It’s out of print so it’s hard to find a copy.but I still cite this book quite often,
it’s not something the CIA wants you to read, that’s for damn sure
Beatrix Potter’s stories, Where the Wild things are, Gruffalo, My Naughty Little Sister, Narnia series, Httyd, Warrior Cats, History Dark Materials and the Alex Rider series, have all made me happier and enjoy life more after having read them all.
I’m SHOCKED that no one has mentioned Discworld or any Terry Pratchett books… everything in the Discworld series has taught me so much on how to be a decent human, how to treat others, and to “do the job in front of you.” I especially love the Tiffany Aching books because they’re about finding strength in yourself and who you are and again, simply being a great human while still being human.
After having grown up fundamentalist, I read the thing several times through and realized that what I was reading didn’t match what the church was teaching.
is an eight-book fantasy series by Piers Anthony. The books each focus on one of eight supernatural “offices” (Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil, Good, and Night) in a fictional reality and history parallel to ours, with the exception that society has advanced both magic and modern technology.
The count of Monte Cristo.. it taught me about obsession and the cost of revenge.. about the persuit of happiness and dangers it can have .. the duality if man.. good men can be bad, and bad man can be good. Right and wrong can be situational. Also, it’s a great story of loss and redemption.
People need to learn how to be introspective and learn how to take responsibility for themselves. It makes life so much easier when you know how. When you make a mistake at work, you own it, correct it, and move on. You’ll already have the solution and you build trust with everyone around you more easily.
When I first read Phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty, it completely shattered the way I understood reality. Before that, I thought consciousness was this detached observer, like a camera recording the world. But Merleau-Ponty showed me that perception is not passive, it’s embodied, situated, intentional. I am not in front of the world I am in the world, through my body. That changed everything. It made me realize that truth isn’t something we extract like data; it’s something we live. This shifted how I think about design, ethics, even capitalism because all of it begins with the body as the first site of meaning.
The Bible. It’s an epic fairytale and it changed me to a firm atheist because it is nonsensical. I’ve never looked at the religious in the same way. You have to be really easy to hoodwink to believe it’s anything other than a work of fiction.
Zen a the Art of Motorcycle Maitenence! Deep Conceptualization and Symbolism. Specifically, every single part (big or small) has a function when assembled correctly.
I have a few answers to this, but the first one to mind is actually the book I’m reading right now. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. It’s about the relationships between fungi and other life, and does an excellent job of troubling the boundaries we draw in the natural world and offering examples of beneficial symbiosis that are great inspiration for the ways we view and interact with the natural world and one another.
Run Baby Run.
I was a bit of a troublemaker in my youth. Aside from the heavy religious theme, it did open my eyes and convinced me I needed to change my ways. Gang life isn’t for me.
The Bible. After reading it cover to cover it changed my life, as it convinced me the stuff I’d been taught all my life being raised in the church was bullshit.
Autobiography of a recovering Skinhead. Really really powerful book. The man, Frank Meink holds no punches when addressing his myriad mistakes and cruelty. Its a showcase that people can change, even if they often don’t.
Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World. I coincidentally was gifted a copy right around the time I had started deconstructing from Christianity and it put into words so many of my rising concerns about rational thinking and the ways people are so easily convinced to believe things without good reason.
Prozac nation. As someone who was suffering from depression at the time but unsure what it was or how to describe it or how to handle it, the book was literally a life saver for me.
I first read it a few months before my grandfather died when I was 12. It completely changed my understanding of human grief and mourning. One of my good friends had been killed a year earlier and I remember feeling so strange because I wasn’t grieving like everyone else seemed to. Reading that book helped me understand how grief is processed by different people. Even now when a loved one dies Ill still re-read it and recommend it to other people.
Stephen King’s Pet Semetary. It was the book that really got me into reading when I was 9. It showed me the dangers of letting grief consume you. That letting go of those we’ve lost is an important step toward healing. The best way to honour them is to continue to live. To remember them.
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. I don’t have OCD, but related way too much to the main character’s mental health struggles. It prompted me to get professional help.
