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This book inspired me to read more, and look up every word unfamiliar to me. Malcolm X is an incredible man who certainly had an impact on history. I would recommend this book to everyone.
Another is A history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Wow this book is incredible. At close to 500 pages Bryson covers everything from the moment the universe expanded from the intensely dense matter that was(aka the big bang) to mans origin. Reading this book has impacted the way I look at everything from bacteria to Asteroids.
I'm most proud of these two books in my collection. I hope others appreciate them as much as me
survives by finding meaning in the midst of this. He discovers that all of our freedoms can be taken from us....except one....the freedom to choose how we think and act under the very worst of circumstances.
If I can toss in a second but related (and relevant) title it would be Postman's classic from the 80's Amusing Ourselves to Death.
The Stranger by Albert Camus - I love it so much. This book is for me pure philosophy.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque - The novel showed me the utter cruelty of the war.
That book introduced me to the world of fantasy books. Ever since I keep reading this genre of books (plus a lot others of course), both in English and in Italian.
This is the story of John Washington, a black history professor who is called home to bury his father's friend, Josh; and, by the way, finally tackle the mystery his father left for him to solve. John occupies his father's office, reads his books, recalls Josh's stories, tracks game through the hills, drinks toddies, avoids his girlfriend, and tries to make sense of his father's hunting accident.
There's a something here for everyone: mystery, family, love, hate, secrets, history, and outdoor pursuits. Bradley tells the story in the first person, from John's point of view. John combines intelligence and keen analytical skill with an anger that makes his other attributes burn hotter. As an historian, he needs to understand, even though he knows history is always too complicated to understand fully.
Why is this book important? First, it's an excellent story, well told. It's gripping. Second, it tells one story of historical atrocity based on race. Only one story, but it's a parable for so many, many stories of race, class, gender, ethnicity, orientation, .... Since I read it, I look at history more critically (and maybe more sympathetically), knowing there is always at least one hidden backstory. I believe -- I hope -- I better understand the social legacy of slavery, which still deeply divides this country. I also look at hunters with a little more sympathy, and I fell in love with mountains I've never seen. I also became interested in storytelling and in telling my own stories.
John is a very real character, a black man living in academe, a world constructed by "enlightened" white men. He feels considerable tension; how much of it is "real" and how much "in his mind"? His colleagues admire his brilliance but don't understand his anger. He's doing well, why is he still so angry? Why can't he let go of the past and enjoy the present? He's earned it.
Don't forget the girlfriend. She matters.
Interested? It's still in print. Hound your indy bookstore, go to Amazon, butter up your local librarian. Get it. If only one of you, reading this, gets the book, I'll be satisfied. Even if you don't get past the dissertation on long distance public transportation.
In this present moment I'd have to say the book that has has the most impact on me lately is Jonathan Safran Foer's book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I love Oscar. I love Oscar's journey. I love the messing of Post-9/11 culture with "third-generation memory." It's as though that book has taken so much life from the past and made it all tangible to us here in the present. I love the emotional complexity that's replicated in the grandmother's and grandfather's manuscript and letters, how they show how memory is fragmented, overwhelming, and some times incomprehensible.
Seriously, I could go on and on. And I can think of hundreds of other books that have changed me just as much. It's just this one has been at the forefront of my mind ever since I read it a couple of months ago.
Thanks for your blog. It's awesome.
"Ways of Seeing" by John Berger.
An amazing story that, though written before 1900, is still relevant today as it speaks to our general ignorance of what really is going on behind that curtain:
"Flatland" by Edwin Abbott Abbott.
One last one, hard for me to pick a favorite story or novel of his, so I'll just pick the author:
Kurt Vonnegut
I'm a big fan of Open Culture. Keep it up.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
by Robert M. Pirsig
Although I am not too much into philosophy, this book really made me see a lot of things differently!
How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren.
Quite simply it has enabled me to get more out of the books that I've read.
Another:
Amor no tempo do colera de gabriel garcia Marquez.Its for me like: "lives is like art" (in portuguese: " a vida imita a arte")because an old lover appears in my life after 31 years. And if I dont had read that book I think I would refused him.
* I hope you can understand my english. I would prefer write in portuguese.
Mollica is the founder of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, and weaves his own memoir as a first generation American growing up in the Bronx together with the hopeful stories of survivors of extreme violence from around the world - refugees from the Khmer Rouge, survivors of horrific sexual violence, torture and more.
Mollica's thesis, radical for a professor of medicine, is that humans have the tools to heal themselves from even the worst imaginable traumas. He gently shows the recipe for self-recovery, and reveals that the "survivor" is, in fact, the greatest hero for us all.
Fiction - what a tough choice! "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco? , Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows"? "The Lord of the Rings"? Finally I think I must choose Dicken's "Our Mutual Friend". Several plots woven together, human emotion & passion, humour and dark despair - it's got the lot!
The Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon (et.al.)
