Ok so I took a month off from blogging. Ran out of stuff to say I guess.
Anyway there's a good post on kuroshin about what books have influenced you the most. Good stuff out there to read, too many books and not enough time as usual. Thank god for audio books so I can multitask books while driving, working out or any other low brain use activity. I've actually “read” quite a few books this way just this year. Ok so here goes the list --
1984 - George Orwell - Let me start off by saying I had to read this book in high school. This book was my first political book. It made bells and whistles go off in my head. I think it hit home how organized groups of people, be they goverments, corporations or cults stay in power at any expense, even if it means destruction of a person's soul. The concepts of doublespeak, newspeak and goverment boogey men have stuck with me always.
Earth Abides - George Stewart - A post-apocalyptic book that hammered home how fragile our civilization is and how much I rely on it for happiness. The protaganist grew old and really gave me insight into what demetia was like. I think it was the first time I realized that getting old can suck. I also think it was the first time I felt what it must be to suffer real loss, not only of everything you know but of your mind too.
Broca's Brain - Carl Sagan - I was a Carl Sagan fan early on with his Cosmos tv show. So I naturally picked this book up and read it. I think this book made me realize that we may call ourselves humans but we are still animals that are constantly wrestling with the parts of our brains that had their use in our early evolution. It amazed me to find out that there's a deep rooted reptilian portion of brain that is responsible for anger and violence. To know that we are “hard wired“ into these behaviors left me well.. hard wired.
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut - I was falling asleep downstairs at my college's library on a big comfy couch when I peered the bottom shelf, a whole row of Kurt Vonnegut books. Well I enjoyed the Slaughterhouse-Five movie so what the hey I picked up the smallest of the books, Cat's Cradle. It was my first experience with brutal sarcasm in a book. To view the human race as nothing more than bags of water that can freeze and the same as rocks when it comes to physical laws was enlightening. With our “gifts“ of consciousness, civilization, conquering nature, etc. we still are just a speck in cosmos. Is there no one that really cares about us other than ourselves?
Childhood's End - Arthur Clarke - This was the first scifi book I read that completely blew me away. I was hooked ever since then.
Minds Machines and Evolution - James Hogan - This book expanded my mind by starting me on the path of answering some of the more difficult questions like what is the mind and consciousness. The idea that our consciousness is just an emergent property of the brain blew me away. I've been applying the emergent property concept ever since then to other things. I think at this point I officially became an atheist, there was no point to having a god in the universe to me. There is no god, there are only gears.
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman - Not sure where I picked this up from. I decided to try out poetry and absolutely loved this guy. I never much cared for poetry that was forced on me in school so I had my reservations. But this was unbelievable to me how well someone could explain America in the 19th century, almost like I was there. I really got the idea that a poet describes the indescribable. I've never read other poets that I've liked as much as Walt Whitman.
The Conscience of a Conservative - Barry Goldwater - I think what struck me a chord with me here is that politics is not all fluff or a big game. That there is an argument that certain political systems may actually be more natural to human beings than others. The concept that capitalism is apart of our being in that it's a survival of the fittest thing was very cool to me at the time. It made me go and investigate other political idealogies like communism, anarchism, socialism, etc.
Anarchy - Unknown - I lost this book some time ago. It was closely related to the above book. This was my first introduction to libertarianism and it's ideals. Also it sealed for me that all political systems are not perfect but a best fit situation. Living under no goverment is great on paper but lousy in practice.
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein - My first real book I ever read. It didn't influence me too much other than gave me the bug to continue reading more books.
The Gospel According To Jesus Christ - Stephen Mitchell - I think I finally got it that the Christian religion was created not to spread the word of Jesus Christ but to take advantage of the god concept built into people. This book reinforced in me that the New Testament was editted to fit the purpose of the authors. Also that Jesus was a gifted man and not a god, that was way before his time.
Sarum - Edward Rutherford - This book sent me on my way to becoming a full fledged anglophile. English history continues to amaze me. I can say that I'm proud that our heritage comes from England.
Vietnam - Stanley Karnow - Written by a war correspondant. At the time I was fascinated with what happened in our country during the 1960's. The cultural upheaval the ensued after JFK. I was drawn into this book from a series that ran on PBS that was based on this book. I came away with the dreadful feeling of the cultural and personal losses that a war causes. I was impressed with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong and how strongly they held a belief in unifying their country. How they were willing to lay down their lives for that cause. They first fought the French and then the Americans for many long years. You would think at some point our leaders would have come to the conclusion that these are not evil people with evil intent but true patriots wanting to try out a system of goverment that they think is best for everyone. Well the world was different then. But has it changed? Anyway I came away with a totally different viewpoint of Vietnam.
A future book I believe will be amazing is -
Godel, Escher and Bach - Douglas R. Hofstadter