What are your favorite books you've read? - book discussion thread

[zikzak]

I think you would be well served if you read more books that are not explicitly related to your political interests.

[LirvA]

I do. I still read poker books. I read books on religion and spirituality. Electronics. I read lots of stuff imo.

Oh oh oh, and tarantulas. Bet you've never read a book on tarantulas, have you?

If you mean I only read things that I'm interested in, then you've got me. I only read stuff I'm interested in. Why would I read something I'm not? I don't think it would be a very successful endeavor.

Give me a book on the history of Australia and I'll try to sell it imo.

[bobman0330]

Originally Posted by UthersGhost

I just finished reading 'The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich' by William L. Shirer.
and 'Gestapo: The Truth Behind An Evil Legend' by Rupert Butler.
Both interesting reads that expose the 'gangster politics' of Hitlers regime.

I have just ordered 'The Wall' by John Hersey, the true story of 40 men and women who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto.

Other good reads in my collection include
'The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy' by Martin Gilbert
'Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans And The Holocaust' by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.
Both recommended for anyone who has an interest in the subject, but be warned, there are some pretty gruesome and heartbreaking personal accounts in both of these books.

Also recommended,
'Auschwitz: The Nazis & The Final Solution' by Lawrence Rees
'The Nazis: A Warning From History' by Lawrence Rees.
Both of these books have been made into documentaries by the BBC that are well worth watching.

Bloodlands is absurdly good too, in the same vein.

[tomdemaine]

Lirve,

Are you trying to stretch out your arm like some african tribeswomen do to their necks?

[LirvA]

lol no sir


:P

[zikzak]

Originally Posted by LirvA

I do. I still read poker books. I read books on religion and spirituality. Electronics. I read lots of stuff imo.

Oh oh oh, and tarantulas. Bet you've never read a book on tarantulas, have you?

If you mean I only read things that I'm interested in, then you've got me. I only read stuff I'm interested in. Why would I read something I'm not? I don't think it would be a very successful endeavor.

Give me a book on the history of Australia and I'll try to sell it imo.

Well, you've already expressed disagreement with the best post in this thread. I'm not sure I can add much to it, but I'll try.

Reading about ideas and concepts and things is all well and good, but it excludes the most important variable in life - people. You could be the most knowledgeable tarantula expert, know how to instantly calculate pot odds in NLO8, and be able to give the grandest dissertation imaginable on Austrian economics, and none of that will teach you anything at all about humanity.

Ultimately, people are what matter most. One of the greatest tools people have come up with for teaching ourselves about each other is stories, fiction and non-fiction, oral, written, movies, etc. Stories have characters, the best of them conflicted and imperfect just like us. People relate to well-told stories; nobody relates to a political manifesto. Understanding this was perhaps the only thing Ayn Rand got right.

Most political, economic, and religious works usually fail because they don't tell us anything useful about how to go about being ourselves in a world full of other people. They dictate how we should behave based on one crackpot theory or another, but they don't give us any character or story to hang those ideas on. They fail to connect to us in the only way that is really important.

Read less text. Read more stories.

[auralex14]

If we're talking about human condition..

Rollo May's Man's Search for Himself is thought provoking (which I was pointed to in The "E" Myth by Michael Gerber, off-topic but a great entrepreneurial primer)

But if I can get one person to read The Fall by Albert Camus (it only takes a few hours, like 100 pgs) I'll be happy

[LirvA]

I don't read much fiction imo. I like watching fiction better than reading it imo.

[AlexM]

Originally Posted by ILOVEPOKER929

I refer to myself as an anarchist as I find the views of ACists/"libertarians" utterly inhuman and despicable.

I find finding the views of someone else to be despicable when you don't understand them in the slightest to be despicable.

I post this in response:

[twisty8]

Catcher in the Rye
Revolutionary Road

[AlexM]

As for OP:

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

[Vael]

yep that's a good book. heinlein has a number of really good scifi books.

[neverfoldthe1outer]

Originally Posted by DblBarrelJ

LirvA, read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince.

+1 on the art of war. really, really hard for a book 2k-4k+ years old to still be so boss. and yet it is.

"If attackers and attacked are equally matched in strength, only the able general will fight."

Great book for poker/business/life strategy imo.

[LirvA]

Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings tho

"To become the enemy" means to think yourself in the enemy's position. In the world people tend to think of a robber trapped in a house as a fortified enemy. However, if we think of "becoming the enemy", we feel that the whole world is against us and that there is no escape. He who is shut inside is a pheasant. He who enters to arrest is a hawk. You must appreciate this.

[zikzak]

I always confuse The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings. It's been almost 20 years since I read either.

Which is the one that advises generally anti-social ****, and which is the one that advises truly reprehensible ****?