Required reading.

nostradumbass said:
Wouldn't disagree with "Art of War". I guess "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is pretty valuable, but we gotta keep the list kinda short. I'd take old school Russian over Chinese I think. Brothers Karamozov and "War and Peace" I think are better. If you can read both, by all means, do it, but if you only have time for 1, I'd take Tolstoy or Dostoevsky over the Chinese writers.
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Three Kingdoms is the shit. I love it. I think Tolstoy and Dostoevksy are more pertinent to a Western viewpoint.
 
Bald1 said:
Dictionary.
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Have you actually done that? It's amazing how few words we use, and how stupid I feel thumbing through it.

People should read the idioms dictionary too.
 
Fawlty said:
Have you actually done that? It's amazing how few words we use, and how stupid I feel thumbing through it.

People should read the idioms dictionary too.
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Nope, but out of necessity as an esl person I've made use of it extensively.

While my response was tongue in cheek, it's amazing how related but very distinct terms and words are used interchangeably making nuanced conversation a pain in the ass. Idiom dictionary? Sounds like something I will explore sometime.
 
Island and Brave New World by Huxley.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein.

Hallucinogens: A Reader by various authors, doctors, etc.
 
HomerThompson said:
I wouldn't say that the People's History of the United States creates zealots.
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Not 100% of the time, but it does pretty often.

Reading critically, that is to say not swallowing everything whole, is an important skill that unfortunately not many people have. If you're 20 years old and have only read 40 or 50 books, you tend to put a lot more stock in those books. I'd be surprised if it wasn't mostly college students reading "People's History".
 
For western canon:
1.) The Odyssey
2.) The Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament)
3.) Don Quixote
 
The Bible number 1 and number 2 The Art of the Deal!
 
drstrangelov said:
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.
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If you're going for the Zealots you kind of need Qutb's Milestones and the Maududi's Towards Understanding the Qur'an (or the abridged version by Ansari).
Lenin's What Is To Be Done? is great for the context of Milestones and as a text for zealots in it's own right.
 
catinthehat.jpg
 
I can guarandamntee you Jane Eyre wouldn't be on that list like it was for me

we joked in our class that had Zinn's People's History that if you simply picked which answer made the US look the most negative you'd get a hundred percent. has value sure, but i wouldn't make it mandatory

I would make Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning and Thunder At Twilight by Frederic Morton mandatory reads in HS personally but at least college to get a better understanding of the two greatest events in the 20th century

I'd prefer they teach Nation of Sheep more than The Ugly American, both William Lederer books that are good but the first gives many real life examples of how the Press and Government woefully mishandled foreign policy in the Communist containment era
 
also, while you can't take it literally, the Adventures of Ibn Battuta is a pretty solid read if you're interested in early Islamic history, as it covers pretty much the entirety of the early Muslim world (my bad, 14th Century), even early Sufism and the like
 
nostradumbass said:
Not 100% of the time, but it does pretty often.

Reading critically, that is to say not swallowing everything whole, is an important skill that unfortunately not many people have. If you're 20 years old and have only read 40 or 50 books, you tend to put a lot more stock in those books. I'd be surprised if it wasn't mostly college students reading "People's History".
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I think the more interesting conversation would be on why that book is so impactful. As if it is a narrative you don't hear anywhere else.

I love the labor history part of that book. I find it very interesting that I personally learned of almost zero labor history in school.

As if it is a taboo subject.
 
Intruder in the Dust
Battle Cry of Freedom
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
The Passing of the armies
Where the Sidewalk Ends
 
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