Oh the places you’ll go!
Dr SeussFlowers for Algernon
This book is so beautiful and sad. Everyone should read it
Grapes of Wrath is a good one that’s relevant now as when it was made.
Illusions by Richard Bach, subtitled The Tale of the Reluctant Messiah. A beautiful book about the universe and spirituality. The author wrote it on the premise of “what if I had my own, personal, Jesus… Or Buddha or Messiah that was hanging out with me and explaining the universe”. So this guy is a Messiah that one day just quits to fly airplanes.
It’s funny, it’s inspiring, it’s a little sad, but hopeful. It’s also very short, you can easily read it in an afternoon.
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah. The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in awhile and watch your answers change.
I love the movie theater analogy.
The Crying of Lot 49 — it’s pretty short.
Aldous Huxley’s Island. Something to aim for.
Also, it’s been a while since I read it, and it’s a bit didactic, but Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael. It’s about a telepathic gorilla, and it had the capacity to blow minds.
The bible.
Sodom and Gomorrah and the story of Jacob are basically an iq test.
Not only do the stories sound highly unreal, even if they are real the only rational conclusion is that god is evil and petty.
That said, the philosophies of Jesus are pretty cool and often still relevant today.
Skip the begats bits
Dueuteronomy FTW
18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death
Imagine wiping an entire city off the face of the earth because they just are a bit kinky. That was the loving and just god.
Of course Jesus said to basically throw out the entire old testament and focus on the love one another bits, but it doesn’t seem like the churches caught that
Jesus absolutely did not say that. He said to follow the law.
Matthew 5:17-20 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Sodom and Gomorrah were about raping guests, not sodomy
Even then, the whole city? Women and children too? There were no innocents there? Nah I don’t buy it. If god was all powerful he could have selectively smoten.
Well of course god is the evil one.
Genesis. Dude invented sin by putting a random tree down with a whole made up lore on it for no reason other to tempt his “beloved” creation. Of course it all goes to plan—since the dude apparently knows what comes ahead of time—and he gets to do what he wanted all along; fuck with the ants.
And Lucifer, the only person to try overthrow this monster tragically lost and paid the ultimate price for it.
This slots in so much better than the original, I think. They should incorporate it into Diablo somehow.
The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
All of Discworld.
I don’t know exactly how much of my warped view on reality is directly attributable to reading the Guide at a young age. I hope most of it.
Me too.
Likewise. I think it made us better people
After reading it in my early teens, I didn’t know anyone who might enjoy it. So I took the book and wrote a note that said “This book is not just a book you find, it also finds you.” and I put it in someones mailbox. I sometimes wonder if that person whoever it was liked it or even read it.
As a math teacher, I really wish the kids would realize that 42 is the number to beat all numbers
I’ve read the series (well only the Douglas authored books). I have a copy of The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which I have not read. Does it make a difference?
Much like the TV minseries, book, movie, radio play and audiobooks - all incarnations of The Guide are accurate and complete. It just depends on which multiverse you have existen been fromme. (Universal relativism weirds language.)
At least that’s what I believe.
The Guide from Mostly Harmless agrees with you.
See? Its even more internally consistent than the Bible.
I only wish we had gotten The Salmon of Doubt.
While the Guide is important, I actually think Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Teatime of the Soul might both be more important. I’m actually often saddened they didn’t get as much love as Hitchhiker’s Guide.
To me it’s a bit like the Bible. You’ve got the big few books and then so many supporting documents explaining the mindset behind the revelation.
The Douglas-authored books would be…all of the Hitchhikers’ Guide books. Which is what the Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide is.
I think it may not make a difference, no.
I was trying to narrow it down to 1 discworld book. Ive got it down to Small Gods, Jingo or Thud!.
I also got confused whether a full stop goes after the ! Or not.
Small gods is for sure one of my favorites!
If there’s an exclamation mark (!) there’s generally no period (.).
Even in this case, where the ! is part of the title?
It was 50/50 and looks like i picked unwisely
The exclamation mark is part of the title. I would say the hard stop goes at the end of the sentence otherwise the exclamation mark could be construed as part of the sentence and not part of the title.
All of Discworld.
That’d be a pretty big book…
Now I want it in a single volume (electronic)
It’s sooooooo worth it
I’m working on that currently. I think I’m on book 6, so only about 40 more to go lol
A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.
There is so, so much that Americans don’t know that they don’t know.
Reading that right now. Definitely changing my perspective that America was once a good place.
Follow it up with Settlers, a history of settler-colonialism and the slave trade in the US. No matter how much you think you know about the history of indigenous genocide and chattel slavery in the US, reality is likely far worse than you think.
I’m curious; Would you mind to give some highlights?
Got some random highlights? I’m curious how many I’ve seen mentioned on Lemmy.
The first that I usually mention is the Coal Wars / Battle of Blair Mountain or the Sand Creek Massacre, but there are many events that American students are made to be ignorant if on purpose.
It also got me to learn that after meeting the natives for the first time, Columbus literally wrote in his diary about how easy it would be to steal from them because they were so peaceful.
Cool, I knew about those! The ones that threw me for a loop were Seneca Village (Black community bulldozed for Central Park) and the bombing by police in Philly in 1983.
Oh yeah. Thank you for sharing.
I’ve heard of those two as well, but even so, there’s a lot written about in the book that I never learned, even through the earning of my bachelors degree, which is why I’m always quick to recommend that people read it.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.
the only thing about this is the first book is great and then the series overall is kinda a letdown.
I don’t agree at all. The first book was great, no argument there - but the series matures with Le Guin as it goes. It’s a truly magnificent breakdown of the fantasy genre.
Stranger in a Strange Land
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Same message, two vastly different methods of communicating it
I’m not sure hhgttg recommends incest with large breasted red heads as much as stranger in a strange land.
I guess I’ll bite, what’s the message?
recommends incest with large breasted red heads as much as stranger in a strange land.
Whut?
I guess I’ll bite, what’s the message?
That life is inexplicable and overly complicated because people are hung up on others perceptions instead of what makes them happy. And if everyone just chilled out and tried to make shit a lot better, we’d all be better off
While I read it in university for a history class… I quite like Candide by Voltaire. Sometimes we all should just tend our own gardens.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Came here to suggest that.
A pixie book or equivalent. Pixie books are short children’s books (maybe 12 DinA6 pages with very little text and lots of pictures). They are dirt cheap and there is a big bowl full of them in many books stores in Germany. They are meant to get kids into reading and that’s why I ‘nominated’ them here xD
The Tragedy of the Moon by Asimov.
Edit: And one more because why would be only one?
A Short History of Nearly Everything
