Posted by Cam W. on August 20, 2000, at 0:28:18
In reply to Favorite Self Help books, posted by gritslad on August 19, 2000, at 17:08:53
I've always wanted to go through my books and pick out the one's that have given me the most insight into the human experience. In a pseudo-order of importance to me, they are:
-Being and Nothingness - Jean-Paul Sartre
-Ethics - Baruch Spinoza
-Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
-Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of the Crowds - Charles Mackay
-The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
-On the Road - Jack Kerouac
-Off the Road - Carolyn Cassady
-Heaven and Hell - Aldous Huxley
-Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saaveda
-Music, the Brain, and Ecstacy - Robert Jourdain
-Existentialism From Dostoevsky to Sartre - Walter Kaufman
-The History of Science in Western Civilizations, Vols I, II, and III (esp. II) - L. Pearce Williams & Henry John Steffens
-The House of the Dead - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
-The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant
-The Plague - Albert Camus
-Symposium - Plato
-A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawkings
-On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life) - Charles Darwin
-Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
-The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
-An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume
-Candide - Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)
-The Divine Comedy - Dante Alghieri
-Kaddish and Other Poems (1958 - 1960) - Allen Ginsberg
-The Republic - Plato
-Raise the Roof Beam, Carpenters - J.D. Salinger
-The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test - Tom Wolfe
-A Doll's House - Henrik IbsenThese books (as well as some others that don't mean as much to me) are on a separate book shelf in my office). Many, I have read several times (esp. Being and Nothingness). All give a different slant to the human condition, which I find has not changed in thousands of years. These books have shaped who I am. It's funny, I really didn't start tapping into my artsy side until I was about 30. I now find that my life would have been totally incomplete if I had stuck strictly to science.
If anyone would like to debate the finer points of any of these books, I would love to. My take on some of them seems to differ from commentaries of many of the English majors. Also, if anyone knows of any books to complement these, I would greatly appreciate your imput.
Jeez, I just looked over my list. I am a geek. - Cam
poster:Cam W.
thread:87
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20000813/msgs/105.html