Essential reading

[toothsomesound]

Originally Posted by unicornwarrior

While I have anything against you, and I appreciate some of your posts here and there, I have an issue with your outlook on your expectations of college. At 15 you're considering what philosophical books you need to read to be respected upon entering college and what psuedo-indie/intellectual music you must listen to in order to develop "cred" I respect any form of mental expansion, so read away and listen to music as you choose. I feel you should know your freshman year in college isn't likely to be serious to the degree you seem to believe it will. Your "ivy league" goals seem to be more about presenting an image than anything else. You'll find that the majority of kids, even in the best schools, don't really sit around discussing philosophy on anything close to a regular basis. You don't need to be the an extreme intellectual to excell. I dont mean this in any offensive way, I just think you need to relax and enjoy what there is to enjoy in high school and learn a bit here and there.
I think you misjudge the guy. But seriously Will, even though I think his bases are a little off, he's kinda right. If you even make it around to half of that list by the time you're a freshman, you'd still be waaaaaay ahead of the game at most schools. Even at an Ivy, a lot of kids will not have been exposed to much of that kind of reading. Nothing wrong with it except that you may find your classmates to be kind of lacking. ****, I've read bits and pieces of that stuff and a few other things and I often feel pretty out there with most of my friends; I have a couple who have been exposed to some stuff that you never see in highschool but the vast majority of people haven't seen that type of stuff and don't really care to hear about it, no matter where you go. You will be the miss kick ass highschooler ever though. Milosz- wmmk has a Gatsby quote quote on his Facebook.

I'm echoing Fuuma's sentiments on Rand; it will be fun for you to peruse later and laugh at, but for now, don't risk the danger of being sucked in by it. You might end up reading it in highschool, but I really enjoyed Siddhartha and Catch 22. I think we might've talked about Hesse before but if you haven't read Siddhartha, it's a nice little poetic-prosey piece of spiritual and philosophical literature, quite wholesome in my opinion. Have you taken any Art History classes? You certainly should. Try to take AP or an IB program course or whatever your school has. For music...I think I mentioned Explosions in the Sky to you....listen to more post-rock. Catch me on AIM one of these days and we'll talk about it. For jazz, I really enjoy John Coltrane, though you've probably been exposed to some of that by now. There's also a group called Portico Quartet that just released a new album that's really nice. For experimental-noise-electronica, check out Pumice, Apparat, Aphex Twin, Four Tet, The Books, Port Royal, World's End Girlfriend, Oh Land...there's a lot of stuff.

 

[HORNS]

I think Omnivore's Dilemma should be read by every American.

 

[Jekyll]

It's not essential, but I just finished reading Anathem and thought it was quite good. It's got all kinds of cool brainy **** integrated into the plot.

 

[unicornwarrior]

Originally Posted by AndrewRyanWallace

I think you misjudge the guy.

I probably made that last post sound a little harsh. I appreciate his interest in higher education, but I wouldn't recommend taking it as "seriously" as he seems to. If you read and want to pursue interests in music, art, etc. do it for yourself, not because you think it will make you seem "intelligent". I'd also like to point out that being a well-read teenager doesn't mean you'll be getting into an Ivy League school. They look at grades, test scores, extra-curricular activities, etc. not that you were into philosophy as a sophomore in HS.

Just saying. I'm only a few years ahead of you, so I feel I can relate and have input.

 

[wmmk]

Fuuma, Mmmm..highbrow pr0n!

