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Personally influential books...anyone?

anything by carson mccullers or hermann hesse..

and maybe shambhala by chogyam trungpa.
 
Dune - Frank Herbert
Island - Aldous Huxley
Tuareg - Alberto Vázquez Figueroa
Anything from Stanislav Grof
Tao Te King
Bible

And probably I forget some at the moment, but thesehave been quite influential to me.

EDIT: And Radiohead also. Everything in its right place...
 
The Bernstein Bears. :)

Michel Foucault, "Abnormal," Lectures at the College de France, 1974-1975.
 
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I've heard good things about Ayn Rand, but I've never read one of her books.

From what I've read, she was brilliant and prolific but also fanatical and an amphetamine addict. I would probably relate to her.

If you don't love yourself, then how can you love others?
If you don't love others, then how can you love God?
 
The Upanishads, particularly the Katha and the Isha upanishads. I think anyone can benefit spiritually from these, no matter what their belifs are...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll : Meaning, laughter, wonder, everything I ever need in two cute books :)

The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde - specifically "The Happy Prince" and "The Rose and The Nightingale". This makes me cry every time I read it!

Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley. The best piece of drug literature ever written, plus being a great spirtitual book.

Liber Cheth by Aleister Crowley. Good luck with this one ;).

Thought of Norea - one of my favourite Gnostic texts.

The Little Prince by St. Exuprey - adorable!

Also some of the potry of Al-Hallaj (Early Sufi Mystic), most of which are not available in English...
 
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^you are such a brat, but I've always loved you.

"Understanding Physics" by Isaac Asimov.
 
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Wow. Lots of great suggestions here. I'm not nearly as well-read as I wish I were. I'll have to revisit this thread as I work the night shift and chew through books.

* the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman -- probably the philosophically deepest fantasy series ever written in English.
* Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. My copy is dog-eared.
* All that I've read by Alan Watts
* Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi)

Only two works of fiction have ever had a literally drug-like, consciousess altering effect on me, and haunted me for months like a profound trip:
* Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevski
* The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
 
4 pages in, this has to have been said by now:

one flew over the cuckoos nest


wow, just wow. incredible book. fucked up, but incredible.
 
1984 by George Orwell - Probably my favorite book, I found it very well written, made my already existing paranoia even more severe =)

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo - Was a bit confusing time to time, but also a wonderful book really enjoyed reading it, until the end, then I felt horrible...

The Giver by Lois Lowry - Was interesting when I read it, though that was in 7th grade and barely remember any of it now, aside that I really enjoyed it.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - I think 1984 was a lot better, but I usually hear B.N.W. and Fahrenheit 451 are better, I don't think personally.

I read all those books when I was younger, except 1984, I kept re-reading it, and am trying currently if I can find the time to.

Looking forward to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake, and The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell (combined) by Aldous Huxley
 
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