Adult Content Warning

This community may contain adult content that is not suitable for minors. By closing this dialog box or continuing to navigate this site, you certify that you are 18 years of age and consent to view adult content.

Life changers

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by dubyu tee eff, Dec 7, 2010.

  1. MoreCowbell

    MoreCowbell
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    14
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,185
    They've been published/displayed in various formats for a while now. And they're not even written backwards anymore!
     
  2. Disgustipated

    Disgustipated
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    1
    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2009
    Messages:
    969
    Location:
    Gold Coast, Australia
    In reviewing this, I think it says a lot about my character:

    Nineteen Eighty-Four:(George Orwell) I love Orwellian themes, also being a big fan of Animal Farm. I think, out of anything, this is the book that jump started my mind into consideration of the notion of government. Amongst everything, it's a treatise into how far the human endeavour will go to remain true to itself, and what it takes to break that (albeit superficially). It also, behind the layers, shows that some people will go to extraordinary lengths just to be "bad" and shirk authority, and the risks they will take that will heighten the sensation. I loved the film too, but it wasn't a patch on the book. That shit is bleak.

    Catch 22: (Joseph Heller) I didn't really grasp this when I read it in high school, probably because I think you need a bit of life experience to really connect with the themes. This book contributed a lot to the development of my sense of humour. More importantly than that, it showed me that it's important to keep that sense of humour even when everything is going to shit around you. Also, no matter how fundamentally flawed the system is, you still have to work it. Sometimes the point of the game is to play the game; at least until you can figure out your next move.

    Brave New World: (Aldous Huxley) They made us read this at school. 95% of the class didn't get it, hated it and bitched about it. I loved this book. Sure, it's science fiction and is quite a bit far fetched, but it's the themes that are slowly starting to ring true. Genetic engineering, either for or against, is still a slippery slope. And really, how will we know when what is the "norm" becomes the strange when we made the change in tiny increments? This struck home even harder a few years later when I found out about my genesis.

    The Art of War: (Sun Tzu) There's nothing new in this book. At its core, it's a treatise on common sense in a conflict situation. The lessons are equally usable in war, the boardroom, a relationship and any other situation where they may be two sides with opposing viewpoints. Unfortunately, at one stage, every Wall Street yuppie type had a copy of this as their bible, which has tarnished its reputation a bit. However, in terms of strategy, the concepts in this book are invaluable.

    A Clockwork Orange: (Anthony Burgess) This book was a head trip to read, mainly because of the language (the book uses a liberal dose of a made up language called Nadsat). The protagonist, Alex, is a hard character to identify with. He's a malicious, bullying, opportunist thug. And we watch him stripped away of everything that he hinges his identity on. Then he gets it back. But really, while there may be sympathy for what he went through, there's no real sympathy for the character himself. Although in the original version he settles down at the end (which was left out in the US version), I get the impression that he never really changed; he just burnt out. Ultimately, I think it shows you can't change human nature.

    And a special mention to:

    Lord of the Flies:(William Golding) Also read this one in school. A lot has been said about the allegory of this book, and I don't discount a lot of the reasoning behind it. Really, if the controls in our lives were taken off, what would happen? Increasingly, base human nature begins to take over and gravitates towards the extreme in the pursuit of justifying a position. The degeneration of "civility" mirrors the increase of extreme actions as the boys spend longer and longer removed from society; even as they build their own. I believe that adults are just children with more life experience, and I certainly have seen a lot of adults behave worse than a 5 year old. We see what happens with rioting and protests when mob mentality takes over. It's scary to think how close we actually are to savagery if the fabric of society gets a little torn. I also watched the movie version of this; it's shit.
     
  3. lust4life

    lust4life
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    2,562
    Location:
    Deepinthehearta, TX
    I've read a lot of books. Some have shaped the way I view and think about things (Man's Search for Meaning comes to mind), but only one has truly changed my life (actually, it changed me, and I changed my life): Alcoholics Anonymous.

    Well, that and The Best of Penthouse Forum: 1975-1983.
     
  4. dubyu tee eff

    dubyu tee eff
    Expand Collapse
    Thinks he has a chance with Christina Hendricks...

    Reputation:
    1
    Joined:
    Oct 25, 2009
    Messages:
    1,383
    I'm a nerd to a fault. I've always planned on reading fiction, at least the classics, but have never got around to it really. I'm too busy reading non-fiction all the time. I go down too many rabbit holes in terms of subjects. I'll read one book and then use the works cited page to read a bunch of other similar books about the subject and so on. It's left me knowledgeable on a number of subjects, but classically crippled. That being said, here are some book that changed the way I think more than any others.

    The Evolution Deceit by some idiot. This was a book given to me by a religious cousin when I was about 14. I read it and it inspired me to learn more about evolution. Every point that this book made against evolution made me want to do further research because it seemed like a lot of fuzzy logic and pseudoscience. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone out of fear that some impressionable young mind might take it seriously and head down a path of stupidity, but somehow for me it had the opposite effect. It sparked my non-fiction reading career so even though it is a load of horseshit, it deserves a place because it got me thinking.

