Foucalt's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

This book is incredibly well written. The author is nothing short of genius. Be warned, it is very thick reading, and may start to make your head hurt. But, if you like to think while you read, this is the book for you.

Weren't there a lot more than three? I loved Foundation.

Also, I'd like to place the book that my tag-line came from.

Principia Discordia

All Hail Discordia!

Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

This book should be required reading for those who consider themselves human.

Second the <i>Principia Discordia</i>, also the <i>Illuminatus Trilogy</I> and the <i>Schroedinger's Cat</i> trilogy.

<i>G&ouml;del, Escher, Bach</i> is a book that I have probably read three times, if you count getting anywhere from a half to two thirds of the way through it 5 or 6 times. Excellent, mind bending, thought changing book, but I have never been able to finish it (probably time to take another crack at it.)

<i>The Lord of the Rings</i>. If you have never read it, it is mind blowing in scope and conception and complexity (though occasionally mind numbing in writing style.)

<i>Dune</i>. I have read over 20 times. Until recently, every time I read it I would find something else in in. Herbert pulls off almost the same trick in <i>The Dosadi Experiment</i>

<i>Lord of Light</i>: I can't explain. It's fiction, and science fiction at that, but it formed a lot of my character.

<i>Small Gods</i>: The best book I have ever read on the nature of religion and faith. It is devilishly strange that it should be one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and an unabashed work of humor.

<i>The Tao of Physics</i>: Strong medicine for a technically bent recovering Catholic School boy.

<i>The Plague</i>: What does being a good man mean?

<i>Rats, Lice, and History</i>: A biography of Typhus

<i>What If</i>: Understanding history by speculating on what would have happened if things had happened differently.

<i>Prometheus Rising</i>: Leary and Crowley (and Aristotle and Freemasonry), distilled and presented in such a way as to entertain, educate, instruct, and improve people who don't go in for that kind of soft-headed stuff.

<i>Great American Eccentrics</i>: Short (one or 2 page) biographies of America's Crackpots, Oddballs, and Mad Geniuses from from Colonial to the 70's.

<i>The Quick and Dirty Guide to War</i>: Where will it happen, when, and why, by a fellow who ought to know.

<i>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</i>: Best advertisement there ever was both for and against drug use. Also, <i>Hell's Angels</i>, for some serious journalism.

Candide by Voltaire
Gulliver's Travels by Swift
Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain

Can't leave off good satire...

Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is also eye opening and a rollicking good read too.

I think the Bible is an amazing book, not for the religious content, but for the social applications, and for its amazing stories. And I'm sure that everyone has heard exactly that a million times.

George Orwell - 1984 is also an amazing, amazing book. So are many of the other 'classic' utopian fictions, like Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and that other one I can't remember the name of (damnit!). Of the three 1984 impacted me the most, I think it was brilliant.

I see American Gods on this list, and that makes me happy, I enjoyed that book a lot.

Also, the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a really good book about struggles in Christianity and temptation. It's humourous, too! If you're able to read that book without taking it in a strictly religious context, I think it was ana amazing read, and can show everyone at least half a dozen ways to improve their character and their outlook on life without ever touching religion.

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
Both a poem and a book explaining the poem more fully, a very quick read so it's good for a glance. I really enjoyed her explanation of the line in her poem "...if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy." Changed my perspective :)

Its quite an odd book. I couldn't get into it to be honest but a friend (theoretical physicist) couldn't stop raving about it. Godel's incompleteness theorem rocked his world.

I would say that "Understanding Power" by Noam Chomsky is a real eye-opener.

I had to search for this thread, it's a shame! Fall semester is right around the corner and I need to re-stock my bookshelves.

I'll throw in:

The Lies My Teacher Told Me
Lies Across America

both by James W. Loewen

Great ones also include for me;
"The Source" by James Michener.
"Rolling Thunder" by Doug Boyd.
"The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck, M.D.
"Finding Your Way Home" by Melody Beattie
and
& a fav...."The Vein of Gold" by Julia Cameron. Author of "The Artist's Way."

And all books written by Kurt Vonnegut...for grins and artistic wizardry.

I just found this through a del.icio.us linky, and it is making my face melt off.

I might try to start a new thread to discuss it, as that is what the author wants us to do; He gives the book away for free in .pdf format (and explains that it is easiest that way since it would be the hardest book in the world to market.)!

You can follow THIS LINK to download the book.


