How and why?
List below.
*Purchased a kindle during the eBay sale and could do with some inspiration.
The book (or books) that changed your life - What titles do you hold close?
AFC 23 on 07/10/2015 - 15:41
Comments
As for being narcissistic, I don't necessarily consider that to be a big deal.
It is considered a mental disorder.
In response to a critic who gave him a poor review, he wrote:
I genuinely hope that you will find yourself on the receiving end of such a daft review some time very soon – so that you can grow up and start to take some responsibility for your work as a reviewer. You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that's two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review.
I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude.
haha, I actually feel for him. I'm sure a lot of people who spend time and effort to produce something would feel the same way when they get thwarted by a reviewer with unduly sway. I suppose it's just unfortunate for him that what looks like a private email got made public.
BTW, I deal with a lot of psychiatrists / psych nurses and mental health clinicians at work. I think you'd be surprised at how trite and superficial a lot of expert diagnoses are a lot of the time. The medicalisation of many normal human experiences and the paucity of the evidence for many treatments especially in psych is actually quite shocking. So narcissism being a mental disorder is very much a "meh" bullshit diagnosis.
@Jar Jar Binks: Ummm, narcissism itself isn't exactly a mental disorder. Extreme cases that ticks certain criterias fall under Narcissitic Personality Disorder, which is part of Personality Disorder (that area is messy imo). Though I assume you meant he's so full of himself that you think he has a personality disorder of sort (which I don't think is a reasonable assumption if you were being dead serious, but I doubt you were).
That said, from what I've read (his books), he sounded like a twat. It left no impression on me (I usually remember certain bits from books, his books left no impression other than, the author sounds like a twat).
Did you meet him at the School of Life opening in Melbourne?
Nope. Met him at a dinner-do, which I
got dragged toattended as someone's +1.
I don't have some gems to add, but want to say thanks for a forum post of value to all. Finally! Cheers.
Colour Of Magic by Terry Pratchett = the bestest book ever! So funny :)
Good call! Start with this one and then just keep reading through the series, they just keep getting better…
My first alphabet A-Z book. You can't read anything else if you don't learn your ABCs.
"The Power of the Myth" Joseph Campbell
"The Perennial Philosophy" Aldous Huxley
"Crucial Conversations".. Completely changed the way that I viewed most interactions with people, and made for a much happier work life.
"Getting things done" was also very helpful early on in my career, and is a system I still use to this day.
I have a couple (in no particular order) that I think may be useful for you (some may have been mentioned earlier).
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - Really good for understanding the opposite sex and relationships in general
The Intelligent Investor - One of the classics with respect to investing
Wuthering Heights - Amazing love story though the language may be challenging at times
The Richest Man in Babylon - Talks about how to save money and uses some simple principles which I use even now
The Alchemist - Talks about chasing your dreams- The Holy Bible
- Rich Dad Poor Dad
- On Becoming Babywise
no 2 showed me that money is easy come and easy go. I did really well in property and my 20s was amazing. We both worked casual jobs so that we could travel whenever we wanted and more importantly could afford to do all the things we wanted to do. It was perfect time because I was young and fierceless with minimal committments. We spent a lot of money to enjoy the good life. Now we are ok but 3 kids is expensive 😂
no 3 this book is amazing. my kids baby yrs were the best yrs. my first child slept through the night at 7.5weeks old 7pm to 7am with no feeds in between. Yes it could have been a fluke but then my twins born 4 yrs later slept through at 8 weeks old on the same night. They are boy/girl fraternal twins and personality so different. Nothing about them are alike. They are 10 and 6 now and still great sleepers. It made life so much easier to have babies that r good sleepers and nope, no tears, we didnt make them cry to sleep. If you just be in a routine as early as posdible there's no need for any crying. Hubby and I had our nights back. most awesome book.. can't thank you enough.
no 1 we try to live our lives and bring up our kids as best as we can with guidance from this sacred book. for non believers thats fine. i was also a non believer once. But our prayers, even at time when we almost lost hope were all answered one by one. Who knows but if their shall be judgement day then I hope that I have lived as best as I could by this book.
really very powerful books.
another one is the 4 languages of love for our relationship but a marriage is the hardest thing i've ever had to work on and a book is not enough! we have to put in 200% to make it work. But it's the one thing I'm the most proud of.
Mindsight by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D
An exciting exploration of how a mind can 'right' itself :)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin. A truly beautiful book.
Don't watch the movie.
All the major religious texts. By far the most enlightening experience I've had. I've learned to completely disregard any human who truly believes in this tripe.
During my time practicing reiki I've witnessed many people transformed by the power of prayer. Faith and gratitude are tangible energies with many benefits, hopefully when the science catches up your opinion is a bit more accepting. As for religious texts you need to learn how to read them, many of the now 'ascended masters' we're speaking a timeless language unaffected by trending inflections.
Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas - kinda dry sometimes as it is written in the 13th century medieval scholastic style, so I read the summaries sometimes. It's extremely long, but I find his writings on Natural Law and philosophy enlightening. Most famous for the Five Ways and is one of the greatest influences on Western philosophy.
City of God by St. Augustine - a book on early Catholic Christianity which was written just before the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th Century. It is an apologetics work challenging the decline of Rome due to the adoption of Catholic Christianity as the state religion, as well as dwelling on theological topics such as the Problem of Evil.
Art of Rhetoric by Aristotle - talks about the Ancient Greece and the art of persuasion through ethos, pathos, and logos. Very important in doing speeches, debates and whenever I feel like there's a general need to persuade someone.
