I'm looking for book recommendations. Just started the Trial by Kafka and love it. I'll start off by recommending A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. A brilliant take on the Vietnam War and the greater political-military intellectual currents that informed policymakers. Long, but well worth your time.
Huckleberry Finn - Twain. I was 14 when I read it, and it inspired me to run away from home. I was back two days later, but it was a start.
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky. I read this book in my early 20's when I was really messing things up but telling everyone that all was OK. I took the wisdom from the book, opened up to people, and they supported me as I got things taken care of.
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut. This one just changed my perspective in general.
More pragmatic choices:
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People- Stephne Covey
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnagie
The Power of Positive Thinking - Vincent Peale
These books helped to shape my life in varying degrees
A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life - Shantideva
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
The Bible
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Post Office - Charles Bukowski
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
The Great Shark Hunt - Hunter S. Thompson
The Stranger - Camus
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung - Lester Bangs
likes his army men covered in motor oil (or something like that).
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: cHARM city, MD
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I actually though Breakfast of Champions was the more life-changing Vonnegut book. Of course after I read God Bless You Mr. Rosewater before all of those, and it made me want to read everything he had ever written.
Kitchen Confiential by Anthony Bourdain was actually a bit life-change for me, along with the No Reservations TV show.
I would thinki reading Fight Club would be in this category, but I saw the movie first, so I just moved on to Hidden Monsters, Lullaby, and Survivor, so i'm not sure I can count it...
I'm looking for book recommendations. Just started the Trial by Kafka and love it. I'll start off by recommending A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. A brilliant take on the Vietnam War and the greater political-military intellectual currents that informed policymakers. Long, but well worth your time.
Any suggestions?
You ought to give The Best & The Brightest a read if you liked A Bright shining lie. It's long but informative, and much better, but that's just me.
I think on the road was mine, not due to content but before that point reading seemed like nothing more than homework.
After then I think breakfast of champions, mainly because of his writing style, same as falkner and hemmingway have their own voices vonneguts personality is displayed on everypage.
Life of Pi was awesome. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda was excellent also, really interesting and kinda changes the way you look at drugs.
__________________ Your emotions make you a monster.
Matty may be a savage, but he does nice things for me to make me smile. My better judgment held my snarkiness in check.
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: NJ
Posts: 3,890
Quote:
Originally Posted by cougarjake13
yeh you know i had the i in there first thought it looked wrong and googled and at the top it said did you mean solophist
so i went with that
It's just a weird word, but why would you Google it rather than searching Amazon? It's a book; Google doesn't do well with books. Yet.
Incidentally, I read it about 8 years ago because the guy I was dating at the time felt it was his "life-changing" book, so he loaned me his copy. I can see why it impressed him.
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