All Creatures Great & Small - James Herriot
The Little Prince - Antoine du Saint-Exupery
Battle Cry // Trinity - Leon Uris
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Hobbit & LOTR - JRR Tolkien
The Star Thrower - Loren Eiseley
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Chaos - James Gleick
The Bible - ed. God
Joseph Campbell has also written some seminal books that get at our appreciation of universal stories.
Gardner's _Grendel_ - Popped into the world, it isn't like the monster had a choice of parentage, ethnicity, learning environment, or appetites. This one helped me with empathy.
Bolles' _What Color is Your Parachute_ - Using strengths to select a career instead of focusing on developing weak areas seemed brilliant.
Rodriguez' _Hunger of Memory_ - Unlike Grendel, this guy whines. That made it absolutely impossible to feel empathy for him. I had to read this for a credentialing class, and I abhorred it. Hating it has allowed me to avoid similar whiney writing in subsequent years. Whiney student writings are also a source of annoyance. [Thank goodness the angst of Goth has nearly passed. I can't take much more prepubescent knuckle biting. Oh, woe is me! Get over it.]
E.A. Poe's collected works - Short and punchy, his macabre tales pack a visual whallop that modern longer stories lack. He can create mood and tone in less than a page. When I need a break from student narratives, I read a short story by Poe. There is a reason the guy's writing has survived.
Terry Pratchett's novels about Discworld - These are pure escapism stories with a wry twist of humor. Not many books can make me laugh out loud when I read them. His have that effect.
Anything James Joyce wrote tends to turn my stomach. Akin to knuckle biting, the spiraling inward introspection gyre requires too much caffeine to digest. This has allowed me to also avoid most recommendations from _The New Yorker_ and other elitist publications.
Marzano's _A Handbook for Classroom Instruction That Works_ - I don't need anecdotal cutesy stories or voluminous pages of theory. Handbooks work. Handbooks based on research are even better.
Hersey retells what happens when an atomic bomb falls on your city. Culled from interviews with survivors of the atomic bomb attack, this narrative was originally published as an entire issue of The New Yorker magazine. Haunting
"Timeless Way of Building" and "Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein
A new language and approach to creating the spaces where we live. Brilliant.
Stranger (Albert Camus)
LES IDENTITÉS MEURTRIÈRES (Amin Maalouf)
I've read this book 3 times over the past 2 years and it's allowed me to overcome my fears, realize my dreams and start working toward new goals in my career, relationships, etc.
It's given me the courage to leave the things (marriage, career, etc.) that weren't working for me and to face the fear of the unknown to start working toward a new future.
'Narrow Road,' or 'Oku-no-Hosomichi,' translated into English by Dorothy Britton and published by Kodansha International, is a diary kept by the Japanese poet Basho in 1689 as he made a journey into the northern provinces of Japan.
When I was in the Sierras, delayed by snow, I read through 'Narrow Road' two or three times. I don't know whether the book affected me more greatly because I was traveling or my traveling affected my perception of the book (one of those zenny questions), but I came away with a much better sense of the journey that we all make through life, both the physical and philosophical journey, and a more humble sense of my place among the sojourners.
solitaire mystery by jostein gaarder
i read this when i was about 14. i would sit in my room and truly become part of the story, it became almost a a journey into adulthood
The book that change my live was " o amor no tempo do colera " , a fantastic love story by gabriel garcia marquez. And lives
is like art for me : after 31 years and old love appears in my live too. And I think I let he comes to me because of the book.
Any Title by Dr. Seuss-These taught me to read, sound out words, have imagination, and stand up for ideals (e.g., The Lorax)
Choose Your Own Adventure-the whole series
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut-Read at 12 or 13 this book certainly opened my eyes to whole new world
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald-Excess, materialism, alcoholism, and the iminent threat of depression. Oh, and what great parties!
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee-need I say more?
The Prohet by Kahlil Gibran-Simple, elegant, this book reached me deeply.
Tao Te Ching attributed to Lao Tse-After reading the Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an, this just actually struck a rationally spiritual chord inside.
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman-Gaiman combines comparative religion, philosophy, social commentary, and fantasy all in one package. Great read in a completely different format!
I'm sure I could keep this up all day, but these titles jump out of my memory the fastest.
1. The brothers karamozov
As a teenager I was mystified by the audacity of the grand inquisitor. I'd never read such a succing indictment of faith. As I got to my twenties I read the whole book, but in my late twenties I began to appreciate it. I've never read a more powerful and realistic testament to faith in my life, and as I've grown, my reading of the book has grown with me.
The power of myth:
Again, another religeous book from my teen years that made sense, but again as I've grown, I've delved further into campbell's work and always been rewarded with insight.
_History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction_
_Discipline and Punish_
Both of these books philosophically ushered me into the modern world, changing the way I saw power, sex, sexuality, school, and nothing less than the Modern Self.
Also...