For me, it's Quiet: The Power of Introverts. As an introvert myself, it taught me that it's totally okay for me to be who I am.
If you're looking for fiction, I'd recommend Mistborn, an epic fantasy series. Brandon Sanderson does a great job of building the world,and the way the plot unfolds throughout the three books is masterful.
Carl Sagan - A Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
Should be required reading in early highschool.
An excellent 90s illustrated science book - I wish I could remember the name. I remember learning about the doppler effect and sub-atomic particles around the same time I was learning "times tables" in school.
These sort of books coupled with my parents' decades-long subscription to Nat Geo moulded the way I think today, my advocacy for the scientific method, and my determination to counter widely disseminated falsehoods.
The Art of Happiness
- The Dalai Lama
A random walk down wall street and maybe the richest man in babylon
Tintin.
But don't think they work well on kindle.
1984 (read in the mid 70s, not sure if it has the impact now?).
This year i read "The Shock Doctrine" Naomi Klein - wow!
edit.. how could i forget THE most important books of all time.. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy etc. - Genius
So many choices! The lists are endless. I didn't get a sense of whether you were looking for fiction or non-fiction reads. But as an avid fiction reader I can highly suggest just for starters:
Contemporary Indian authors - anything by Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati Rhoy, Jumpha Lahiri
Novels from nowheresville USA- Willy Vlautin (his novels made me cry)
Contemporary Asian/USA - Amy Tan
Contemporary UK - Kate AtkinsonI personally believe that having a bias is worse than having no information, and having no information is worse than having biased informations from opposing sides. Since I've seen a book that would support ideas of free market heavily, I think I can recommend this book without feeling guilty.
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism - Ha-Joon Chang
The author is not a believer of complete free market, in fact he do not believe in free market. He believes that government intervention can be good. Do note that he's not a believer of extremity, but rather he believes in something inbetween the two extremties. What he argues in his books is the benefits of government intervention and role of institutions in economic growth (which according to my gf, it's not an uncommon idea in the field of economics). He argues why governments should intervene (and how it is happening in every single country) and why complete free market fails.
I wouldn't accept the book as is though. In the book, he exaggerates a lot of things in my opinion to propel his arguments. He also was critised for hand picking data. Also, according to my gf, he tend to make the ideas sound like he's the first one to come up with them, when many of them were proposed by others. That said, I don't think I've seen this kind of criticism on the ideas of free market.
It's an interesting read, especially if your knowledge of economics is based on the ideas of free market and if you've never heard of things like Theory of the second best. The book brings up points that are interesting, though as I said, the book tries too hard to argue. I wouldn't take the book as is, but rather, just read it to see other opinions on economics. That said, I might be crediting few points he made on his other books to this, since it's been awhile I've read this book (left it at home, 8000km away from where I am).
Shamanka by Jeanne Willis
It's a pseudo-fantasy YA novel which I read when I was quite young - I remember buying it from a Borders when I was maybe 11 or 12? Honestly, if I only read it now, I wouldn't think much of it, but it was really influential when I was younger. It dealt a lot with different cultures and how "magical" phenomena all have logical explanations.Good Omens by Terry Pratchett (may he rest in peace) and Neil Gaiman
A religious satire about and angel and demon trying to stop the apocalypse. There are really four interweaving parts of the story - the first involving the angel and demon, the second involving the Four Horsemen, a third between a "witch" and a "witch-hunter" and the last with a group of kids. I read this at least once every half-year.Crush by Richard Siken
This is an anthology of poems so if poetry isn't your thing (which it usually isn't for me!), don't worry about it. It's a collection of poems written after the author's partner died and it's absolutely heartbreaking.The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
Or really, anything by Shaun Tan. Because it's a picture book, it was put in the children's section of my local library and I remember reading it as a child. It really isn't very appropriate for children - it goes into really heavy themes like depression. I remember reading it in primary school, not really understanding it but being very, very sad.Favourite books, some of which have been mentioned are:
Fiction
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay (coming of age, apartheid in South Africa)
The Magician by Raymond E Feist (fantasy - lots of sequels/trilogies)
Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody (post-apocalyptic/sci-fi/fantasy - not the robot unicorn kind)
I just started getting into Terry Pratchett, I saw Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters as a cartoon yonks ago so though I might try them out, first book I read was 'Going Postal' and have read ten of his books this year :) there are a few reading guides about where to start and the reading orderNon-fiction
This one is a random one but was listening to a Japanese artist and they had a song called ikigai, was wondering what it mean so googled, it's something to do with what makes your life worth living. I didn't finish it but I think this is the book I borrowed What Makes Life Worth Living? How Japanese and Americans Make Sense of Their Worlds by Gordon Mathews, was an interesting read but I found a few chapters I didn't like, you might find something else if you look up ikigai.A few afterlife and meditation books recommended by family and friends, too many to be honest to name a few right now off the top of my head.
But the one that will always stick with me till the day I die is the one my mother read and loved so much:
A Soul's Journey a book by Peter Richelieu (1958)
Great book and great story. Really inspiring and a great view from Peter's point of view or interpretation to what happens after or when we die.
Good Recommendation for people who want to know more about the subject (the afterlife) or are just experiencing or going through some loved one's death or grieving/grief etc.
Hope you guys enjoy it.
Love and kind regards as always,
AlienC
I've met a few outstanding authors over the years. I'm more often than not, left with a sense of disappointment after the experience. perhaps we half expect writers to talk with thoughtful eloquence and mind blowing insight with each utterance, while they're more often than not, just folks who blather pointless musings 90% of the time just like everyone else.
As for being narcissistic, I don't necessarily consider that to be a big deal.