- The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
Perhaps you could dismiss it as having too much of a Western focus, but it really was an eye opening book that made me reexamine various cultural institutions at the time I read it
The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric. S Raymond. I’m only half-joking; I used to read it when I had insomnia because it was equal parts fascinating but verbose enough to get me to sleep.
Otherwise Waking Up by Sam Harris. I’d only heard of him after a group meditation sessions which I’d never done before and immediately became hooked: that you could be spiritual without religion was an entirely new concept for me.
Project hail Mary ,better than movie.
Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist
Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Stephen King - The StandDemon Haunted World -Carl Sagan
Shogūn (really hope I got that phonetic right) by James Clavell. Even, maybe especially if you’re not a weeaboo.
The fellowship of the ring, the republic, the history of mathematics, the saga of swamp thing, the invisibles, Macbeth
The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
All of Discworld.
I don’t know exactly how much of my warped view on reality is directly attributable to reading the Guide at a young age. I hope most of it.
Me too.
All of Discworld.
That’d be a pretty big book…
It’s sooooooo worth it
I’ve read the series (well only the Douglas authored books). I have a copy of The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which I have not read. Does it make a difference?
Much like the TV minseries, book, movie, radio play and audiobooks - all incarnations of The Guide are accurate and complete, especially the parts that contradict… It just depends on which multiverse you have existen been fromme. (Universal relativism weirds language.)
At least that’s what I believe.
The Guide from Mostly Harmless agrees with you.
See? Its even more internally consistent than the Bible.
I only wish we had gotten The Salmon of Doubt.
While the Guide is important, I actually think Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Teatime of the Soul might both be more important. I’m actually often saddened they didn’t get as much love as Hitchhiker’s Guide.
To me it’s a bit like the Bible. You’ve got the big few books and then so many supporting documents explaining the mindset behind the revelation.
Dune.
Atlas Shrugged
(Haha just kidding!)
Excluding religious text~
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Any book written by Cormac McCarthy
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Short stories by Kurt Vonnegut
Do Androinds Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
Definitely lots more
I like where this list is going, having read all those. I’m curious what else you would add to it!
1984
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.
There is so, so much that Americans don’t know that they don’t know.
Got some random highlights? I’m curious how many I’ve seen mentioned on Lemmy.
Reading that right now. Definitely changing my perspective that America was once a good place.
