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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2017 17:32:11 GMT -5
Even if a book is funny or bad, if it has had a profound effect on you, please list it and describe. I will post mine after Curry Bay Scallops dinner
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2017 18:06:08 GMT -5
Dinner is delayed, so here goes:
The Bible - Yes, it's the obvious feel righteous pick, but I have put thousands of hours into studying it, though mostly in days gone by.
The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran - Almost as profound as the Bible and teaches you to think about the tenets of good and evil in you. Most of this guy's books are great
The Right of Way - An unknown (these days) book by Sir Gilbert Parker around 1900. About a total asshole who loses his memory and tries to work out his new life in a good way, not realizing who he was before. Made into three films, one starring fave actor Conrad Nagel, This book so totally spoke to me about redemption
Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan - A remarkable book that weaves a tale from China in the past to Chinese-Americans in present. The ending was very sweet. Admittedly this is a chick book. I read it when I was doing a lot of Asian American studies
The Last Buffoon by Lew Levinsky, pulp writer - was so funny and rang true about a pulp writer that was always getting into trouble and not getting paid from publishers. I can identify with all of that. With the next book spurred me to writing.
Hammett, by Joe Gores - I love Hammett. Love the movie with Frederick Forrest. I hated the book. So poorly written, imo, that I felt I could do better. Wrote a novel after that. Was such a piece of shite I never showed it to anyone. I look at it occasionally to humble me
Ghost Story by Peter Straub. The best of his books, though the Blue Rose Trilogy is totally gripping. Straub as mastered the art of suspense as opposed to cheap goopy horror
1984 by Orwell - Read this one thrice, as I have with a few of the others. Don't think it needs an explanation
Mystery of the Witches Bridge - forgot who wrote it, but it was the first mystery book I read as a child and the first one over 200 pages. It set up my love of the Mystery Genre for life
Riders of the Purple Sage and Rainbow Trail by Zane Grey - Totally got me on a lifelong Western love
There are tons of non-fiction ones that have also had a large effect, but mostly for knowledge, not for a really inner experience
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Post by trailboss on Dec 17, 2017 18:25:36 GMT -5
1. The bible
The rest are in no particular order....
2. Mere Christianity /CS Lewis
3. Martyrs Mirror (Or the bloody theater) thielmann J Van Braght
4. The vanishing Conscience John MacArthur
5. Intellectuals by Paul Johnson
6. Paris 1919 by Margaret McMillan (the world still reels from decisions made then)
7. The Gravest Extreme by Massad Ayoob
8. On Killing Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
9. Liberty and Tyrrany Mark Levin
10. A man of the Word Jill Morgan
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Post by Ronv69 on Dec 17, 2017 19:16:27 GMT -5
1:The Bible
2:A Tail of Two Cities
3:Ivanhoe
4:The U.P. Trail (Zane Grey)
5:Foundation (series)
6:Horn of the Hunter
7: Thousands more.....
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Post by isett2860 on Dec 17, 2017 19:36:48 GMT -5
Hard to nail it down to 5 or 6 books
Patrick O’Brian, Aubrey/ Maturin series. And everything else he wrote.
C.S. Forester, Hornblower series.
Dudley Pope, Ramage series.
Steven King, The Stand
Clive Cussler, Raise the Titanic.
On the Beach, Nevile Shute
London, Edward Rutherurd
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2017 19:42:28 GMT -5
I love the seafaring books as well
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Post by Ronv69 on Dec 17, 2017 19:48:18 GMT -5
I have read all of the O'Brian books as well. It just hard to remember all the great books that I have read.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2017 20:34:28 GMT -5
Alexis de' Tocqueville - Democracy in Amercia
Edward Abbey - The Money Wrench Gang
Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire
Levon Helm - The Wheel's on Fire
Tom Wolfe - The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The worst book I tried to make my way through but couldn't was "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. Rubbish.
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Post by Ronv69 on Dec 17, 2017 22:33:14 GMT -5
The worst book I tried to make my way through but couldn't was "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. Rubbish. On The Road was pretty bad, to me it is in the same class as Catcher in The Rye and Ulysses. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2017 23:13:17 GMT -5
The worst book I tried to make my way through but couldn't was "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. Rubbish. On The Road was pretty bad, to me it is in the same class as Catcher in The Rye and Ulysses. I agree with all of that. Steinbeck's Travels with Charley is better. Actually, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday were profound to me. Steinbeck has a way of elevating the low and leveling the high in people |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2017 23:40:34 GMT -5
1. On the Road 2. Catcher in the Rye  But seriously, I find it an impossible question. I might be able to do specific genres or fields, but best book is way too broad. (On the Road was a bore, but I did like Catcher in the Rye) |
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Post by Ronv69 on Dec 18, 2017 0:04:14 GMT -5
I like Steinbeck, very readable to me. Also Hemingway. But they just didn't make any impression on me like the others.
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Post by bonanzadriver on Dec 18, 2017 1:08:56 GMT -5
I'll echo some of the others...
1. Bible
2. Atlas Shrugged
3. 1984
4. Liberty & Tyranny
5. Democracy in America
6. Wealth of Nations
7. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
8. Think & Grow Rich
9. The Pipe Book
10. Fate is the Hunter
11. 1776
12. Team of Rivals
13. The Art of War
14. 21 Irrefutable Qualities of a Leader
15. The 5 People You Meet in Heaven
16. The Travelers Gift
17. First Break all the Rules
18. Tipping Point
19. Thinking for a Change
20. Common Sense
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Post by PhantomWolf on Dec 18, 2017 2:28:56 GMT -5
These books, though not exactly my favourites, are some of the books that changed me a great deal while reading them. If I had a child, I'd see them read these early while the brain is still forming.