My conservative father nearly had a fit when my Grade 12 teacher gave us that to read, and dear father was right. It did turn me into a peace seeking, buddhist hippy. 🙂
How to Win Friends and Influence People. My dad had Carnegie’s book and made me read it in middle school. It impressed one of my teachers that saw it in my bag and taught me a lot of psychology in workplace conversation
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I was working at Snow College in Ephraim Utah in 1978 as a handyman, ( a young woman and the only one on a 20 man crew for the summer). Came across the book in a climate controlled room when we were refinishing the wood paneled walls. I didn’t have time to really read because I was working but was so impressed by it I came back and copied down a page. It was the story/parable about how parents don’t own their children. That the parent is the bow and their children are the arrows that they send out into the world. My first baby was a full term still born and the type of parent I wanted to be was still heavy on my mind. I was only 19 at the time. I didn’t find out that book had been in publication nonstop until 20 years later when I came across it in a thrift store. I hadn’t even written the name of the book down at the time because I was sneak reading it and didn’t think to do that. Since then I’ve bought and given it away a dozen times. And written verses of it, framed as gifts. So much simple wisdom in that one small book.
A couple years ago, a friend I was just getting to know at the time gifted me a copy of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The author is a professor of botany and a Native American, and the book just compares and contrasts those two different perspectives of plants and the natural world. I really enjoyed reading it, and felt it helped me get to know my new friend. I also then lent it to my mom, she also enjoyed reading it and discussing it together. That was back in like 2022. Just two days ago, my girlfriend and I were over at a mutual friend’s house, and I noticed a copy of Braiding Sweetgrass on said friend’s coffee table. We had a good little chat about it. And a week or so ago, my girlfriend and I took a hike, and she really appreciated my enthusiasm for cool trees, snakes and birds, just generally how much I love the sense of discovery that comes with every hike. Then seeing this book on our friend’s coffee table a few days later made me realize that I think it deserves partial credit for how I see the natural world, and so I think I’m gonna pick up another copy of the book to give my girlfriend soon, and start a reread so we can discuss it as she goes.
In short, the book has both developed my appreciation for the natural world, and it’s brought me closer to a couple important people in my life.
Psychopath Free by Jackson MacKenzie. Was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a narc for 4 years. This book has saved me and helped me sort my feelings out when no one else could. When my anger dwindled and I was ready to get back to a normal life, I read their other book called Whole Again. I owe my life to these books.
Comments
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Maus
The power of now by Eckhart tolle
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum
The prophet
Nietzsche – God is Dead
“Journey of Souls” and “Destiny of Souls” by Michael Newton.
The Stranger. I can feel sun sweltering at my indifference.
Unfuck Yourself by Gary John Bishop. Truly made me look at things in a whole different light.
Man’s search for meaning – Viktor Frankl
A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield
Night
Man’s Search for Meaning, hit different when life got hard.
Surrounded by idiots. I see all sort of personality colors now
Flowers for Algernon
It’s out of print so it’s hard to find a copy.but I still cite this book quite often,
it’s not something the CIA wants you to read, that’s for damn sure
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/789727.How_Real_Is_Real_Confusion_Disinformation_Communication
Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning.
I was in an incredibly deep depression and the book really helped me during that time.
Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C Gibson
UnWind. We’re closer to that dystopia more than people think.
You can heal your life – Louise L Hay
The Four Agreements
Beatrix Potter’s stories, Where the Wild things are, Gruffalo, My Naughty Little Sister, Narnia series, Httyd, Warrior Cats, History Dark Materials and the Alex Rider series, have all made me happier and enjoy life more after having read them all.
Tuesdays With Morrie – Mitch Albom
The Communist Manifesto.
Free To Choose by Milton Friedman
How to win friends and influence people.
Ishmael – Daniel Quinn
I’m SHOCKED that no one has mentioned Discworld or any Terry Pratchett books… everything in the Discworld series has taught me so much on how to be a decent human, how to treat others, and to “do the job in front of you.” I especially love the Tiffany Aching books because they’re about finding strength in yourself and who you are and again, simply being a great human while still being human.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I really value being able to feed my family and have a safe, clean home and a safe, clean environment at work.
If you ever feel burnt out or frustrated by your job read this book. It used to be so bad.
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Gift of Fear. I’ve bought at least 20 copies for people. I guarantee it has saved my life.
The Bible.
After having grown up fundamentalist, I read the thing several times through and realized that what I was reading didn’t match what the church was teaching.
Incarnations of Immortality
is an eight-book fantasy series by Piers Anthony. The books each focus on one of eight supernatural “offices” (Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil, Good, and Night) in a fictional reality and history parallel to ours, with the exception that society has advanced both magic and modern technology.
The Grapes of Wrath.
