Top 10 books

[MexicanTravels]

Man I feel like a freak...

- The Art of Electronics - Horowitz & Hill
- Growing Object Oriented Software, guided by tests - Freeman & Pryce

I was quite a lonely child!

Don't feel that way! There are so many textbooks that I love and read for fun! Anything by Michael Spivak (think Calculus, Differential Geometry, etc.), Pois Não by António Roberto Monteiro Simões, The Philosophy of Science edited by Richard Boyd et al, and even GRE vocabulary books.

I read a different electronics book, but I've wanted to sink my teeth into Horowitz & Hill's version for a while now.

I read that already! Liked it a lot, it's reminiscent of the final act in the movie Snowpiercer.

Yes! I noticed the parallels as well! Such a great film!

 

[therhydler]

Don't feel that way! There are so many textbooks that I love and read for fun! Anything by Michael Spivak (think Calculus, Differential Geometry, etc.), Pois Não by António Roberto Monteiro Simões, The Philosophy of Science edited by Richard Boyd et al, and even GRE vocabulary books.

I read a different electronics book, but I've wanted to sink my teeth into Horowitz & Hill's version for a while now.


Yes! I noticed the parallels as well! Such a great film!

Just remembered... History of Science by John Gribbin should be on my list

 

[Rose Mirren]

Man I feel like a freak...

- The Art of Electronics - Horowitz & Hill
- Growing Object Oriented Software, guided by tests - Freeman & Pryce

I was quite a lonely child!

Don't feel that way! There are so many textbooks that I love and read for fun!

Exactly! You're not a freak for wanting to learn more about something you're interested in! I liked reading Campbell and Reece's Biology. I love Norton Anthologies on Literature. As a child, one of my favorite hobbies was reading those enormous, thick, brown volumes of Encyclopedia Brittanica. Read a lot of astronomy textbooks as well! And spent a lot of time on Microsoft Encarta lol back when the internet wasn't famous yet.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, LEARNING IS FUCKING COOL.

 

[MexicanTravels]

Exactly! You're not a freak for wanting to learn more about something you're interested in! I liked reading Campbell and Reece's Biology. I love Norton Anthologies on Literature. As a child, one of my favorite hobbies was reading those enormous, thick, brown volumes of Encyclopedia Brittanica. Read a lot of astronomy textbooks as well! And spent a lot of time on Microsoft Encarta lol back when the internet wasn't famous yet.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, LEARNING IS FUCKING COOL.

Campbell and Reece's Biology is a great book! Very informative! I got a copy from my sister from when she took AP Biology.

Another great book is Principles of Neural Science by Eric Kandel. It highlights how much we do and don't know about the brain.

 

[Lra888]

Les Chants de Maldoror - Lautremont
The Trial - Kafka
Sun & Steel - Mashima
Cities of the Red Night - Burroughs
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
Notes From Underground - Dostoyevsky
120 Days of Sodom - De Sade
Doors of Perception - Huxley
Close to the Knives - David Wojnarowicz
Acid Dreams - Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain

 

[Lra888]

IV. The Gospel of Judas
This is another way to look at the account of Jesus Christ.

V.The Book of Enouch
This is another way to look at the book of Genesis.

I love these as well. I read the Nag Hammadi library last year and loved it. It's a miracle that those texts were preserved and rediscovered.

 

[MexicanTravels]

Doors of Perception - Huxley
Acid Dreams - Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain

I take it you're a fan of psychedelics?

 

[Smilla]

I take it you're a fan of psychedelics?

Michael Pollan has a newish book out about psychedelics.

Are you familiar with him and his work? A friend will give me a copy of his latest as soon as they finish.

 

[Istanbulite]

9. The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
I remember it blew me away

especially this was a very good book. thanks for the list too.

 

[OctoberDusk]

Old thread, but I'll try a list, but there are so many. In any case, in no particular order.

• James Joyce, Dubliners. A short story collection, but it pushed me to find a new major. I also relate too well to those whose dreams exceed their grasp. Portrait and Ulysses had an impact, too, but it started with the stories.
• John Keats, poems and letters. These really influenced me, especially the letters. "Tonight I shall imagine Venus your star and pray, pray, pray to it like a heathen." Damn, dude.
• Homer, The Odyssey. This gave me some hope, even as violent as it is. The Iliad mostly depressed me, as I saw how vain and violent human nature has always been. But the Odyssey was about trying to put that behind and find a way home. Even if arriving did result in slaughter.
• Oliver Sacks. I'm going to bunch many of his clinical tales into one, but especially The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Musicophillia. Better understand our brains and how they can be thrown off or find new ways to function was enlightening.
• Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar. One of the most unflinching portrayals of depression and how it affects your view of the world I've read.
• Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time. Gave a better understanding of everything.
• Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. A fairly recent novel, but it's brilliant. And parts of me can relate to Oscar and Yunior, the narrator.
• William Shakespeare. I can't pick only one work, but the tragedies were especially impactful, particularly King Lear, as it's the most cynical.
• Toni Morrison, Beloved. I'm still an awe at the power of portraying the horrors of slavery and its continued cultural impact through a ghost story.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. I always felt there was a rotten hollowness to the materialism and facade I saw all around me, but this book helped me peer more closely into it.

 

[noname223]

Okay guys. I have to pay respect for all your work. I am quite obsessed about education. Though I am not that much into reading. Seems quite paradoxically, doesn't it? I am too slow and my brain has some attention problems with it. I think partly it is pathological. I start ruminating quite often. It is kind of extreme.

I love to listen to newspaper articles or books. The latter one is quite expensive. I love the David Foster Wallace essays. It is one huge book. I stopped with Infinte Jest at 75%. I ask myself whether I will finish it before I ctb. I want to finish it in case I am again locked up in the psych ward as the last time when I started it. Lol.

I really admire your stamina to get through such long, complicated books. Many compliment my language when I speak my native language. Though I don't read much. I am good at writting but I could never reach the level of getting paid for it due to the fact that I barely read literature.
I love the texts of David Foster Wallace. Though most of them (which I read) are rather essays. It is easier for me to handle their length.

Sorry it is quite an off-topic comment. But I admire you.