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books that changed your life.

A good book always seems to impact and change my life. Yet there are a couple books that i can honestly say directly changed the way i view the world.


The Lucifer Principle - Howard Bloom... This book gives a historical and scientific analysis of biology, and basically presents a dense wealth of interesting information without really pushing anything too directly. This book changed the way i view people, animals, and most importantly, groups. One has to respect a guy like Bloom for his painstaking commitment to research, more than half of his book is a devoted appendix of the scientific studies that he cited.


Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche... A more recent discovery, helped me to mold some completely new patterns of thought. This book also allowed me to fully free myself from the chains of christianity that had muddled my mind since i was a toddler.
 
i feel stupid reading fiction, there are so many more fascinating things to read about in non-fiction/history. A character in a book is never going to match the complexity of an actual human being, even when that character is based on a real person. Unless every thought that the character had was had by a real person in the same situation, trying to interpret meaning from their actions seems pointless. thats just me tho...
 
This Perfect Day- Ira Levin

It is the tale of a lad named Chip, in a future world in which the great socialist dream has finally been realized. Preferring one person to another is a sign of social maladjustment. "Fight" is a dirty word; "f**k" is just the usual term for an activity no more important than sleeping or urination. Everyone is told what to do by "Uni," the great computer that organizes society and keeps track of everyone's location via electronic bracelet. (And one of the dirtiest, most maladjusted and antisocial expressions anyone can utter is "Fight Uni.")

This book is often compared to 1984, Brave New World, Anthem, etc.
But, unlike the other novels which merely portrayed the oppressiveness and corruption of a political and social system based on communism or socialism, "This Perfect Day" clearly contrasts the pros and cons of a "free" society to those of a carefully-controlled "utopia". At the end, the reader isn't necessarily sure that the people of that world will be better off without Uni (the computer that regulates their lives) than they were with it.

This is a thought-provoking novel with a hero who the reader identifies and sympathizes with. As another reviewer has mentioned, it has particular resonance in post 9/11 America where people are readily surrendering freedom to the government for perceived security and comfort. Unfortunately, it is likely that the clear message that 'communism is bad' will overwhelm the more subtle message that allowing any governing body to make certain types of choices for you in the name of security (be it protection from harm or simply feeling secure about food being on the table at each meal) is not necessarily a good idea.
 
In no particular order

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

An extension on Darwin's 'The Origin of Species', but from the gene level upwards. Cuts through the mumbo-jumbo as it doesn't require a god to strike the spark of life on Earth


1984 by George Orwell

How by controlling language and implying that we are in a continuous state of emergency it's possible not only to supress dissent, but the capacity for dissent


Lord of the Flies by William Golding

That without boundaries and guidance, children can be every bit as vicious and cruel as adults. Very relevant in these days of disintergration of the family unit


The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

One person with foresight, in the right place, at the right time can change the world (for the better). Also quite revealing as to the cult of personality.


The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

Why we aren't so fuckin' special, like all the religeous nuts would have us believe. We're just animals that developed language - that is the ONLY difference (so we should respect animals and not see them as disposable commodities)


Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

That if you have a message that you want to get across, it's OK to exaggerate facts almost to the point of fiction. Also that the capitalist dream is a nightmare for those who don't buy into the worship of money.


Chickenhawk by Robert Mason

Memoirs of a helicopter pilot in Vietnam in 65/66. How war can take a well balanced and caring individual and turn his life upside down to the point of madness


and finally

The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams

No-one understands how the whole world/technology works (although some bullshit artists will try to make on they do) and when it goes wrong, and you're helpless to do anything to change circumstances, the best thing to do is to step back and laugh at the absurdity of it all or else you'll go mad through the frustration (y'know, Life, the Universe and Everything).


There are others, but those are the ones that had the most impact
 
Parfit: "Reasons and Persons"

Argues that we are scalar beings and that there is no basis for belief in an absolute (all-or-nothing) self or soul. This work is so cogent because it uses demonstrable phenomena and empirical data from actually existing split-brain "individuals" in conjunction with an airtight rational argument (for my view this style is the most deeply convincing). So much comes crumbling down. Just find the isolated argument online, Parfit's later jump to Utilitarianism isn't nearly so convincing. The commensurate scholarly supplement to what psychedelics teach us first-hand.
 
I tend to stick with authors on a whole and find it hard to pick one book from my fav authors.
Anything by the following:

Robert Anton Wilson
Mohatma Ghandi
Tom Robbins
Ernest Hemingway
and especially Charles Bukowski, he is a God.
 
Conversations with God, books 1 thru 3.

These books only re-affirmed what I already believed about God. I highly recommend them to all.
 
1984 definitely(I didnt think a book could rape someone intellectually but it did for me) still probably the most relevant piece of literature of the latter half of the 20th century (at least for Western civ). It implies the darkness of the now...
it was really shocking when I read it in Grade 9.

Barthes Image, Music, Text
My favorite book that sums up art, books and music. A good thinking book.

Douglas Coupland - Shampoo Planet
Summed up the 90s for me. Was something to get me through my teenage years...

Leonard Cohen - Beautiful Losers
A great book when I read it in high school...opens your mind.

Austen - Pride and Prejudice, taught me how to HATE a book. I was forced to read it several times...and in university
I still think its the work of the devil. Just a BAD book...

Kafka - The Trial
Just a twisted book...its perfect unfinished. Very surreal very dark.
A bigger influence then I realise.
 
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1984........made me think of how life would be if I didn't live in America and all the real hardships I could have to endure on a day to day basis.

The Inferno.......what if Hell really was that bad, or maybe worse? My thoughts on religion and life changed after reading this classic.

But I think every book makes us think in some way, even if it's not a good book. There is always something in a book that changes the way we think on something. And they don't make us rethink things, they help us gain more knowledge and respect for something. All books contain some tidbit of knowledge that can start the wheels turning in our minds and (possibly) change our lives.
 
Tihkal, Pihkal, The Lord of the Rings, Beyond Good and Evil, A Young Girl's Diary, The bible, The Communist Manifesto, Forbidden books of the original New Testament
And fear and loathing in las vages of course
 
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