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I sent out a tweet yesterday looking for an overview of the most life-changing books you’ve read. Thanks to everyone on Twitter & Facebook who responded!
Here’s a snapshot of what’s stimulating our global mind:
Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant – via @markhhsp
The Cave by Jose Saramago – via @garabato_
A Simpler Way by Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers – via @jcufaude
Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa- via @DegradeEntropy
On Writing by Stephen King & Letters to a Young Poet – Rainer Maria Rilke – via @tadbo
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh & The Awakening by Kate Chopin – via @ejyoung67
Turning Learning Right Side Up by Ackoff & Greenberg – via @andreachiou
Interest and Inflation Free Money by Margrit Kennedy and The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes – via @marlonortiz
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda – via @AndrisKrislauks
The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald – via @anthemis
The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac- via @OnlineInvestAI
Discourse on the Method by Rene Descartes – via @FDalmau
Linchpin by Seth Godin, First things First by Stephen Covey, Propaganda by Edward Bernays – via @Paradigmes21
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell – via @oletillmann
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – via @mahavivek
The Vision of Dhamma: Buddhist Writings of Nyanaponika Thera, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett, The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch- via @GuidoStevens
Bible, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn, The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde – via @dscofield
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. – via @daveychrist
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami – via @IoanaGuiman
The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel, The Book of Secrets by Osho – via Drew Illvp Little
The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss – via Jordan Lloyd
Dune by Frank Herbert, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, Anathem by Neal Stephenson, Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card – via James Burns
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord – via Joey Daytona
Watership Down by Richard Adams, Tess of the d’Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy – via Jason Vaughn
Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, Satisfaction by Gregory Burns, Aging Well by George Vaillant, Influence by Robert Cialdini – via Jean Russell
The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein – via Matt Richards
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander – via Seb Paquet
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn – via Natalia Radic
The Lankavatara Sutra, Process and the Authentic Life by Jason Brown, Spinbitz by Joel Morrison – via Glistening Deepwater
The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell, The Element by Ken Robinson – via Inma Vp
On the Road by Jack Kerouac, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig – via John Tropea
Spin Geometry by H. Blaine Lawson – via Eric Weinstein
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image via http://luthienthye.tumblr.com/post/16045900011
emergent by design 
Reblogged this on Social Literary.
Great list. Adding several to my list. I can honestly say I will never think the same way again after reading Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, It’s a kind of owner’s manual for the human brain:
I’d add “Godel, Escher, Bach” as one of the most mind and life-altering.
So many more recently…
A Wrinkle in Time.
Pingback: What are the Most Life-Changing Books You’ve Read? [twitter poll] « Serve4Impact
Flow – The Psychology of Peak Experience – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Your Money or Your Life – Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robins
Man for Himself – An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics – Eric Fromm
Ishmael – Daniel Quinn
Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume – Stephanie Kaza
Human Scale — Kirkpatrick Sale
Instead of a Book — Benjamin Tucker
The Wealth of Networks — Yochai Benkler
All of Ronfeldt’s and Arquilla’s Rand work on netwar
The Second Industrial Divide — Sabel and Piore
This Ugly Civilization — Ralph Borsodi
Mutual Aid and The State — Pyotr Kropotkin
Everything by Colin Ward
Phyles — David de Ugarte
Daemon and Freedom(TM) — Daniel Suarez
Makers — Cory Doctorow
Natural Capitalism — Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, et al
Jonathan Livingston Seagull; Illusions – Richard Bach
The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
We Are The Arcturians; The Light Shall Set You Free – Norma J. Milanovich
The Tao of Physics; The Turning Point – Fritjof Kapra
Growth Fetish – Clive Hamilton
Prosperity Without Growth – Tim Jackson
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (Essay) – Oscar Wilde
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The writings of many highly competent individuals have strongly influenced my development/learning. Only a few are cited here. This list does not include authors of books read in formal education, nor books that provided primarily information to be assimilated, some highly technical, or commentary that confirmed my insights. These authors catalyzed insights and accommodations to my emerging worldviews. 2010
Andrew Pickering, Arthur Koestler, Daniel Quinn, David Bohm, Derek Bickerton, Donald N. Michael, Doug Engelbart, Douglas Hofstadter, Elizabet Sahtouris, Erich Fromm, Francis Heylighen, Gregory Bateson, Heinz von Foerster, Herbert Brun, Howard Rheingold, Humberto Maturana, I. F. Stone, Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul, James Lovelock, Jay David Bolter, Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Jerome C. Glenn, John Dewey, John R. Platt, Lewis Thomas, Loren Eiseley, Maria Montessori, Mary Catherine Bateson, Michael Marien, Michel Foucault, Nelson Goodman, Niels Bohr, Oliver Sacks, Paul Hawken, Robert Fritz, Robert Kegan, Rupert Sheldrake, Seymour Sarason, Sherry Turkle, Shoshana Zuboff, Stafford Beer, Stanislav Grof, Steve Fuller, Stuart A. Kauffman, Tom Atlee, Manuel Castells, William Irwin Thompson.
I’m a big fan of Dune and Speaker for the Dead. I’d also suggest The Third Wave by Toffler, Biomimicry by Benyus, Wisdom of the Crowds – Surowiecki, Age of Spiritual Machines – Kurzweil.
The Book of Laughter & Forgetting by Milan Kundera | Spectres of Marx by Derrida | Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif
The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch; I capture the castle – Dodie Smith; The Women’s Room – Betty Friedan; Suite Francaise – Irene Nemirovsky; Animal’s People – Indra Sinha – These are just a few of the books which made a great impact on me. The Friedan one changed my life many years ago.
There are certainly some favorites on this list (and some still on my shelf half read), but more relative to this blog and surely the book that most influenced a change of mindset for me was
COMPLEXITY: THE EMERGING SCIENCE AT THE EDGE OF ORDER AND CHAOS by M. Mitchell Waldrop
I just added that one to my must read list, Paula.
Very nice. Another good one of similar ilk that I’m just finishing is
Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life by Steven H. Strogatz
Very readable introduction to the subject
The Fire from Within by Carlos Castaneda
Csikszentmihalyi had a way of describing Castaneda. A French saying that for the life of me I can’t remember, but it was something like,
‘it may not be true but it sure is beautiful’