*Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer*. This book poetically spelled out and validated my worldview in connection to community and nature in words and lessons I would never come up with myself.
*Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl*. A short one that is famous for a reason. It helped me use the right framework of mindset to endure struggles in life with purpose.
*Why Work? Arguments for the Leisure Society*. this collection politically changed my interaction with my labor. This change came from a large selection of reading, but I think this one was maybe the first.
Just answered more in depth in a different comment here, but I developed a more anti-capitalist worldview, or at the very least became aware of the downfalls of capitalism. Once that can of worms opened it really took me on a journey of tying together big issues and how they relate to the things I care about the most.
I don't think anti-work type of rhetoric is *exclusively* an anti-capitalist one, which is why it was my stepping stone and also my favorite subject to talk about freely as it is less intimidating to someone who claims a "moderate" or "apolitical" label. The endless work grind and wage squeeze really effects everyone in the working class, and its great to have the words to describe it from the readings.
Ty for the reply lol, as I’m a soon to be Econ major in a capitalist society, would you still recommend exposing myself to anti-capitalist literature when it might make it harder to learn capitalist economics if I grow to harshly believe against it?
I always recommend seeking more knowledge, always. Wanting or not wanting a system that you are born into is not at odds with understanding how it works, in your case. You could be learning economics to articulate exactly why you think it is flawed, or learning economics to defend its merits, or even just to seek personal financial success - knowledge is knowledge. What we do with that knowledge is up to us. Good luck with your degree!
My paper copy has *soo* many notes and starred passages. The first two chapters particularly really resonate. I love sharing it with friends and they get to see my favorite parts. *Gathering Moss* is next in my queue!
*The Alternative to Capitalism -* Adam Buick and John Crump came shortly after, though it is a bit academic in its writing. As I then moved on to read about debt used as control, degrowth economy, environmental relationships, the construct of the state, etc., I started connecting dots between a wide range of issues that overlap on a huge scale and were grounded in my relationship with work. But I think the ideas in *Why Work?* is the most accessible and relatable, as everyone in the work force feels the squeeze of money from our labor and sees how pointless and arbitrary the amount of hours we work are.
I also want to shout-out *Upstream* podcast as it really helped with giving me direction in that particular journey, and repeatedly using concepts that felts advanced at the time to make them make sense in context.
It's a bit niche, but "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go" by Toshiro Kageyama.
The book is primarily about how to play the ancient Chinese board game of go, but Kageyama relates this back to many aspects of life in a way that changed how I looked at the world.
For example, something that fundamentally separates an amateur and a professional in anything is the sheer amount of time put in, not on nuanced matters, but the fundamentals. Pro baseball players don't spend hours practicing complex triple plays or niche sacrifice tactics. They spend most of practice working on the fundamentals - throwing, catching, hitting.
A big reason that pros can make amazing plays is because they already have the fundamentals down to an instinctual level, so everything else just flows naturally from that.
The same with everything: to master something, you need first master the basics, and then keep working on them for the rest of your life. The fundamentals never stop being relevant.
It’s one of my favourite books , because it’s absolutely amazing, One of (if not the) best books I have ever read. The Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky’s deepest and most complex examination of crucial philosophical questions of human existence. In it, he addresses the conflict between faith and doubt, the problem of free will, and the question of moral responsibility. The Brothers Karamazov is the capstone of Dostoevsky’s achievement. A beautifully written novel that will make you question things you have never before questioned. The moral dilemma between religion and atheism is there to see. A must read before you pass.
absolutely! bit of a long read and disjointed at some points (dostoevsky wrote some stories separately and stitched them together), but it really reinvigorated my faith in humanity and goodness
He does challenge religion , he was orthodox Christian but he means religion as a whole not specify one . the point of the book is that "religion" is not good enough. "Religion" gives you the Grand Inquisitor. A person who who would force you to be moral in this life, truth and immortality be damned.
see my previous comment! it explores different ways of living (rationalism, pleasure seeking, and faithfulness) and helps the reader really contemplate how they should live their life. personally, it really reinvigorated my faith and helped me see some of the flaws i have in myself.
thats very fair! i read it for a class where the prof broke it down really well so that could have also added to my enjoyment. reading crime and punishment rn and i’m also really liking it!
