Reply With QuoteThus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche and Brave New World by Huxley are the biggest that come to mind.
Books that have made a difference on our lives.
There are a lot of books that over time reach in and change our lives.
In 6th grade it was, Johnny got his gun.
In high school it was the Apology, by Plato, Catcher in the Rye, and some others,
College, H. Heart Crane, Voyages, Ginsburg, Bob Dylan, The list grows from there.
I'll add more as I remember.
What where yours?
PS. my mood is not very good, so if you are going to post BS, expect a vacation. ............ I wish I did not have to say that.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche and Brave New World by Huxley are the biggest that come to mind.
Hmmm, I like my books and own over a thousand, but I'm hard pressed (ha - pressed get it!) to think of any that changed my live. There's a number that I have read again and again because they're enjoyable mind you.
Cheer up Hollis. You've been through worse I'm sure
Most important and nearly my favorite book I have ever read: All Quiet on the Western Front.
Nothing is in my estimation a better portrayal of the life of a common soldier. It presents its message without you even knowing it because it is such a seamlessly written novel that accomplishes the primary purpose of entertainment without sacrificing any bit of realism or integrity.
Little Bear: The first book I ever read on my own. Now my son owns it.
The Odyssey: This I assume needs no introduction. Another book from my early childhood. It is extremely entertaining to this day.
The Sun also Rises: My favorite Hemingway and hugely important in the formation of the American male writers' style.
The Good Earth: If you need to know what a man needs for real happiness, read this book.
Yes, very great choice, Remarques book, before and then after Viet-Nam was especially meaningful. I am also a Hemingway fan. The good Earth is a choice one too.Originally Posted by Rattfink
Cheer up Hollis. You've been through worse I'm sure
Most important and nearly my favorite book I have ever read: All Quiet on the Western Front.
Nothing is in my estimation a better portrayal of the life of a common soldier. It presents its message without you even knowing it because it is such a seamlessly written novel that accomplishes the primary purpose of entertainment without sacrificing any bit of realism or integrity.
Little Bear: The first book I ever read on my own. Now my son owns it.
The Odyssey: This I assume needs no introduction. Another book from my early childhood. It is extremely entertaining to this day.
The Sun also Rises: My favorite Hemingway and hugely important in the formation of the American male writers' style.
The Good Earth: If you need to know what a man needs for real happiness, read this book.
Like Kiwi, the list is very long.
So far:
- Dale Carnegie, "How to win friends and influence on people"; I think about it every time I face a complicated scenario with people.
- When I was a kid: Emilio Salgari, "I pescatori di Trepang" (in spanish); made me wish with all my forces I was an explorer, and even though I never achieved that, I could say it gave me a taste for exploring and for learning about distant places that never changed.
- Stephen Hawking, "The grand design". The kind of book that makes you put it on the table, look at the window and say "...sh*t, man, Is that how things are?".
Iīll think about others later.
1984 had a big effect on how I thought about people and how some can become manipulative and soulless, as did Heart of Darkness.
I really like Homer's Odyssey, it made me more interested about the world, and I still dream to have an Odyssey like travel of the uncivilized/uninhabited world someday.
One of my favorite books has always been The Great Gatsby.
A great read indeed. I always thought that 2001 a space Odyssey theme song would have created a revival in Nietzsche. Never happened.
Were it not for 2 kindles and a library card, books would overrun mine and my wife's house.
Yes! It hits the nail on the head when it comes to the importance of language in the thought of a people.
This thread is bringing out the nerd in me.
We had a very large library. Wife like novels, I like history, tech, theological, philosophical and others. We have donate several 100 feet of books to the local library. Our house is being overrunned.
IMHO, it is something else, not the nerd, the person.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
AG
when I was a kid, I read a lot of books on dogs, by old time author Albert Payson Terhune. Another "kind of deep" book I read fairly young was the novel "On the Beach", later a movie. I read Catcher in the Rye and a lot of other assignment books, mostly not caring for them.
When I was in Junior High I read a book I really enjoyed called Diving for Pleasure and Treasure, by Marine Robert Marx, and ex WWII submariner Clay Blair (now deceased) (which played on my interest in scuba diving, treasure hunting, adventure, etc) (about this time I began my move away from fiction and novels toward history, and non-fiction)
Moving on thru life, and having read hundreds of books, these I really enjoyed for various reasons:
1. Goodbye To a River by Texas author and WWII marine veteran/purple heart recepient John Graves (the book concerns his canoe trip down the Brazos in about 1957) (my favorite book of all time, I carried a ragged copy my entire tour of duty in the army)
2. Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey....a kind of later day hippie/ Henry Thoreau, Ed Abbey wrote beautifully, deceased now.
3. The Life and Legend of Doc Holiday by Gary Roberts
4. Bat Masterson the Man Behind the Myth, by Robert K. DeArment
Lots of others, but those are good examples of my eclectic taste in books. I can say # 1 and 2 did change my life in ways. Numbers 3 and 4, not so much but were influences on me certainly.
The Bible ....during the ages 5 - 12, I spent summers on a dairy farm run by my mother's aunt and her husband. Aunt Carol was a "church" person. One week each summer, I went to vacation bible school (VBS). I won my own Bible by reading the most books in it and then answering questions about it. Not sure Aunt Carol ever really recovered from that.
Many things I read then, I have used or recalled in my life.
Growing up, in HS, I liked to read historical auto-biographies....Ben Franklin; Thomas Jefferson; George Washington; Daniel Boone; etc....this has continued into my adult life. Bios on various people....Churchill; Amelia Earhart; Gandhi; Kipling; U.S. Civil War participants; WWI; WWII; Korean; VN participants; Will Rogers; tc., etc., etc.
They are both informative and , in many cases, inspirational.
^^
Thatīs good to know.
Our homeīs library is over 900 (last time I counted and registered); my auntīs library is twice bigger.
Books have always been around.
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