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Personally influential books...anyone?

Wholeness and the Implicate Order - David Bohm
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
 
Grim said:
Wholeness and the Implicate Order - David Bohm
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I've just read "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot which embraces the Bohmian idea of an implicate and explicate order and I found it very interesting to say the least. I'm thinking of buying this book but first I'd like to know if it can be understood without prior knowledge of quantum physics and other advanced physical theories. What's your opinion on that?
 
Grim said:
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
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Did you read that after I recommended it, or did you pick itnup somewhere as well? I saw it and thought it looked interesting, so I picked it up in the bookstore.
 
GrOwThSpUrT said:
Did you read that after I recommended it, or did you pick itnup somewhere as well? I saw it and thought it looked interesting, so I picked it up in the bookstore.
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I read that book years ago, my brother was the one who actually recommended it. It is definately very insightful and helped me relate to people a lot and realize certain things that we don't usually realize. :)

redeemer said:
I've just read "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot which embraces the Bohmian idea of an implicate and explicate order and I found it very interesting to say the least. I'm thinking of buying this book but first I'd like to know if it can be understood without prior knowledge of quantum physics and other advanced physical theories. What's your opinion on that?
Click to expand...

I've read "The Holographic Universe" as well and liked it. However, it bears too much speculation. Bohm's book, while still quite controversial is a bit more solid so to speak. You don't really need much knowledge of the Quantum theory to understand "Wholeness and the Implicate Order," it is written for the layman. It does have a few instances where he puts equations, but the understanding of them is not required to get the full benefit of the book. It is written in a relatively non-scientific manner. He did write a book on the subject that is aimed at physicists which I have not read yet, but am planning to. It is called "The Undivided Universe: an Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory" by David Bohm and Basil J. Hiley. The one I mentioned however can be read without much technical knowledge, just an open mind an interest in the matter.
 
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Me too. Especially the part about the ubiquitous television sets that Goldstein uses to watch people in their homes with. I think his name is Goldstein; something like that, anyway.
 
alasdairm said:
the four agreements

alasdair
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yeah this book is good!
i need to read it again. its really good for putting your head back into perspective and simplifiying things.
would be good to read once a year i think.

im also bumping these classics, which give insight to the darkness of human nature, alienation, the ordering and control of society in a gripping fictional way.

*the catcher in the rye - salinger
*the bell jar - sylvia plath
*brave new world - huxley
*the lord of the flies - william golding
 
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"Kabbalah decoder"
Janet Berenson-Perkins.

But I didn't drink the water.;)

BARRON'S

They make a good SAT Prep book too.
 
the book on the taboo of knowing who you are - alan watts
taught me about buddhism/taoism and ego-hallucination

be here now - ram dass
gave me a new, extremely happy, perspective on life. read it multiple times, all but once on psychedelics

the dragons of eden - carl sagan
taught me why I behave and am the way I am by describing the evolution of man and his brain

dharma bums - jack kerouac
great novel about kerouac hiking in mountains and being very buddhist, hanging out with crazies like Ginsberg. it is a good way to give new zest to your life

on the road - jack kerouac
another great kerouac novel, probably his most well-known. gave me the first ideas that life is meant to be enjoyed, and everything doesn't revolve around material success

the way of zen - alan watts
probably the best book by watts I have read. it was the first book on Zen that helped me to REALLY understand what Zen means. it teaches you to think with an Eastern mentality

the politics of ecstasy - timothy leary
essentially....convinced me to drop acid
 
Nobody here seems to be answering what their most 'influential' books were, because I'm sure they might be favorites but they wouldn't necessarily by influential unless you really stretched to find meaning in the book.

Books haven't really influenced me or my life all that much. Two that stand out from the past few years are Gandhi's autobiography, and Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Both helped push me in the direction of militant pacifist and anti-corporate idealogue at a faster rate than I was already going. PiHKAL and TiHKAL were pretty influential too, in a way - they helped shape me into the type of person that has a longer checklist of alphabet soup drugs they've tried than most peoples' checklist of books they've read.

If you just want a list of 'favorites', let me tack on a few:

The Story of B, by Daniel Quinn
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Keranina, by Leo Tolstoy
The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
1984, by George Orwell
Shogun, by James Clavell
Dirty White Boys, by Stephen Hunter
Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck
Dopefiend, by Donald Goines
BFG, by Roald Dahl
The Bhagavad Gita
Tao Te Ching
 
Oh man I couldn't even finish reading Sophie's World, I hated that book.
 
No real deep and profound (the dp factor) texts here, rather books read in my youth (before 18 ) that had a formative influence on the progress and development of my intellect, by virtue of the ideas within and how I reacted to them at the time. Books that are an obvious attempt to subvert your morality have always turned me off.

These are just the ones I can remember without access to my bookshelf.
Ages are an approximation at best.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, 11/12. Speculation...the first "sci-fi(ish)" book I ever read, speculative fiction remains close to my heart.

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, 12/13. Directed my fantastical escapism which was rampant into a less self-destructive arena. Love of fantasy remains to this day.

Brave New World by Huxley, 1984 and Animal Farm by Orwell. 15/16. The beginning of my interest in reality-grounded alternative thinking. Bit of a bore now.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. 16. Beginning of a new aesthetic. Gothic and industrial music enter the arena. Form half-bred mutatant with punk and psychedelic music. Splitting of personalities :p

The Foundation series, Asimov. 16.

Poetry of Plath and Poe, couldn't put my finger on it, but instrumental. 17.

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Beginning of finding the truth for myself. 17.

The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem. My nascent leftism died with this book, thankfully.

Never found one of his books, but Emile Cioran had an unknown impact on me.

The Angry Heart by Santoro, Cohen.

18 now, and my murdered memory has probably forgotten a lot...
 
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