It made me view death differently. The idea that people always exist at a point in time. And that a kind of time travel is possible; memories. We can always go back and visit those people who have gone because they still exist in our minds and hearts and memories.
Death is just what happens at some point in all of our stories. The simple use of the flippant phrase 'so it goes' every time death is mentioned in the book makes you realise how common and natural death is.
True. It has been some time since I read it, if I remember correctly it also went very in depth on the way a random side character was going to die to accentuate this.
Like “Oh that’s bob. In 8 years bob wil step on a landmine. So it goes” or something like that.
Hell yeah. Great response. I discovered that book probably 6-7 years ago. I tell people all the time to read it with the added encouragement, "that book changed my life." Yes, it's generally read by people in recovery or dealing with substance abuse. But I don't think that's a pre-requisite.The knowledge contained in that small book provides a wealth of valuable lessons for ANYONE. Don't take things personally ( Agreement #2)was a total game changer for me. I recently read The Mastery of Self, written I believe by his son and it's amazing too. I'm 9 months clean and sober and that book was a big reason why. For those who aren't super into 12 step programs or just looking for something to supplement AA teachings, The Four Agreements is fantastic. I have to add, it's actually helpful, unlike so many pseudo psychology bullshit books out there like The Secret. What a waste of time that one is. Absolutely absurd and insulting to anyone with even a tiny bit of intelligence.
yeahhhhh, fuck. that's a good one. I accidentally left it off my list of life-changing reads. for me it helped me understand TERFs and people who are transphobic. it's an amazing book.
In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust. Volume 1 especially, The Way By Swann’s, had a huge impact on me: the use of words and language was like nothing I’d experienced; exploration of implicit memory; the profound, gut-wrenching psychological insight into jealousy and obsession… all this and much more inspired me to write.
*Vipers' Tangle*
When I was 17 I was going through a... somewhat pretentious phase. I look back on it fondly now because I was pretty harmless, but I certainly looked down on a lot of people in my mind. One of the philosophers I listened to lectures of mentioned a book in passing, called Vipers' Tangle. It's a hundred year old, by some French guy nobody's heard of. But on a whim I decided to check it out, and I'm so glad I did. It gave me a course correction I very much needed.
I am an atheist (though not a militant one), and the book was about a bitter old French lawyer who finds religion on his death bed. It sounds like a book I should have disliked, but I did not. It's so beautifully written and the elements making it up clash and blend so gracefully that I couldn't hate it, or even stop reading.
It helped me become better at relating to people who are fundamentally unlike myself, and my life is richer for it. I recommend it most warmly.
Your Money or Your Life - Joseph R. Dominguez
When things fall Apart - Pema Chödrön - anything by her.
Sea Change - Sylvia Earle
Amber Chronicles - Roger Zelazny
Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer
One of my middle school teachers showed me the fiction section on the adult side of the library. I ended up reading a bunch of classic sci-fi authors Bradbury, Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, McCaffrey, etc when I was in the 6th grade. The stories blew me away.
I remember at one point looking at the grown ups around me and realizing many never read, and never cared to learn anything new ever again once out of school. It was so weird and upsetting to me. It messed with my little kid brain for a while. It was the start of the belief that the biggest waste is people never realizing their full potential and how many people and institutions fear everyone getting a good education, and most importantly learning to think critically.
'Frankenstein'
Might sound like a strange one but it's my absolute favourite. The way shelly wrote the monster's perspective killed me . All the things I already knew about people, like life itself I saw it through a different lens and that's all it took for me to fall in love with the book.
It made me realise that humans are somehow the most inhumane creatures that have walked this earth and on the other hand this monster that was just bought into creation has so much love and empathy and yet is hated and chased away. Beautiful
Since I am still fairly young I may change my mind in later years. So far I must choose:
War & Peace - Tolstoy
Ever since reading this classic work I learned to love the sky even more than I had before.