/ben scampers off to find more time to read this book

I often see people rank American Gods by Neil Gaiman highly, but I read this book and I thought it was aweful! Seriously, the plot really has no flow in the book - everything happens just because (a sort of deus ex machina per page) with one god leading the main character haphazrdly around the country. As a horror book I think it fails, as a thriller it fails, and as a homage to various mythologies it is ok, but reading actual legends and myths might be a better approach.

Gravity's Rainbow blew me away - the wierd mixture of physics/probability theory/messed up writing and plot.. tough read tho.

Since this is philosophy - Nietzche (Beyond Good and Evil) was my eye-opener.

Been meaning to re-read the Foundation Series...

Plowing the Dark by Richard Powers is wonderful. It has two stories going on at the same time that are seemingly unconnected, but when you think about it, they merge together perfectly. It is about the future, cyber-creation, war, isolation, and art... especially art. It can be difficult to start, but once you get into the book, it's wonderful. I can't remember the ending of the book. I didn't get it. Perhaps I should read it again.

Thoughts Without a Thinker by Mark Epstien is introducing me to Buddhism. It's an interesting and easy read, discussing the relationship between Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. It may be one of the most pragmatic books I've read, even if it's not fun to write essays on.

My two books that really changed stuff for me are.

Sophie's World: This book brought me into the front of philsophy and really schooled me in it.
Atlus Shrugged: It also really brought me more into philosophy.

Just my little list of books.

A number of good books listed already, one more I would recomend.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-Robert Heinlein

In college I was in a "history of the novel" class. It was 1984. So we read the novel. How could you pass up that kwinky dink?

I enjoyed Hitchhiker's Guide and Forrest Gump. There's a sci-fi work I read some time ago. It was funny and had to do with racing space ships? I think. Too long ago, and I only read it once. It was enjoyable. Sorry. Can't recall the title and don't have it with me. At my in-laws.

I enjoyed The Hobbit much more than the Trilogy.

Mere Christianity by Lewis. And Screwtape.

And of course I think everyone can benefit from reading the Bible. Nice to see there are some others who think so, even if we might differ on the reasons and the relative benefits. Blessings...

Even easier is this: "The Bible's Greatest Stories", by Paul Roche. It's the entire bible put into readable prose--only 500 pages. King James may sound good in little pieces, but trying to read it as a story is a real pain.

Classic Kurt Vonnegut--Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse 5, Welcome to the Monkey House, Cat's Cradle, ect.

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn will blow the mind of anyone who's grown up with Dead White Male history text books.

There are books that are fun to read, and there are books which must be read. People's History must be read. I don't give unequivocal recommendations often.

I recommend this version in particular.

I'll second your opinion, allowed/directed me in examining my relationships with others and understanding why I acted the way I did/do. Great read.

I'll agree if you approach the Bible as a story, you're likely to encounter difficulties.

I try to keep in mind ~ 2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. ~ when I read.

I'm read the Bible because I believe it's God's Word. It's ALL inspired, and all His Word, so it's all "profitable" but it's not all given for the same reason. There are 4 broad purposes of God's Word outlined here. What I hope as I come to and then away from each "encounter" with the Word is that I will become more "mature" ["perfect"] and better equipped to do good.

That's an interesting take. I studied OT and Christian theology (classes, not as a major) at a Methodist university and the approach was much more philosophical than absolute. As far as reading, I prefer the new standard revisions, and I think it makes a fine story, although some books are much more instructive, interesting, etc. Job is my favorite.

Maus I & II – Art Spiegelman, the only books I’ve read that are centered on the survivors of the holocaust instead of those who died.

Dropsie Avenue – Will Eisner, traces a neighborhood from farmland, to small suburb, to ethnic neighborhood, to tenements, to bombed out, to urban renewal, to ethnic neighborhood.

Siddhartha – Herman Hesse, disregards formal belief systems in favor of following your own soul.

Crime and Punishment – Dostoevsky, a truly smart and “worthy” man is free to do what ever the hell he wants, until he drives himself crazy with paranoia.

The Jungle – Upton Sinclair, one of the most heart breaking love stories wrapped in an indictment of the meat packing industry

Jay, for a time I studied to be a pastor in the United Methodist Church. This was before I was born again. I'm sure there are some Bible Christians in the UMC, but my own experience was that education not salvation was stressed, and I never heard the Gospel as I understand it today proclaimed. I did meet some very nice people, and in fact many of the folks who attended the church I did when I first went to college demonstrated a very kind love towards me in many things.