    Knowledge and Decision by Thomas Sowell. He takes a lot of flack for how conservative he is but this book really taught me how to think properly. The way he deconstructs and analyzes issues has been a tool for me ever since.

    The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. I was an atheist long before I read this book but this one explained a lot of questions I had about how and why religion came about. I always found the major religions of the world to be very puzzling and couldn't begin to understand how something like them could take hold and rise to such influential positions in the world. This book examined early religions and the big 3 religions based on the best available historical evidence. I can now confidently say I understand religion as a natural phenomenon.

    Moral Minds by Marc Hauser. Any good irreligious person will tell finding a proper moral code without religion to guide you is really quite difficult. While I certainly didn't feel like I could go out and kill people after I became an atheist, this book explained to me why that is the case by examining the innate sense of morality we seem to have evolved and how it succeeds and fails from an absolutist moral vantage point.

    The Road to Serfdom/The Fatal Conceit Friedrich Hayek. Got me on the path to economics. While the Austrian school of economics has many many flaws, Hayek's key insights will always remain. His explanation of spontaneous order and the importance of prices to communicate dispersed and tacit knowledge are absolutely essential for anyone who wants to understand how and why central planning will always fail miserably.

    The End of Time by Julian Barbour. Not a book about the apocalypse. It is actually about quantum physics and the nature of the universe. Quantum mechanics always fucked with my head and I never really could wrap my mind around it until the combination of this book and a long series of blog posts by Eliezer Yudkowsky on the OvercomingBias blog. The reason for the title is that Barbour argues that the only way to make sense of quantum physics is to eliminate time from our equations and think in terms of a multiverse of configuration states. If you really want to get quantum mechanics (and come you know you do) pick this book up. It is difficult at times but it is definitely the easiest explanation I have ever read.

    I'm sure I missed some big ones, but that's already 6 right there so I guess I better stop.
     
  5. Black Sheep Dog

    Black Sheep Dog
    Expand Collapse
    Village Idiot

    Reputation:
    0
    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2010
    Messages:
    35
    Location:
    Carbondale, Illinois
    These aren't necessarily the best books I've ever read objectively speaking, but the ones that had the most emotional resonance for me.
    1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower: This book is like the Catcher in the Rye for my generation. It's about boy named Charlie who keeps a diary of his freshman year of high school, and the process of self discovery he goes through along the way. Honestly, the language is not all that great in this book, and if your out of high school, you might have a hard time identifying with the character. At the time I read it, I was a depressed 16 year old who couldn't handle the ways in which my world was changing very well. This book resonated powerfully with me because the character was completely honest about himself and his view of the world, and that wasn't something I had the ability to do at the time.

    2. Choke: This was my first Palahniuk book, and like all books by writers with a unique voice, the first one you read usually has the greatest impact. Also, at the time, I had a fairly nihilistic perspective on things, which helped me relate to the character who was under the belief that everything is subject to decay and oblivion. As with most Chuck Palahniuk books, there's great language and ideas, but a shitty plot line as well.

    3.White Dwarf: A great book that has yet to go on to print, if you ever used to check out the authors on Rudius Media when it was still around you've probably heard of this one. It's an autobiographical telling of the author's youth during the period that he worked at a gas station. What struck me was the careless flowing of time.

    4. Animal Farm: I read this when I was 10 and it really opened up my eyes to the seduction and manipulation of politics.

    5. Breakfast of Champions: My first Vonnegut book.
     
  6. Volo

    Volo
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    48
    Joined:
    Dec 9, 2009
    Messages:
    759
    I only have three, and trying to force another two onto the list would defeat the purpose of the FOCUS.

    1. Contender by Robert Lipsyte - Helped me realize that nothing is promised you, and that you can avoid a life of constant racial war if you choose to stop looking at things in purely black and white. Although I'm not black, I am a minority, and a lot of the racial tension described in this book mirrors much of what I dealt with growing up in my hometown. It also got me interested enough to take up boxing, which goes a long way in developing discipline and learning to set and meet goals. The physical benefits are also worthwhile.

    2. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - Changed the way I look at children, and will likely have a major effect on how I raise my own children should I have them. My old man read this shortly after I was born, which likely had a lot to do with how he raised me.

    3. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs - Painted a new perspective on both organized and personal religions, often showing that those loony folks out there aren't quite as kooky as they might seem at a first glance.
     
  7. shauncorleone

    shauncorleone
    Expand Collapse
    Experienced Idiot

    Reputation:
    0
    Joined:
    Dec 12, 2009
    Messages:
    238
    I'll second Meditations, as it introduced me to stoicism and the concept of controlling your perception of everything around you. It took several years of work, but I'm a lot better now at not worrying about that which I cannot control.

    From a writing standpoint, Chuck Pahlaniuk was the first author I read out of the sanitary mainstream (the Grishams and Cornwells of the world). It allowed me to see that people can enjoy reading about depraved protagonists and extremely flawed characters doing deplorable shit, and it greatly expanded my tastes and moved me away from pop fiction.