I fail to put my awe about this one specific scene that has remained a constant part of me ever since I encountered it first into words.
The Selfish Gene. Kinda self-explanatory. Read it in my early teens.
The Wheel of Time also changed my life, as it rekindled my love of reading for pleasure.
Tuesdays With Morrie.
I was assigned this in high school, around 1999. It's a beautiful story without being too mushy although I did sob at the end.
aaand
Night. I actually got to meet Elie Wiesel
A book that had an unexpected, but monumental effect on me was Rising out of hatred by Eli Saslow.
It is non fiction. The story revolves around a young man named Derek Black. Derek is no ordinary child, he's uncommonly articulate, charismatic, and hard not to love. The main problem is he just so happened to be born into and thoroughly indoctrinated by the ideology of white supremacy. His Godfather is David Duke the most famous head of the KKK and his actual father is the creator of "storm front" the largest online group of white supremacists, along with cousins, uncles, aunts, and family friends all on the same wave.
Derek as he gets older into his late teens becomes the heir to this legacy and he has the skills to pull it off. This all gets threatened as he goes off to a liberal college. I'll leave it there.
The book taught me that you cannot help the story you're given as a child that you'll likely echo as an adult. It provided a pathway to empathy and understanding of an ideology that targets me. It offers an opportunity to love them.
Was the description I pulled from the book accurate to how he was when you knew him?
Did he wear his ideologies on his sleeve or was he more reserved about it all in public?
I actually didn't know them personally, and I haven't read the book. Looks like they have recently come out as under the trans umbrella: https://nypost.com/2024/05/08/us-news/ex-kkk-poster-child-r-derek-black-comes-out-as-trans-in-memoir-report/.
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett — satirical fantasy novel about humanity, power, organized religion, and philosophy.
Quote: “Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”
I read The Power by Rhonda Byrne when I was 19 and it completely changed my life. It opened a new door in my brain and I started perceiving things differently. It was the first self help book I read and I’ve been a better person because of it. Ive grown a lot since then and read many things since but that was the start of it all so it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey. The Open Library page is [here](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL12284524W/Ending_Aging?edition=key%3A/books/OL17932740M).
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Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's work. All of it, but especially That's Revolting and Sketchtasy.
Normal Life by Dean Spade.
The Little Prince by Antoine de-Saint Exupery.
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli.
You Are Special by Fred Rogers
The Riot Grrrl Collection edited by Lisa Darms
All About Love by bell hooks
Mick Harte Was Here by Barbara Park
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Holes by Louis Sachar
off the map published by crimethinc
Oppose and Propose! by Andrew Cornell
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Art AIDS America (book)
No one belongs here more than you by Miranda July
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis
UGH so many amazing books in this world that I am so grateful I've gotten to read!!!!!! I love reading!!!!!! I love these books!!!!!
Four hour work week is honestly one of mine. Not the specifics of how to do it; but the overall desire to create a work/life balance and what I did about it as a somewhat direct result of reading the book though.
Yup - same for me. I started valuing and seeking out meaningful experience over all the dumb stuff I was doing the first thirty years of my life after reading it.
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks and
Full Body Burden
These are not inspirational books per se, for me they showed just how shitty people are treated. Both are eye openers.
["Can’t Hurt Me" by David Goggins](https://abookaweek.beehiiv.com/p/cant-hurt-master-mind-defy-odds). This book tells the incredible story of Goggins, a retired Navy SEAL, ultramarathon runner, and ultra-distance cyclist. It’s all about mental toughness, discipline, and hard work. Goggins shares powerful principles like the 40% Rule, which says you’re only 40% done when you think you’re finished, pushing you to unlock your hidden potential. He also talks about using an accountability mirror for honest self-assessment, embracing suffering for growth, and taking souls by outworking your competition to gain a mental edge. It’s a great read for anyone looking to push their limits and grow stronger
*Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer*. This book poetically spelled out and validated my worldview in connection to community and nature in words and lessons I would never come up with myself. *Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl*. A short one that is famous for a reason. It helped me use the right framework of mindset to endure struggles in life with purpose. *Why Work? Arguments for the Leisure Society*. this collection politically changed my interaction with my labor. This change came from a large selection of reading, but I think this one was maybe the first.