Jack London- Call of the Wild
Collective works of T.S Elliot
William Golding- Lord of The Flies
George Orwell- Animal Farm
Mark Twain- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- Sherlock Holmes (the various collections I had as a child.)
Ken Kesey- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Kurt Vonnegut- Slaughterhouse Five
Alexandre Dumas- The Count of Monte Cristo
William Armstrong- Sounder
If the list was purely fun reads, it would include lots of King and Tolkien as well as every classic from Moby-Dick to Treasure Island.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2017 8:56:34 GMT -5
I didn't notice it said "five to ten." That means I get five more:
The Federalist - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
John Locke - Second Treatise of Government
John Updike - Rabbit is Rich (Favorite of the trilogy)
Peter Lynch - One Up on Wall Street
Andy Beyer - Picking Winners
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Post by Darin on Dec 18, 2017 10:02:02 GMT -5
In my favorites list as well ... great books!
Hemingway - Old man and the Sea
James Herriot - All Creatures Great and Small, All things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful
Jack London - The Call of the Wild, White Fang
C.S Lewis - The Screwtape Letters
George Orwell - Animal Farm
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote
Well ... there's too many good ones but these popped into my head first.
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Post by papipeguy on Dec 18, 2017 17:08:18 GMT -5
Probably the most profound book I ever read was "Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds", written in 1841 by Charles Mackay. It covers Tulipmania, The South Sea Bubble Scheme and many of the other famous flim-flam operations over history up to that time. A very prescient book.
My favorite humor author is Patrick McManus. I read all of his books and re-read them every few years. Pat grew up in Idaho but his stories from childhood resonate with this kid from New Jersey.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Dec 18, 2017 18:58:48 GMT -5
I've added quite a few to my good reads list. I even added a few of Mark's choices. Maybe 36 isn't too old to turn things around and become wealthy. haha
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Post by username on Dec 18, 2017 19:05:06 GMT -5
I can't really rank them as I've read alot of books but Chronicles Of Narnia is definitely in the top 5. They were the books that got me into reading damn near everything thing I could get my hands on when I was a child
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2017 19:12:45 GMT -5
One I didn't think of was a black comedy that everyone in the medical field read, House of God, by Sam Shem. That was the book that coined the term Saint Elsewhere.
Then there's the comedy:
Jokes for the John
More Jokes for the John
Jokes for the Head - Navy version
Bio of William Gaines, MAD Mag owner
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2017 21:49:44 GMT -5
I've spent many hours wasting away time reading utter nonsense. The latest reading has been the best. Discovering rational, logical thinking has been quite liberating for me. I just would have liked to have been exposed to this reasoning early in life.
The End of a Faith- Sam Harris
Letter to a Christian Nation- Sam Harris
God is not Great- Christopher Hitchens
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Post by Darin on Dec 19, 2017 9:11:33 GMT -5
... Chronicles Of Narnia is definitely in the top 5. They were the books that got me into reading damn near everything thing I could get my hands on when I was a child. David Eddings did that for me as well with his Belgariad and Mallorean Series ... forgot those in my list! Also:Bernard Cornwell - The Saxon Stories ... phenomenal historical fiction (plus, Vikings are awesome) Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide Series (don't forget your towel!) Michael Behe - Darwin's Black Box (a biochemical challenge to evolution) |
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Post by Baboo on Dec 19, 2017 9:32:20 GMT -5
All of Jane Roberts, Seth, books e.g., The Seth Material.
John Le Carre', all.
Joe Weber, Targets of Opportunity, Rules of Engagement, etc.
Oliver Sachs, all.
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Post by trailboss on Dec 19, 2017 10:19:34 GMT -5
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sablebrush52
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Post by sablebrush52 on Dec 19, 2017 11:20:57 GMT -5
Back when I was a little kid, before my balls dropped, I read a lot. Dostoyevsky, Turgenyev, Gogol, Dickens, Twain, Shakespeare, Plato, Thackeray, Steinbeck, Sun-Tzu, Vasari, Machiavelli, Marlow, Tolstoi, etc, several versions of the Bible, biblical comemntary, critical comparison, and archeology, and a fair of other stuff. Now I read mostly crap, well high end crap like Asimov, Niven, Ellison, Farmer, Heinlein, Pournelle, American and World history, and a lot of detective fiction. Currently I'm reading Peter May. I don't have the time, or maybe just as much the inclination, to read as once I had. All of this has had a cumulative effect on me and it would be absurd for me to single out just a few as unfortunately I'm not that simple minded. But there's still hope.
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Post by Darin on Dec 19, 2017 13:04:32 GMT -5
Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.
-Newton
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Post by Darin on Dec 19, 2017 13:32:00 GMT -5
Duplicate Dang ... had a few other cool quotes on simplicity but they disappeared. There's always Occam's Razor.  |
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orley
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Post by orley on Dec 19, 2017 13:46:38 GMT -5
The Bible
Darwin's - The Origin of Species
Dawkins - The God Delusion
Thomas Paine - The Age of Reason
Laurie R King - The Mary Russell books.
Stieg Larsson - The Millennium series
The Gnostic Gospels
Gail Sheehy - Passages
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Post by Darin on Dec 19, 2017 16:12:04 GMT -5
orley ... a little Bertrand Russell too?
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orley
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Post by orley on Dec 19, 2017 16:47:40 GMT -5
Ah yes, Bertrand Russell, I read one of his books in my senior year in high school 1964 but for the life of me can't remember the title, nor am I sure I even have it anymore. I might have to look up some of his books.
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