The essays of Ran Prieur opened my eyes to a lot of new perspectives on this world.

The Invisibles is mindfuckingly awesome, especially after researching all its references and inspirations.

Robert Anton Wilson's books are great, and so is Terence McKenna's work if you're into psychedelics and/or wild metaphysical speculation at all.

These are just the things that have been blowing the lid off my mind lately.

Somehow missed this thread....but how come none of you mentioned On the Road by Jack Kerouac or The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger? Did no one find these books incredibly important when they were growing up?

My Ishmail

Very Deep. Gets into the diffference between the old tribal society and today's society with food being kept under lock and key

There was a literature article in Time Magazine last week asking "Who's the voice of this generation?". Salinger was on the list of previous voices. My favorite quote from the article: "The paradox of every Voice novel is that it brings a generation of readers together around the idea that they alone are the single badass misfit truth teller in a world of phonies."

I thought that the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye was a whiner with no motivation.

OK, so he obviously didn't represent you in your teenage angst (if you had any?) but On The Road is equally potent, for me, being reread as a adult and many people I know feel the same. However, I'll concede that Catcher is not necessairly an "eye-opener" as required by this thread.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is a book I've read, and reread many times and each time I find it refreshing. It should probably be on the list.

The best book I've ever read is Anthem by Ayn Rand. The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are wonderful books, but Anthem is the individualists philosophy boiled down to the basics. Her books have played a huge role in how I see the world ever since I read them. I never thought much about how people treated each other and what their motivations were before reading Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged also defines why I love capitalism so much. ^_^

Note: Just to make things clear, this love of captialism does not include America's current corrupt captialism. Companies and consumers both run to the government to regulate the other in America, and that is not the way captialism is supposed to work.

A couple more I've read recently:

1) The Power of Now: by Eckhardt Tolle - religiously neutral but discussing the spirituality of no-time. Past and Future are simply constructs of the ego mind and the source of much of our pain.

2) A Course in Miracles - this book will blow your mind. If you like the New Thought of Christianity.

3) Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman - a collection of the lost gospels and gnostic texts of early pre-orthodox Christianity.

along these lines I reccomend "The Rebel Sell" aka "Nation of Rebels" by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. I can't say that it was an "eye-opener" for me personally, but it perfectly articulated a wide range of beliefs that I already had, and stated them much better than I could ever manage.

Bruce Lee's notes, volumes 1-7.

You'd be very suprised how similar martial arts principles and philisophical ideas can be (a majority of the time they are one in the same). Completely practical philosophy for everyday thought; a must read if you have the time.

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
By: Matt Ridley

A very good read and an eyeopener on the basic nature of humans. How does it work and what makes it work. This book along with Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene have been the most influential books on my perspective of the human being.

The Biography of Edward James Olmos

A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawkings (black hole thermodynamics compared to music, good stuff :D)

I strongly second this.

Plus, I'll add:

• The Dhammapada (The sayings of Gautama Buddha; the Thomas Cleary translation with notes is fantastic; this is a cornerstone to my morals.)
• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (It raises classic moral questions. It's unfortunate that the story was appropriated by 20th century pop culture.)
• England, England, Julian Barnes (It challenges your sense of reality and your need for nostalgia.)
• Et Tu, Babe, Mark Leyner (Unconventional, unforgettable fiction; puts pop culture through the wringer; a prime example of meta-fiction.)
• Songs of Innocence and Experience, William Blake (Haunting, persistent, timeless, sublime.)
• Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Marks the shift in poetry from the divine high-style to the human; it's accessible, evocative, and a fine sample of Romantic literature; Wordsworth's capacity for perception is influential and inspiring, and it will stick with you for a lifetime.)

You know what? These rules suck. I posted a possibly helpful link to some and I can't? I don't like or accept such rules.

Hi Mayflow... its to protect the board from spammers.

If you can send me a PM with the link, I'd be happy to review it and post on your behalf.

the Grapes of Wrath
1984
Les Miserables
the Ender series greatly helped me open up to philosophical theories.
plato
and i know this is such a cliche but the catcher in the rye also.