However, I'd agree that by and large the Bible is not taken literally by many in the UMC, and in fact, by many mainline denominations. Not raising a criticism, just a point of observation and agreement.

Whether you accept it literally or not will go a long way towards what impact it has on you and you allow it to have. I suppose it also comes into a decision about what translation you trust as God's Word kept intact for your native tongue.

I'd be interested to know what you appreciate about Job?

My favorite portion of Scripture is the Sermon on the Mount, as found in Matthew chapters 5 - 7.

Blessings.

Any chance somone could organize a list of all mentioned books and categorize them, like spiritual, fiction, science, etc. Sometimes I'm in the mood to pick up a certain type of book, and since I've only heard of maybe 30% of these books, it'd be nice to know ahead of time :)

I echo the comments made earlier about Jung and Nietzsche. I read a few things by them in my late teens and they, along with copious amounts of drugs, really broadened my way of thinking. I only have a couple of additions that haven't been mentioned.

One is The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which I read over the course of a couple years. It basically details Buddhist ideas of how to prepare for death, and what awaits after. I don't consider myself to be a Buddhist, but this book definitely opened my eyes as far as what I knew about ideas of various religions, and the world in general.

The other is The Art of War, which is read more by business-types for strategy nowdays, but I found to be applicable for any type of situation that calls for overcoming of some kind of obstacle. It advocates total awareness, winning without confrontation, and other things I just never thought to do prior to reading it.

As Requested - A compilation reading list


http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=100427

The list has been made a Sticky at the Top of the Philosophy Forum

I was wondering if instead of just posting a title, everyone could post a little about why they see the book as "eyeopening". I've read some of these books and didn't find them enlightening in the least, so I was hoping to gain some insight.

Cheers.

I will add:

Lipstick Traces: The Secret History of the 20th Century by Greil Marcus This book traces the history of anti-art up from the Dadaists, through the Surrealists, the Situationists all the way through to punk. It was one of those books that I read at just the right moment. A lot of the things that I had been thinking about at the time came together in this book. It is a great read for anyone interested on pop culture and the history of where it comes from...

Man and his symbols, Answer to Job - Carl Jung In answer to Job, Carl Jung looks at the psychological implications of Job Believing in a just God, based off Job's declaration "I know my redeemer lives"

Till we have faces - C.S. Lewis The plot is borrowed from Greek Mythology

Martian Chronicals - Ray Bradbury I love Ray Bradbury's imagery, and delusions

Flatland -elloitt? - fiction,when things don't make sense, maybe you're 2d expirencing the 3d passing through your 2d plane.

Ishmael - Daneil Quinn: fiction, An ape seeks human student to learn how the ape became concious, and how the ape sees Our role in life, and religion

Abbott. Good book.

Scientific Method - Sir Karl Raimund Popper (Till this day one of the best books about scientific theory)

Open Society and Its Enemies I & II - Sir Karl Raimund Popper (Both parts, but mainly the second part is great to understand which theories caused partly the takeover of Hitler in 1933)

Against Method - Paul Feyerabend (A great critic of Poppers Critical Rationalism.)

Man in the Age of Technology - Arnold Gehlen

Discipline & Punish : The Birth of the Prison - Michel Foucault (In my opinion the best analysis of might)

2 pages of this thread, and only one mention of this book? That's just wrong. This book is great!
It really gives a good theory of life before, during and after(!) humanity.

Like CSflim says, the author challenges the human-centric view that abounds in our civilization...
It really is a good book and I'd recommend it to anyone!

The silmarillion - J.R.R Tolkien

Edit: The selfish gene rules, an amazing book, the rest of his works are right up on top of my new purchase list.

Wow! I can't believe this thread is still kicking around. I'm so proud! :p

I couldn't agree more with you here though. That book was excellent. I'd also recommend The Blind Watchmaker, again by Dawkins. He is just such a brilliant and knowledgable writer, plus he can put things into terms laymen can really understand. I think he has come further than almost anyone in demystifying modern science, which is something I really get behind.