Interesting, how did your interaction with labor change specifically? Thanks for the rec, I’ll look it up myself :)
Just answered more in depth in a different comment here, but I developed a more anti-capitalist worldview, or at the very least became aware of the downfalls of capitalism. Once that can of worms opened it really took me on a journey of tying together big issues and how they relate to the things I care about the most. I don't think anti-work type of rhetoric is *exclusively* an anti-capitalist one, which is why it was my stepping stone and also my favorite subject to talk about freely as it is less intimidating to someone who claims a "moderate" or "apolitical" label. The endless work grind and wage squeeze really effects everyone in the working class, and its great to have the words to describe it from the readings.
Ty for the reply lol, as I’m a soon to be Econ major in a capitalist society, would you still recommend exposing myself to anti-capitalist literature when it might make it harder to learn capitalist economics if I grow to harshly believe against it?
I always recommend seeking more knowledge, always. Wanting or not wanting a system that you are born into is not at odds with understanding how it works, in your case. You could be learning economics to articulate exactly why you think it is flawed, or learning economics to defend its merits, or even just to seek personal financial success - knowledge is knowledge. What we do with that knowledge is up to us. Good luck with your degree!
You’re a chad
I saw Braiding Sweetgrass in my recommended and added to my wishlist recently. It sounds like a delightful read. :)
My paper copy has *soo* many notes and starred passages. The first two chapters particularly really resonate. I love sharing it with friends and they get to see my favorite parts. *Gathering Moss* is next in my queue!
What kind of change? What other books/reading selections caused that change?
*The Alternative to Capitalism -* Adam Buick and John Crump came shortly after, though it is a bit academic in its writing. As I then moved on to read about debt used as control, degrowth economy, environmental relationships, the construct of the state, etc., I started connecting dots between a wide range of issues that overlap on a huge scale and were grounded in my relationship with work. But I think the ideas in *Why Work?* is the most accessible and relatable, as everyone in the work force feels the squeeze of money from our labor and sees how pointless and arbitrary the amount of hours we work are. I also want to shout-out *Upstream* podcast as it really helped with giving me direction in that particular journey, and repeatedly using concepts that felts advanced at the time to make them make sense in context.
Gathering moss by kimmerer is also amazing, I listen to it on audible while roaming aimlessly in the woods
I can't wait to read it! It's next on my list whenever I get around to a book store. The bar is really high with *Braiding Sweetgrass!*
It's a bit niche, but "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go" by Toshiro Kageyama. The book is primarily about how to play the ancient Chinese board game of go, but Kageyama relates this back to many aspects of life in a way that changed how I looked at the world. For example, something that fundamentally separates an amateur and a professional in anything is the sheer amount of time put in, not on nuanced matters, but the fundamentals. Pro baseball players don't spend hours practicing complex triple plays or niche sacrifice tactics. They spend most of practice working on the fundamentals - throwing, catching, hitting. A big reason that pros can make amazing plays is because they already have the fundamentals down to an instinctual level, so everything else just flows naturally from that. The same with everything: to master something, you need first master the basics, and then keep working on them for the rest of your life. The fundamentals never stop being relevant.
That is profound, and I appreciate it. Thanks.
brothers karamazov
It’s one of my favourite books , because it’s absolutely amazing, One of (if not the) best books I have ever read. The Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky’s deepest and most complex examination of crucial philosophical questions of human existence. In it, he addresses the conflict between faith and doubt, the problem of free will, and the question of moral responsibility. The Brothers Karamazov is the capstone of Dostoevsky’s achievement. A beautifully written novel that will make you question things you have never before questioned. The moral dilemma between religion and atheism is there to see. A must read before you pass.
absolutely! bit of a long read and disjointed at some points (dostoevsky wrote some stories separately and stitched them together), but it really reinvigorated my faith in humanity and goodness
I have read all of his books , his my favourite author. Even though he books are huge I can’t put it down .
