This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz
by Elliotte Rusty Harold.
Original Post: The Most Important Books I've Ever Read
Feed Title: Mokka mit Schlag
Feed URL: http://www.elharo.com/blog/feed/atom/?
Feed Description: Ranting and Raving
Not necessarily the best books I’ve ever read, but these are the ones that changed my life (in no particular order):
There’s also one more book (a fantasy novel about calculus circa 1983 of all things) that should be on this list, but I haven’t been able to dig up a copy or remember what its title was. I do recall it involved a demon who posed problems that the king and courtiers then tried to solve. If that rings a bell with anyone, please post a comment. Update: I’m pretty sure this was the first edition of Calculus the Easy Way by Douglas Downing.
There’s one more book in my private list that I’m deliberately omitting here.
I’d sort of also like to include the entire non-fiction ouevre of Isaac Asimov, but while his books were very important, I’m not sure I can point to any one book that stands out.
I’m also leaving out all my own books, which in many ways changed my life too, but in very different ways than the ones shown here.
The earliest of these I read in late high school. The most recent (the one I’m not mentioning) just last year.
Some of these were important in total. Some of them just had one or two crucial ideas. Looking at the group of them though, I am struck that they’re all non-fiction (with the half-exception of Calculus the Easy Way). There are a lot of novels I’ve read and loved, many more than once, but I can’t say any of them had a noticeable impact to the point that my life would be different if I hadn’t read them. The one that perhaps comes closest is Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy but like Asimov, Wilson’s non-fiction work had a much bigger impact on me.
Some books seemed important at the time but didn’t stand up to the test of time, and I eventually rejected what they had to teach. Others failed to make the list because they weren’t unique enough. Pretty much everything I’ve ever read about physics or economics falls into that category. There were many important books but they were more or less interchangeable with each other. No one stands out.
Previous Topic