_Mr. Bligh's Bad Language_ by Greg Dening
Dening narrates the story of the mutiny on the Bounty, slipping in and out of 1st person narrative, ethnography, cultural analysis, and archeology. In short, the MOST impressive combined work of historical scholarship and philosophy I have ever read.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Harry Potter (all seven)
The Bible
Was the first book I actually enjoyed reading. It completely blew my mind at the time (I was 16) and it opened my eyes to the power of ideas and to the joy of reading a good book.
I read it as a junior in high school, picked up on the bargain pile at a B. Daltons. It impacted me because it illustrated the concept of learning throughout life and how people can life with dignity. I've loaned it out several times and re-bought it at least three times.
i don't think it's too much to say that i actually, factually, love that book, and its author, very, very much.
While the content of the book in terms of character and story were accessible to me at 16, that isn't really what made the difference.
It was only after reading some criticism and talking with others in school and out that I began to see all that was going on in a novel beyond the plot: symbolism, irony, language and the rest.
When I saw how much could go on in a book, how many things were going on simultaneously, I became very impressed with the complexity of literature as art. From then on I was pretty well hooked on books.
. Richard Feynman - The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
A collection of assorted writings by a great scientist, shows the full palette of a sharp intelligence animated by all-around curiosity.
. Charles Darwin - The Origin of Species
A brilliant mind working out a complete paradigm shift from assorted clues, just like Sherlock Holmes but better. This one got me hooked on palaeontology, still my main line of work.
. Thor Heyerdahl - Kon Tiki
Read it when I was ten or twelve.
True life adventure and exploration - what more could a kid ask for?
. Alan Watts - The Way of Zen
The beginning of a life long interest in Zen phylosophy, I caught this one while in high school. Sure got me a few weird looks from classmates...
. Tom Robbins - Still Life With Woodpecker
The core topics of the book might seem dated, but the language fireworks are still as effective as they were at the time of publication.
. David Brin - Earth
Massive and demanding, a novel that shows what science fiction really is and what could achieve as a tool for exploring possibilities. Great read.
Another book that has changed my life is "Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki". Although I am not practicing Zen (yet), this book is like my Bible in that I plan to always read over it and reflect upon the messages therein. Suzuki had a humble vision that in order to change this world, we need to change the way people think and live, not just to change the symptoms of what is wrong. Not just to get rid of pop-prejudice and hatred, but to get rid of labels entirely, to "fight" war and injustice with peace and understanding instead of anger. And so, so much more in this book. That's just some of the stuff that is shaping the way I think right now.
Reading Lyn Hejinian's _My Life_ actually opened the door to my emotional understanding of language and memory. It's a gorgeous book.
Poetry may not be the "winning pick" here, but it definitely should be celebrated! And not just in April.
Thanks for reading my rant, and I hope you check out some of the books I mentioned. :)
"Black Like me" -J.H. Griffin -Important because I was raised by white people and I am an African American.
I led a sheltered life. In Jr High---it provided an understanding of the pain associated with what it meant to be Black in the real world.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X because I was intrigued by his courage and he made more sense to me than MLK at the peak of their leadership-and Malcolm's metamorphosis gave me hope!!
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham--first encounter with love as a hopeless passion and tinged with cruelty.
Exodus-Leon Uris, The Slave- by Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Fountainhead & Atlas Shrugged-Ayn Rand,
Rand was my first encounter with an organized articulation of my own difficulties with organized religion. Finally, any book that takes me into a different time and cultural context have an influence on my understanding of the world (people and life). Bless the minds that make those experiences possible.
The other book was "The Second Krishnamurti Reader". Having awakened to the boredom of a world full of ME, I was perhaps ready for this psychological release and a process of "unlearning" a rather ego-centric world view. To learn to do each thing with "love", that is with the deepest engagement yet at the same time to be able to step back in experience to allow attention a broader perspective was a revelation and it continues to this day.
by
John O'Brien
only submission i can offer is that this
book
offers the most beautiful
and
horrifying
writing
story
life
you'll read in quite a while
(maybe ever..)
horrifying
in the sense
of
my god.
beautiful
in the sense
of
my god.
hope you try reading
what he wrote.
Ender taught me that no matter how small one may be. No matter how meaningless your existence might be. No matter how small you are on a universal scale you have the ability to impact the world for good or evil. No matter who you are, where you are, and how you came to be you have a chance to make your mark on humanity. The book has had a giant impact on my life and I try and look to it everyday for inspiration.
This book is one of the rare books that changed my life in that it helped me, as a health professional, "get" what cultural diversity means and the ethnocentrism of Western Medicine. It is about a Hmong family in Modesto and their struggles with our health care system. True Story.
"Martin Eden" by Jack London. It's not only a masterfully written novel, but also it's considered his autobiography.
Read it, and let it put your world upside down for good or for a while.
It spoke to me on many levels critiquing the way I thought about the world.