on everything: Archive

100 books to read before I die - work in progress

I want to take a year off and live somewhere high up in the mountains, inside a log cabin - no plumbing, no heater, no communication with outside world…no modern amenities. Just like life was, before the Industrial age.

Read, think and write.

Until I make that happen, I’m compiling a list of 100 books that I want to read. Here they are - in no particular order. Suggestions welcome.

Walden. Henry D Thoreau
The Brothers Karamazov. by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Naming and Necessity. Saul A. Kripke
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
Tropic of Cancer. Henry Miller
Slaughterhouse-Five. Kurt Vonnegut
War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy
Women. Charles Bukowski
Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. Edwin Lefèvre
The Lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant (read)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (read)
On the Road. Jack Kerouac
Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
The True Believer. Eric Hoffer
The Ordeal of Change by Eric Hoffer (reading)
Life of Pi. Yann Martel (reading)
1984. George Orwell
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (read)
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (read)
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (read)
Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (read)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (read twice)
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker (read)
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (read)
The Age of Unreason by Charles Handy
Midnight’s Children. Salman Rushdie
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. Alex Ross

http://artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14/100-must-read-books-the-essential-mans-library/

Jul 24, 20111 note

#books #list #most readable #essential reads #top books #books to read before you die

“A few weeks ago, Murdoch, or rather the more savage tendencies of the press as a whole, represented God. Fear of God isn’t always a bad thing in itself, if it keeps you on the straight and narrow – but politicians behaved like medieval villagers who didn’t just believe in Him, but quaked at the mere suggestion of a glimmer of a whisper of His name. You must never anger God. God wields immense power. God can hear everything you say. You must worship God, and please Him, or He will destroy you. For God controls the sun, which may shine upon you, or singe you to a Kinnock. Soon he will control the entire sky.” —http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/17/charlie-brooker-rupert-murdoch

Jul 21, 2011

“It appears to be all over for the Borders bookselling chain. The company will be liquidated — meaning sold off in pieces — and almost 11,000 employees will lose their jobs. The chain’s 400 remaining stores will close their doors by the end of September.” —

My first reaction to this is: How can a big & successful company get to a point where it ceases to exist - without realizing it’s so close to dying.

I realize it’s Darwinian. Adapt or die. In reality though it’s not as intuitive to those dying that they are slow to adapt. They die slowly and gradual death is like boiling frog. You don’t know you’re dying so you don’t attempt an escape, just boil to death.

In the past, life gave us many chances to adapt. Not anymore. With the world changing so fast - many of us are dying sooner without getting a fair chance to survive. But then, what’s fair in Darwinian world?

Jul 21, 201110 notes

#Books #Darwinian #Borders #ebooks

on everything

July 2011

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