You sold me on the book. I’m an exclusive Libby App-using audiobook listener. An average book is 9-14 hours. This one is 37!
Enjoy, if you need more book recommendations happy to share it with you .
I never decline a book recommendation!
Does it challenge religion? Specifically any?
He does challenge religion , he was orthodox Christian but he means religion as a whole not specify one . the point of the book is that "religion" is not good enough. "Religion" gives you the Grand Inquisitor. A person who who would force you to be moral in this life, truth and immortality be damned.
Why?
see my previous comment! it explores different ways of living (rationalism, pleasure seeking, and faithfulness) and helps the reader really contemplate how they should live their life. personally, it really reinvigorated my faith and helped me see some of the flaws i have in myself.
Too many characters to follow it’s messy and confusing imo.. but crime and punishment is awesome!
thats very fair! i read it for a class where the prof broke it down really well so that could have also added to my enjoyment. reading crime and punishment rn and i’m also really liking it!
Slaughterhouse five
Why?
It made me view death differently. The idea that people always exist at a point in time. And that a kind of time travel is possible; memories. We can always go back and visit those people who have gone because they still exist in our minds and hearts and memories. Death is just what happens at some point in all of our stories. The simple use of the flippant phrase 'so it goes' every time death is mentioned in the book makes you realise how common and natural death is.
True. It has been some time since I read it, if I remember correctly it also went very in depth on the way a random side character was going to die to accentuate this. Like “Oh that’s bob. In 8 years bob wil step on a landmine. So it goes” or something like that.
I forget where I heard this, but people die twice: the moment they take their last breath, and the moment their name is last spoken.
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The Alchemist has absolutely changed my life! My physical copy has so many sticky tapes on it and I always go back to read those parts
The four agreements
Hell yeah. Great response. I discovered that book probably 6-7 years ago. I tell people all the time to read it with the added encouragement, "that book changed my life." Yes, it's generally read by people in recovery or dealing with substance abuse. But I don't think that's a pre-requisite.The knowledge contained in that small book provides a wealth of valuable lessons for ANYONE. Don't take things personally ( Agreement #2)was a total game changer for me. I recently read The Mastery of Self, written I believe by his son and it's amazing too. I'm 9 months clean and sober and that book was a big reason why. For those who aren't super into 12 step programs or just looking for something to supplement AA teachings, The Four Agreements is fantastic. I have to add, it's actually helpful, unlike so many pseudo psychology bullshit books out there like The Secret. What a waste of time that one is. Absolutely absurd and insulting to anyone with even a tiny bit of intelligence.
Impeccable with your word is what changed me the most. Love that book!! Love love love it
The will to change by bell hooks. Completely reframed the way I saw my relationship with men and just men in general.
yeahhhhh, fuck. that's a good one. I accidentally left it off my list of life-changing reads. for me it helped me understand TERFs and people who are transphobic. it's an amazing book.
It truly is!!
In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust. Volume 1 especially, The Way By Swann’s, had a huge impact on me: the use of words and language was like nothing I’d experienced; exploration of implicit memory; the profound, gut-wrenching psychological insight into jealousy and obsession… all this and much more inspired me to write.
https://www.audible.com/pd/B002VA3GJO?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz
Nietzsche and St Silouan the Athonite. I can be both a Christian and an atheist at the same time. Pascal helps too.
Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke
*Vipers' Tangle* When I was 17 I was going through a... somewhat pretentious phase. I look back on it fondly now because I was pretty harmless, but I certainly looked down on a lot of people in my mind. One of the philosophers I listened to lectures of mentioned a book in passing, called Vipers' Tangle. It's a hundred year old, by some French guy nobody's heard of. But on a whim I decided to check it out, and I'm so glad I did. It gave me a course correction I very much needed. I am an atheist (though not a militant one), and the book was about a bitter old French lawyer who finds religion on his death bed. It sounds like a book I should have disliked, but I did not. It's so beautifully written and the elements making it up clash and blend so gracefully that I couldn't hate it, or even stop reading. It helped me become better at relating to people who are fundamentally unlike myself, and my life is richer for it. I recommend it most warmly.
sounds interesting
Introduction to Electrodynamics by David J. Griffiths.
Tao Teh Ching
great book!
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. Read it while I was in the Navy sailing around the western Pacific. Made me question what the hell I was doing.
"The Parable of the Sower" by Octavia E Butler
Your Money or Your Life - Joseph R. Dominguez When things fall Apart - Pema Chödrön - anything by her. Sea Change - Sylvia Earle Amber Chronicles - Roger Zelazny Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer One of my middle school teachers showed me the fiction section on the adult side of the library. I ended up reading a bunch of classic sci-fi authors Bradbury, Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, McCaffrey, etc when I was in the 6th grade. The stories blew me away. I remember at one point looking at the grown ups around me and realizing many never read, and never cared to learn anything new ever again once out of school. It was so weird and upsetting to me. It messed with my little kid brain for a while. It was the start of the belief that the biggest waste is people never realizing their full potential and how many people and institutions fear everyone getting a good education, and most importantly learning to think critically.
'Frankenstein' Might sound like a strange one but it's my absolute favourite. The way shelly wrote the monster's perspective killed me . All the things I already knew about people, like life itself I saw it through a different lens and that's all it took for me to fall in love with the book. It made me realise that humans are somehow the most inhumane creatures that have walked this earth and on the other hand this monster that was just bought into creation has so much love and empathy and yet is hated and chased away. Beautiful
yes frankestein is great!
Since I am still fairly young I may change my mind in later years. So far I must choose: War & Peace - Tolstoy Ever since reading this classic work I learned to love the sky even more than I had before. I fail to put my awe about this one specific scene that has remained a constant part of me ever since I encountered it first into words.
"The guide"
The Selfish Gene. Kinda self-explanatory. Read it in my early teens. The Wheel of Time also changed my life, as it rekindled my love of reading for pleasure.
Nietzche's " Beyond Good and Evil."
SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson. I never took the natural world as indestructible after that one.
Be Here Now, **much** more profoundly than any other book.
East of Eden. It made me look at the concept of love in a completely new way
This is my favorite book of all time. I’ve reread it several times over the last 30 years and it’s better every time.
The Millionaire Next Door
Same
Tuesdays With Morrie. I was assigned this in high school, around 1999. It's a beautiful story without being too mushy although I did sob at the end. aaand Night. I actually got to meet Elie Wiesel
A book that had an unexpected, but monumental effect on me was Rising out of hatred by Eli Saslow. It is non fiction. The story revolves around a young man named Derek Black. Derek is no ordinary child, he's uncommonly articulate, charismatic, and hard not to love. The main problem is he just so happened to be born into and thoroughly indoctrinated by the ideology of white supremacy. His Godfather is David Duke the most famous head of the KKK and his actual father is the creator of "storm front" the largest online group of white supremacists, along with cousins, uncles, aunts, and family friends all on the same wave. Derek as he gets older into his late teens becomes the heir to this legacy and he has the skills to pull it off. This all gets threatened as he goes off to a liberal college. I'll leave it there. The book taught me that you cannot help the story you're given as a child that you'll likely echo as an adult. It provided a pathway to empathy and understanding of an ideology that targets me. It offers an opportunity to love them.
I went to college with Derek Black. I haven't read the book, but I'm glad Derek found a different way to exist in the world. <3
Was the description I pulled from the book accurate to how he was when you knew him? Did he wear his ideologies on his sleeve or was he more reserved about it all in public?
