Required reading.

[nostradumbass]

What are yours?

I think everyone should read every word of the bible, every word of Shakespeare, prolly every word of Hemingway, but I can budge on that, and prolly all of Aesop's fables.

Not just your favorite books, but what do you consider valuable books or stories?

 

[drstrangelov]

Bible, Quran, Book of Mormon, Dianetics, communist manifesto, wealth of nations, atlas shrugged, turner diaries, people's history of the United States. Basically, read every book that has the power to create extremist zealots. It's a shame that the Stranger in a Strange Land thing was so short lived, it would have made for a nice change of pace.

 

[sangreporsangre]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

@moneyfight be like "Mein Kampf"

 

[Speakerbox]

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

 

[nostradumbass]

@moneyfight be like "Mein Kampf"

Have you read it? I wouldn't call it a required reading, but it has some pretty serious historical value. The translation is "my struggle", so learning about the struggle of a dude who basically started a world war does have some value.

 

[freaky]

Get that religion bible crap out of here. Nobody needs to read that shit.

Should read it like fiction and not as non-fiction.

Fable books that teach morals are good.

 

[Diamond Jim]

The Art of the Deal by Vladimir Putin

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

The Great Gatsby. I just think its a really good book, very well written.

 

[hughesfan20]

As far as fiction goes, I like the Lincoln Rhyme series by Jeffrey Deaver for the various POV's on certain issues he writes about and the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy for some historical perspective (especially for the younger generation who don't understand why certain countries don't like/trust us).

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

Have you read it? I wouldn't call it a required reading, but it has some pretty serious historical value. The translation is "my struggle", so learning about the struggle of a dude who basically started a world war does have some value.

I haven't. I've heard it's poorly written, tedious and incoherent. However it is on my "to read" list.

 

[HomerThompson]

Bible, Quran, Book of Mormon, Dianetics, communist manifesto, wealth of nations, atlas shrugged, turner diaries, people's history of the United States. Basically, read every book that has the power to create extremist zealots. It's a shame that the Stranger in a Strange Land thing was so short lived, it would have made for a nice change of pace.

I wouldn't say that the People's History of the United States creates zealots.

 

[HomerThompson]

Deterring Democracy.

 

[Rational Poster]

I haven't. I've heard it's poorly written, tedious and incoherent. However it is on my "to read" list.

Nazi

 

[JonnyRingo84]

guns, germs, and steel

the art of the deal

 

[drstrangelov]

I wouldn't say that the People's History of the United States creates zealots.

It turns your all American high school student into a jaded know it all in a few hundred pages. Those kids proselytize like crazy too.

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

Nazi

 

[JonnyRingo84]

Get that religion bible crap out of here. Nobody needs to read that shit.

Should read it like fiction and not as non-fiction.

Fable books that teach morals are good.

stop being a resentful bitter atheist. it makes the rest of us get labeled as damaged babies too.

there are things of value in each of the major world religions imo.

 

[nostradumbass]

Bible, Quran, Book of Mormon, Dianetics, communist manifesto, wealth of nations, atlas shrugged, turner diaries, people's history of the United States. Basically, read every book that has the power to create extremist zealots. It's a shame that the Stranger in a Strange Land thing was so short lived, it would have made for a nice change of pace.

Yeah, I prolly agree with that, but I don't think Book of Mormon or Dianetics have had much impact on anything.

Did you read "Atlas Shrugged"? Ayn Rand was a really bad writer and she took like 1000 pages to get done what could have been done in like 200. That was a hard book to get through. If you're going to read a 900 page book, I'd rather someone read the Brothers Karamazov than Atlas Shrugged.

I used to be friends with Howard Zinn's cousin. She's an older lady and was so proud of his writing, but I think the guy is a total idiot. He actually said to Dennis Prager once that he doesn't know if the world would be better off if America never existed.

 

[The Diplomat]

If we're going to consider the Bible "required reading", (which I don't disagree with, since it's still relevant in modern literature) then I'd say the Sumerian texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Considered "the earliest surviving great work of literature", it has many tales that were later re-written into the Bible. It's much older, and certainly more original.