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Books that changed your life

SillySapienne

`~~Philosoflying~~`
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
9,801
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
4w5
I :heart: Bukowski!!!

Man's Search for Meaning
.

Catcher in the Rye
.

Hamlet
.

Emerson's essay, "Self Reliance".

Charles Seife's "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea".

Ernst Mayr's "What Evolution Is".
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
Please provide Amazon links!

Very well:
The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age - John Lukacs

Transformation of War - Martin Van Creveld

The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century - Charles Kupchan

The Breakdown of Nations -Leopold Kohr


I guess I can add:
Orthodoxy and Heretics - GK Chesterton

Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy - Martin Buber

C.S. Lewis for the Third Millennium : Six Essays on the Abolition of Man - Peter Kreeft; most interesting essays in this piece were "Darkness at Noon" and the one about whether or not natural law could be abolished.

The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective - Richard Rohr & Andreas Ebert; the chapter about Type 4s was very enlightening.

Still more to come.
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
Oh yes can't forget The Imitation of Christ - Thomas a Kempis.

I randomly glanced through this book at a church library, and DAMN! I was struck with a touch of cold water or something. I was immediately hooked on the simple but deeply spiritual profoundity of this work.
 

Lozzy

New member
Joined
Dec 22, 2008
Messages
32
MBTI Type
ENFJ
mippus said:
Paul Auster tought me the role of coincidence and the illusion of control we have...

Can you recommend any particular titles?

CaptainChick said:
Charles Seife's "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea".

This one looks really interesting... never did trust those crafty zeros.
 

Valiant

Courage is immortality
Joined
Jul 7, 2007
Messages
3,895
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
8w7
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour. There's lots of things in that book that I have thought about much. I read it the first time when I was 12, and I have read it several times since then just because it's awesome.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
My books, my friends -

The Wind in the Willows

The Iliad

Treasure Island

Will o' the Mill

The Pickwick Papers

The Forsyte Saga

The Mill on the Floss

The Varieties of Religious Experience

The Divided Self

The Cloud of Unknowing

The Origin of Species

Understanding Media

Time and Being - Sein und Zeit

The Laws of Form

Foundations of Psychohistory

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Trance - From Magic to Technology.


And the movies -

The Man of La Mancha

Elephant Walk

A Streetcar Named Desire

War and Peace

Titus Andronicus

Richard III

The Taming of the Shrew

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Last Exit to Brooklyn


And magazines

The Spectator

Quadrant

Scientific American

The Skeptical Enquirer - the magazine for science and reason

The Journal of Psychohistory

Psychology Today


And newspapers

The Australian

The Canberra Times


And the radio -

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Late Night Live - ABC Radio National - Late Night Live - Home

Counterpoint - Counterpoint

Poetica - Poetica

The Philosopher's Zone - Philosopher's Zone

"The Religion Report", on ABC Radio National


And galleries


And music


And clubs


And the Bush




And the internet -

Netochka Nezvanova and her NATO 0+55+3d
 
Last edited:

FallsPioneer

New member
Joined
Dec 21, 2007
Messages
260
MBTI Type
INTJ
The Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee. Yup.

Watership Down by Richard Adams.

I have a book that is a compilation of Emerson's essays and journal writings (that I can't find right now) that was very helpful to me.
 

nozflubber

DoubleplusUngoodNonperson
Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
2,078
MBTI Type
Hype
1984 changed my life. Before reading that book, I only had a sneaking suspicion of why I should be anxious and paranoid around people. After that book, it was all too clear....

Human beings are wretched things.
 

kiddykat

movin melodies
Joined
Jul 27, 2008
Messages
1,111
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
4, 7
A book that really touched me was an autobiography about a kid who was a son of a G.I.

One particular chapter that broke my heart was when these mixed-race kids were treated poorly b/c they were not only:
1. Born from a mother who was a prostitute.
2. Born in what's considered a lower social class strata, b/c they were not only mixed, but of a certain type (the racism in the culture).
3. Raped/murdered at the train tracks when they were only 7. Not only did they witness murder/war- they died tragically.

God, it broke my heart.. Sad. So Sad. It gave me a Reality Check- that life over here is pretty good- that I can somehow contribute when I have the chance to.. my wish.
 

Moiety

New member
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
5,996
MBTI Type
ISFJ
Think and Grow Rich


Slowly but surely. Only I knew the secret years ago.
 

INA

now! in shell form
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
3,195
MBTI Type
intp
Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care: 8th Edition
Those greedy buggers are like vampires. Do nat want.
 
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