1984, unfortunately
A brief history of time
Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler
Know my name- Chanel Miller
The Adam and Eve story by Chan Thomas, declassified by the CIA in 2013.
The four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
The count of Monte Cristo.. it taught me about obsession and the cost of revenge.. about the persuit of happiness and dangers it can have .. the duality if man.. good men can be bad, and bad man can be good. Right and wrong can be situational. Also, it’s a great story of loss and redemption.
The book of joy. Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama sitting and talking about finding joy and meaning through adversity.
Surprised not to see Alan Watts mentioned yet. ‘The Book’ and ‘The Way of Zen’ are classics
A People’s History of the United States… It’s a beast but was worth it.
Millionaire Next Door
Letters from Riftka and the Uglies series. One is based on a true story the other one is “fantasy” that’s ironically real.
Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, Emerson Essays, Aurelius’s Meditations
A brief history of time, kinda robbed me of any meaning and ambition.
Extreme Ownership – Jocko Willink
People need to learn how to be introspective and learn how to take responsibility for themselves. It makes life so much easier when you know how. When you make a mistake at work, you own it, correct it, and move on. You’ll already have the solution and you build trust with everyone around you more easily.
The alchemist my Paulo coehlo, if you’re about to start adult like definitely read it
Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to win friends and influence people’
Animal Farm. The last lines still haunt me, and it’s been 20+ years since I first read it.
When I first read Phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty, it completely shattered the way I understood reality. Before that, I thought consciousness was this detached observer, like a camera recording the world. But Merleau-Ponty showed me that perception is not passive, it’s embodied, situated, intentional. I am not in front of the world I am in the world, through my body. That changed everything. It made me realize that truth isn’t something we extract like data; it’s something we live. This shifted how I think about design, ethics, even capitalism because all of it begins with the body as the first site of meaning.
Don’t make fun of me- Looking For Alaska. I read it when I was 13, then again and again over the years.
[removed]
Why does he do that? By Lundy Bancroft.
Life. Changing.
Gifted to me by my therapist.
The Intelligent Investor – Ben Graham
Count of Monte Cristo
The Bible. It’s an epic fairytale and it changed me to a firm atheist because it is nonsensical. I’ve never looked at the religious in the same way. You have to be really easy to hoodwink to believe it’s anything other than a work of fiction.
Zen a the Art of Motorcycle Maitenence! Deep Conceptualization and Symbolism. Specifically, every single part (big or small) has a function when assembled correctly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusions_(Bach_novel)
Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah – hopefully I spelled that correctly. Amazing book. Great message.
CODEPENDENT NO MORE & the 5 languages of love
I have a few answers to this, but the first one to mind is actually the book I’m reading right now. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. It’s about the relationships between fungi and other life, and does an excellent job of troubling the boundaries we draw in the natural world and offering examples of beneficial symbiosis that are great inspiration for the ways we view and interact with the natural world and one another.
Basic answer but Gatsby. You can’t repeat or even rewrite your past and trying to might end up killing you.
Siddartha by Herman Hesse.
CHAOS – James Gleick
steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
The untethered soul by Michael Singer. I re-read it everytime I’m feeling down, overwhelmed or lost.
1984, ridiculous hiw apt it is and kinda always has been. Scarey man
A people’s history of the United States by Howard Zinn
AA’s Big Book.
Alan Watts…. The Book: On the taboo against knowing the self.
Profound book where Alan breaks down how society ruins our sense and concept of the Self… Life in general.
Death of Ivan Ilich
I’m glad my mom is dead by Jeanette Mccurdy
Run Baby Run.
I was a bit of a troublemaker in my youth. Aside from the heavy religious theme, it did open my eyes and convinced me I needed to change my ways. Gang life isn’t for me.
It’s a little on the nose, but the subtle art of not giving a fuck is a pretty decent read.
The Women Who Run with the Wolves
The Bible. After reading it cover to cover it changed my life, as it convinced me the stuff I’d been taught all my life being raised in the church was bullshit.
The Handmaid’s Tale. I read it in 1985 when my teacher assigned it.
Autobiography of a recovering Skinhead. Really really powerful book. The man, Frank Meink holds no punches when addressing his myriad mistakes and cruelty. Its a showcase that people can change, even if they often don’t.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
I still good cry every time I read it.
Goodreads
The Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell’s version.
The Bible. I’m atheist now.
The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World. I coincidentally was gifted a copy right around the time I had started deconstructing from Christianity and it put into words so many of my rising concerns about rational thinking and the ways people are so easily convinced to believe things without good reason.
