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#12
08-13-2007, 01:09 AM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter [/ QUOTE ] I almost bought this book. Wasn't quite sold on it. What did you like best about it? [/ QUOTE ] I just found it really enjoyable to read. I read it ~10 years ago I was like 14 or 15, so at the time everything seemed super deep and like "woah." Someone else can chime in as to whether it has that same effect once you get past the teenager stage, but I have a feeling it does, although probably to a lesser extent. If your interests are diverse and you can find beauty in a lot of different subjects you'll enjoy the book. For me he took a bunch of subjects that I didn't know much about (musical composition theory, mathematical set theory, human vision, buddhism, etc), presented them in ways that were really interesting, and tied everything together as it went along. The way things were tied together was super fun. I dunno, I'm having trouble describing it adequately. I'm sure part of my love for the book was due to my age at the time, but I really think anyone who considers themselves to be an academic/intellectual/renaissance man type person will enjoy it. 
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#14
08-13-2007, 01:53 AM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
Influence: Science and Practice (Robert Cialdini)
It talks about influencing people.
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#15
08-13-2007, 02:03 AM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
In no particular order (except for the 1st one)...
Catcher In The Rye.....the ultimate Slaughter House Five....my favorite Vonnegut but all are worth reading Siddhartha.....become one with yourself my friend Night....powerful powerful sh*t Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.....don't need to be a hippie to appreciate these 20 pages of gold Skinny Legs And All.....very creative characters and intelligently written. Also Jitterbug Perfume deserves a nod if we are talking Tom Robbins Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close....moving in so many ways. One of the best 'newer' books. Plato Complete works....this one might take you a while so I would start as soon as possible [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
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#16
08-13-2007, 02:34 AM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
If you want good advice, I think you need to tell us more. There are thousands of excellent books in the English language, and you can't read them all. What are your current favorites? What are you trying to accomplish? What do you like (action, dialogue, characters, philosophy)?
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#17
08-13-2007, 03:49 AM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
if you're into philosophical fiction:
the brothers karamazov by dostoevsky crime and punishment by dostoevsky the plague by albert camus the stranger by albert camus man's fate by andre malraux the gospel according to jesus christ by jose saramago (recently won the nobel prize) interesting/intellectual reads: anything by milan kundera, but especially the unbearable lightness of being and the book of laughter and forgetting. anything by haruki murakami. i really liked sputnik sweetheart and the wind-up bird chronicle j.m. coetzee- waiting for the barbarians " "- disgrace " "- slow man these are also semi-philosophical novels. orhan pamuk-snow he recently won the nobel prize. the book is about a wandering poet's search for god and love and his attempts to reconcile the western and eastern aspects of his identity. GREAT BOOK. (for me, at least.. i'm persian). k, that's all i can think of for now. these books aren't the easiest of reads, but they are definitely worth the effort.
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#18
08-13-2007, 04:05 AM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
Catch-22
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#19
08-13-2007, 11:25 AM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
I forgot to add Guns, Germs, and Steel. Amazing book that won a nobel prize. It asks the question, 'why is the world the way it is (in all facets)' and then goes about in trying to answer that question.
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#20
08-13-2007, 11:35 AM
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Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
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Linear Mode
