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Life-changing or reflective book recommendations?

fuzzybabybunny

fuzzybabybunny

Moderator<br>Digital & Video Cameras
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Looking for some good book recommendations. Can be anything - classics, fiction, history, biographies, etc. I don't want something that just has entertainment value.
 
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His Needs, Her Needs. It's about marriage, but I find it helps with all my relationships.

How To Make Friends And Influence People. Does what it says on the tin.

Little House In The Big Woods and the later books. Helps you to understand a lot about how different things were less than 200 years ago and how blessed we are these days.

Enemy At The Gates. It's a detailed account of the battle of Stalingrad.
 
Not really life changing, but if you feel like reading something rather unconventional, give postmodern literature a try. I suggest American Psycho.
 
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MongGrel said:
Have a few in the past.

Not one of my favorite writers.
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Why?

For the record, I haven't been very impressed with many classics. People argue that it's because my mind is too small and unable to grasp the themes, while I argue that the themes simply aren't really that game-changing even when fleshed out in detail.
 
fuzzybabybunny said:
Why?

For the record, I haven't been very impressed with many classics. People argue that it's because my mind is too small and unable to grasp the themes, while I argue that the themes simply aren't really that game-changing even when fleshed out in detail.
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War and Peace just bored me at the time, I didn't care for Crimes and Punishment much either.

Maybe it is just the Russian writer form and translators, I just never pursued Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky after those personally.
 
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Albert Camus' The Fall. Short, easily digested, a lot to think about. If you enjoy that, then of course you'll read The Plague.

I probably read The Fall close to forty years ago. One short passage has never left me:

I sometimes wonder what historians of the future will say about us. One phrase will suffice for the modern man: he fornicated and read newspapers. After this sharp definition, I dare to say, the subject will be exhausted.
 
Wrong - Why Experts Keep Failing Us. By David Freedman

Surprisingly an easy read. Probably means that I find the author to be a very good writer. Book is certainly well researched, rather than spouting a lot of commentary. Could it change your perspective on how experts deal with us and their peers, and what are their motivations? Perhaps.

Freedman (coauthor of A Perfect Mess) makes the case that scientists, finance wizards, relationship gurus, health researchers, and other supposed authorities are as likely to be wrong as right. Drawing from personal interviews with experts on experts, he leads the reader on a merry chase down the road of skepticism, uncovering conflicting solutions to how to sleep better, lose weight, avoid heart attacks, build a financial nest egg, lower cholesterol, etc. In accessible language, Freedman explains the flaws that all too easily worm their way into research, including deliberate fudging of data and downright fraud.
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http://www.amazon.com/Wrong-us---Sc...qid=1450655022&sr=1-1&keywords=wrong+freedman
 
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Carson Dyle said:
Albert Camus' The Fall. Short, easily digested, a lot to think about. If you enjoy that, then of course you'll read The Plague.

I probably read The Fall close to forty years ago. One short passage has never left me:

I sometimes wonder what historians of the future will say about us. One phrase will suffice for the modern man: he fornicated and read newspapers. After this sharp definition, I dare to say, the subject will be exhausted.
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I wish I found Camus's plays easy to read, when I was a high school student. Without the Cliffsnotes, I was completely lost.
 
Thought of another good book that I read a couple years back. Thomas Jefferson, The Art Of Power. Jon Meacham is an acclaimed biographer. I highly recommend this book, which gives one a perspective on Jefferson's genius and his faults, as well as the early history of America's democracy.

In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize&#8211;winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era.
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http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jeffer...98&sr=1-1&keywords=thomas+jefferson+biography
 
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