1984 and Animal Farm - George Orwell (Eric Blair)

As mentioned before. I just read Animal Farm yesterday in 5 or 6 hours. It is very quick and easy, but interesting to read. Animal Farm was supposed to be about the Communists rise to power in Russia, but it could easily be interchanged with China.
I wish it wasn't true, but the world we live in could be summed up with 1984 discribing the USA and UK police states and always at war with a different enemy, and with Animal Farm being the former Russia and China. I just wonder what other books he would have written if he didn't pass away.

Now don't get me wrong. I love JRR Tolkien's stuff including this one, but the Silmarillion, as much as I enjoy it, is exactly the opposite of an eye opening book. Unless one is fully awake when reading it, one is likely to toddle off to the land of Nod apace.

Great ideas, and brilliant conception, but dry as the heart of the Namib in places.

Pierre Bourdieu's la Distinction made me see things differently, especially the middle class bohemian world I usually inhabit. The book is famous for the idea of "cultural capital", but the more general point that cultural judgements are part and parcel of class society made more of an impact on me. We tend to exempt our own judgements from these sorts of observations; we think that our judgements are rational and self-evident in some universal sense. La Distinction made me more self-critical. But you might say that Flaubert's Bouvard et Pécuchet did the same thing.

Aside from that, the eye-openers for me have generally been the classics, especially Hegel, Marx, and Being and Time. Hegel's Phenomenology because it's so audaciously totalising and Marx for showing how the mundane can be immensely important. These are such lame summaries. I think books like these are "eye-openers" precisely because they are too complex and too rich in observations to summarise easily..

What's odd is that philosophy up to Hegel really doesn't cut it for me. I can't say that Plato, Aristotle, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Zhu Xi or even Descartes, Spinoza, or Kant had the same impact on me. Interesting? Of course, and sometimes they have eye-opening observations on each other, but there's not the same wow. The one exception might be Confucius' Analects which presents an atheist, realist morality. Confucius is conservative and authoritarian, but the Analects presents a counterexample to the notion that authority is a prerequisite for civilised behaviour. This is more explicit in Mencius, which is why Mencius was banned even under regimes which claimed to hew to Confucian orthodoxy.

I'd also add Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution because despite the author's orthodox interpretation, his account of the events shows how fluid the situation really was. Trotsky wants to say something else, but his book shows how revolution was exactly that fluidity. Amusing polemics, too.



But really, all books ought to open your eyes to something, even if it's only the author's methodology or the use of a certain word or phrase. Then there's Ulysses, the Crying of lot 49...

Some of the books that were eye openers for me are already listed on this page but a few that are worth a look are the following. Each of these has an interesting set of values and ideas. I think they're all worth a read if you've got the time for them. I'll add more to this list later when I'm next to my bookcase.

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein

Hmm. A few.

Artificial Life, by Steven Levy. Old (early '90s), but still a great introduction for laymen like me. What a great story, well explained, about scientists who sought to simulate life in a computer environment. And then began to suspect that the algorithms they were developing the same algorithms used by life itself, and in the evolution of life forms. Life is math, and math is life.

West with the Night, by Beryl Markham. So beautiful it should be read aloud. It's a memoir about the coming of technology and the modern world to a very ancient land -- big game hunting, empires, expatriate nobility, airplanes, native cultures, rogue cheetahs, horse racing. Touches on so many questions of modern life without even trying to, while telling the huge story of one person's huge life. Aside from that parts of this book remind me a lot of the original Star Wars -- including the damned barroom scene. Only real.

900 Grandmothers, by R.A. Lafferty. Lafferty was a popular fantasy writer in the '60s. His stories are part fantasy, part humor, part satire, and part American folktale, full of grotesques and crazy computers and gods and weird conspiracies -- and wisdom. Nobody writes like him, before or since. Neil Gaiman, take a number.

The Bridge, by Hart Crane. Book of poetry from the 20s (still in print); Crane was a poet who tried to meld technology and city life into wild lyrical poems about the past, present, and future. He missed as often as he hit, but there are some great ones, too, images like subways of thought rocketing through "the interborough fissures of the mind." Lovely.

Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume II. I got my copy in college; we covered about 1/4 of it. I took it home and read the rest myself. The best review of 19th and early 20th century English literature and poetry there is; your doorway to other worlds, especially the romance poets. I memorized Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" because of this book.

The Power of Myth - this book is a transcript of the Moyers interviews of Joseph Campbell during the last two years of Campbell's life. His discussion of mythology and its role in human history is truly enlightening...the videos of the interviews are even better, if you can get your hands on them.