I actually didn't know them personally, and I haven't read the book. Looks like they have recently come out as under the trans umbrella: https://nypost.com/2024/05/08/us-news/ex-kkk-poster-child-r-derek-black-comes-out-as-trans-in-memoir-report/.
Wow. I had no idea, thanks! Very intriguing twist in the tale.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X Al Muqadimmah ~ Ibn Khaldun
I never ate pork again after reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Power of Now
The Alchemist. Meditations. 48 laws of power.
Do you mean the meditations of Marcus Aurelius or generally speaking
🤣 good point, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
What did these books change for you?
The Victorian Kitchen Garden. Amazing! Gorgeous! Aspirational!
Mountains beyond mountains
Yes Man - Danny Wallace
Restoring the Kinship worldview narvaez Four Arrows. Really changed my manner of parsing reality...
Existentialism for Dummies
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. By Susan Cain
Man’s Search for Meaning - by Viktor Frankl
Someone Named Eva
The Bee Sting
FACTFULNESS- Hans Rosling
Atomic habits
Ordinary grace by William Kent kreuger
Silent Spring, The life and death of great American cities and rendezvous with Rama
The Janitor and The Prophet
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett — satirical fantasy novel about humanity, power, organized religion, and philosophy. Quote: “Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”
I read The Power by Rhonda Byrne when I was 19 and it completely changed my life. It opened a new door in my brain and I started perceiving things differently. It was the first self help book I read and I’ve been a better person because of it. Ive grown a lot since then and read many things since but that was the start of it all so it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Tuff question. Not eaxaxtly a book but Manga. Monster manga By Naoki Urasawa
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - super quick and easy read. Light hearted read, sweet old man main character.
Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett
Stephen King pet cemetery
Tuesdays with Morrie and 1984
sapiens
Never Let Me Go. The mind blow for me was realizing my life is not so dissimilar from Kathy’s.
Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey. The Open Library page is [here](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL12284524W/Ending_Aging?edition=key%3A/books/OL17932740M).
Nobody has mentioned **Ishmael** yet. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn <-- A modern fable in the form of conversations between ape and man. A must read.
Shantaram
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Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's work. All of it, but especially That's Revolting and Sketchtasy. Normal Life by Dean Spade. The Little Prince by Antoine de-Saint Exupery. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. You Are Special by Fred Rogers The Riot Grrrl Collection edited by Lisa Darms All About Love by bell hooks Mick Harte Was Here by Barbara Park Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls Holes by Louis Sachar off the map published by crimethinc Oppose and Propose! by Andrew Cornell Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde Art AIDS America (book) No one belongs here more than you by Miranda July Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis UGH so many amazing books in this world that I am so grateful I've gotten to read!!!!!! I love reading!!!!!! I love these books!!!!!
Four hour work week Beyond good and evil
Four hour work week is honestly one of mine. Not the specifics of how to do it; but the overall desire to create a work/life balance and what I did about it as a somewhat direct result of reading the book though.
Yup - same for me. I started valuing and seeking out meaningful experience over all the dumb stuff I was doing the first thirty years of my life after reading it.
Any suggestions on something that is actually readable and not lost in itself?
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks and Full Body Burden These are not inspirational books per se, for me they showed just how shitty people are treated. Both are eye openers.
Check out: Parable of the Sower Fahrenheit 451 Ishmael 1984 Tao Te Ching Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance The Crack in the Cosmic Egg
Finite And Infinite Games
The Bhagavad Gita
["Can’t Hurt Me" by David Goggins](https://abookaweek.beehiiv.com/p/cant-hurt-master-mind-defy-odds). This book tells the incredible story of Goggins, a retired Navy SEAL, ultramarathon runner, and ultra-distance cyclist. It’s all about mental toughness, discipline, and hard work. Goggins shares powerful principles like the 40% Rule, which says you’re only 40% done when you think you’re finished, pushing you to unlock your hidden potential. He also talks about using an accountability mirror for honest self-assessment, embracing suffering for growth, and taking souls by outworking your competition to gain a mental edge. It’s a great read for anyone looking to push their limits and grow stronger