes things. Like banning Harry Potter.

[kelby_lake]

Lolita

[xenon]

Darwin's Origin of Species. Read it with something by Richard Dawkins (i.e. The Selfish Gene)for full effect.

No gore or anything, but philosophically, evolution, especially in its generalized form as interpreted by Dawkins, has radical and perhaps deeply disturbing implications, upending our traditional views of human life, both religious and humanistic. Evolution is able to explain humans as a natural phenomenon, purely in terms of cause and effect, rather than purpose. Taken to its logical conclusion with Dawkins, we realize that we are merely vehicles for replicating DNA, and everything, all human desires, can be explained in these terms. Sexual love can be interpreted as selected instinct for producing more copies of one's genes, while altruistic love (such as sacrificing one's life to preserve those of other humans) can be interpreted as preserving many vehicles that probably carry copies of one's genes, thereby maximizing the number of copies of these genes. This necessarily entails nihilism.

Sorry for probably stirring up possibly distasteful controversy, but controversy ought naturally be a consequence of how much a book "shakes the world."

[backline]

Niccolo Machiavelli: The Prince

I remember this book really riled up some people in a College English class I was in some decades ago.

I thought Machiavelli was simply codifying some observations. He seemed to be reporting on some pretty normative ways power people stay in power. Accurately, I thought!

[Dr. Hill]

Read De Profundis, especially if you take interest in Wilde.

[iswarya]

the book 120 days of sodom has nothing great about it. it is a usual monotonous book with sex as its theme, but nothing delightfully entertaining as you might expect, in my opinion

thank you

[Pensive]

Mein Kampf

Was just going to mention it myself. And I think the same goes for other political works of fiction/non-fiction...