1984, The Handmaid’s Tale and To Kill a Mockingbird.
The Bible.
I believe Maugham’s Of Human Bondage has contributed to my overall pessimistic and nihilistic outlook towards life having read it when I was 14.
Prozac nation. As someone who was suffering from depression at the time but unsure what it was or how to describe it or how to handle it, the book was literally a life saver for me.
The life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo
One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich
Mick Harte Was Here
I first read it a few months before my grandfather died when I was 12. It completely changed my understanding of human grief and mourning. One of my good friends had been killed a year earlier and I remember feeling so strange because I wasn’t grieving like everyone else seemed to. Reading that book helped me understand how grief is processed by different people. Even now when a loved one dies Ill still re-read it and recommend it to other people.
Stephen King’s Pet Semetary. It was the book that really got me into reading when I was 9. It showed me the dangers of letting grief consume you. That letting go of those we’ve lost is an important step toward healing. The best way to honour them is to continue to live. To remember them.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Sapiens
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The body keeps the score
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. I don’t have OCD, but related way too much to the main character’s mental health struggles. It prompted me to get professional help.
Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse
My conservative father nearly had a fit when my Grade 12 teacher gave us that to read, and dear father was right. It did turn me into a peace seeking, buddhist hippy. 🙂
Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, meditations on first philosophy by Descartes
The autobiography of gucci mane
The demon haunted world, science as a candle in the dark by Carl Sagan.
How to Win Friends and Influence People. My dad had Carnegie’s book and made me read it in middle school. It impressed one of my teachers that saw it in my bag and taught me a lot of psychology in workplace conversation
The one I’ve been fastidiously writing since 2004. 😮💨
Many (or any?) books by Kurt Vonnegut… Taught me not to take life too seriously
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I was working at Snow College in Ephraim Utah in 1978 as a handyman, ( a young woman and the only one on a 20 man crew for the summer). Came across the book in a climate controlled room when we were refinishing the wood paneled walls. I didn’t have time to really read because I was working but was so impressed by it I came back and copied down a page. It was the story/parable about how parents don’t own their children. That the parent is the bow and their children are the arrows that they send out into the world. My first baby was a full term still born and the type of parent I wanted to be was still heavy on my mind. I was only 19 at the time. I didn’t find out that book had been in publication nonstop until 20 years later when I came across it in a thrift store. I hadn’t even written the name of the book down at the time because I was sneak reading it and didn’t think to do that. Since then I’ve bought and given it away a dozen times. And written verses of it, framed as gifts. So much simple wisdom in that one small book.
Calvin and Hobbes. Appreciate the time that you have with loved ones and appreciate your imagination. Soon you will be a dried up adult.
A couple years ago, a friend I was just getting to know at the time gifted me a copy of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The author is a professor of botany and a Native American, and the book just compares and contrasts those two different perspectives of plants and the natural world. I really enjoyed reading it, and felt it helped me get to know my new friend. I also then lent it to my mom, she also enjoyed reading it and discussing it together. That was back in like 2022. Just two days ago, my girlfriend and I were over at a mutual friend’s house, and I noticed a copy of Braiding Sweetgrass on said friend’s coffee table. We had a good little chat about it. And a week or so ago, my girlfriend and I took a hike, and she really appreciated my enthusiasm for cool trees, snakes and birds, just generally how much I love the sense of discovery that comes with every hike. Then seeing this book on our friend’s coffee table a few days later made me realize that I think it deserves partial credit for how I see the natural world, and so I think I’m gonna pick up another copy of the book to give my girlfriend soon, and start a reread so we can discuss it as she goes.
In short, the book has both developed my appreciation for the natural world, and it’s brought me closer to a couple important people in my life.
The count of Monte Cristo is an allegory for my life. Still fighting to get my life back but it’s so inspiring
The Power of Myth
Psychopath Free by Jackson MacKenzie. Was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a narc for 4 years. This book has saved me and helped me sort my feelings out when no one else could. When my anger dwindled and I was ready to get back to a normal life, I read their other book called Whole Again. I owe my life to these books.
Marcus Aurelius Meditations.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Brave new world and/or 1984 should be read by everyone at least once IMHO
Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse
Be here now…..a good read for anyone that has taken psychedelics.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Completely changed the way I looked at culture.
Rachel Carson, silent spring
The Idiot by Dostoevsky.
On Death and Dying. Great advice and helped me help my father while he was passing.