Seriously, his work is cool. I really like the sepia image with the tapioca(?) on the girl's stomach. "The Law" looks interesting; I'll give it a read. milosz, thanks for taking the time to make such detailed recommendations. I realize that Hitchens is kind of nits, but I think some of his book could be personally useful. Regarding rap, I actually have 36 Chambers and love it. I'll kop some used copies or download the other stuff you mentioned. Is there any newer rap worth listening to? I've been in to Jay Electronica lately, who has some ties with Erykah Badu, is from NOLA/Brooklyn, and uses a lot of cool samples from old films. I'm not especially in to punk or college (though I really enjoyed R.E.M. for a while), but as I mentioned, I'm in to a lot indie music. Right now, I'm digging a lot of the Montreal scene (basically, and band involving Spencer Krug), but I'm kind of intrigued by Devandra Bahnart, the Elephant Six Collective bands (Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc.), and some other stuff. What I really like about Krug (especially his Sunset Rubdown work) is that he isn't as pretentious or whiny as, say, Xiu Xiu, but also hits harder and carries more substance than Sufjan or Andrew Bird-type artists. What other indie bands are like that? unicornwarrior, I've addressed and admitted my pretensions and whatnot, but I think there is more to my aspirations than lust for prestige. I like Columbia for a lot of reasons other than its Ivy status, and most of my other top choices (Haverford, Swarthmore, etc.) aren't really even that prestigious at all. And I don't present much of a hipster/indie kid image, other than the fact that I'm wearing some fairly skinny jeans right now. If anything, my style is gravitating to something more inspired by reclusive writers who live in the woods and ****. I'm going to kop a lot of chunky sweaters and heavy boots for F/W. But yeah, I listen to indie music because I like it and classical music because I'll have to play it at some point in orchestra. ARW, Thanks for havin' mah back. I'm not really reading this stuff for the sake of being able to talk to HS/college friends, but rather my parents' friends. I figure I get another 2 more years of being around all these ridiculous intelligent/insane/eccentric academics and journalists, so I might as well be able to have the literary background to understand what they're talking about. I haven't taken art history, but I'm taking AP studio art (for photo) senior year, and it's a double period class, so I'd think there is some art history thrown in. I'm in to some post-rock stuff like At the Drive-In, Mars Volta, Mogwai, and Menomena...or would you not consider those bands post-rock? Anyway, I'll try Portico Quartet. The only electronica I really listen to is Junior Boys, Hot Chip, and Air France, but I can check out that more experimental stuff. Brogue, I read & loved Animal Farm. Will need to watch In the Compant of Men and read A Confederacy of Dunces. EDIT: Hadn't seen unicornwarrior's second post when I started typing this. Not to worry; I didn't take any offense and honestly value criticism like that. I think my grades, courseload, SAT's, and EC's should be good enough to give me a fair chance at most schools, but I get that I'm up against Olympians and national champion debaters and violin virtuosos and **** like that. I'm expecting to end up at a solid-enough liberal arts college, but I see nothing wrong with aiming for an Ivy or two as well as some of the upper-tier LAC's.

 

[The Snob]

Originally Posted by wmmk

milosz, thanks for taking the time to make such detailed recommendations. I realize that Hitchens is kind of nits, but I think some of his book could be personally useful.

I originally suggested "Letters to a Young Contrarian" since you had mentioned Hitchens in your original post. BUT Milosz is quite right. The original "Letters to a Young Poet", while kind of cliched, is definitely worth reading if you haven't yet. I still refer back to my copy all these years later. Letter #7 was always especially good to read after a break-up (hah, I am a nerd).

 

[chas]

When I was your age I found that anti utopian literature was really enjoyable, here are a few of my favorites:


We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Walden II by BF Skinner
Utopia by Thomas More

 

[Dedalus]

I'm going to go against any recommendation of reading philosophical primary texts at this point in your life. Instead, read these:

The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy - read it, would recommend it.
Sophie's World - have not read it, heard good things about it.
Russell's History of Western Philosophy and Problems of Philosophy - I think these predate Wittgenstein's major work Philosophical Investigations, and I wouldn't trust it to do the Continentals any justice, but Russell was a great mind in any case.

If you're still interested in reading primary texts after that, you'll know where to go and have a better idea of the context that the works were written in. Context is terribly important in reading philosophy. I know too many people who started with reading Plato, didn't get past than the Moderns, which is a pity, because some of the most interesting philosophical problems come after that.

 

[jdcpa]

I am sure some will jump on me for not recommending primary source material; however, I think when you are young it is important to know the intellectual landscape of the field you wish to read about. I've sometimes found primary source reading confusing and time consuming when it is not contextualized first, i.e. which philosophies are incompatible, which ones developed from each other, which ones cross pollinate. Thus, I've had great success with Blackwell's Companions to Philosophy. Ethics, Political Philosophy, History of Philosophy are all good. (The aesthetics one is an alphabetical encyclopedia and thus useless for what you want). The essays can contextualize the works and show how they are interrelated. Then once you find a topic or conflict you are interested in, you may then reach for the primary source with a purpose of understanding a particular issue, the central conflict between the ideas. [plus these are often available at larger libraries thus gratis for a month] Good Luck!

 

[johnapril]

Camus' "Youthful Writings" (published 1976) really fucked me up.

 

[Dedalus]

Originally Posted by Dedalus

I'm going to go against any recommendation of reading philosophical primary texts at this point in your life. Instead, read these:

Originally Posted by jdcpa

I am sure some will jump on me for not recommending primary source material; however, I think when you are young it is important to know the intellectual landscape of the field you wish to read about.

 

[bradbury]

Originally Posted by chas

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I recently went out to buy that with The Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut and my childhood favorite, Ender's Game.

 

[bearlydavid]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

I would stay away from origional works of philosophy right now - I read a lot in high school on my own, and later realized I didn't really understand any of it. it does require disucssion and guidance to understand a lot of the classical philosophy.

but aside from that, good idea.

This is quoted for the truth. Read Nietzsche in high school and others, but yeah I didn't really retain much of it or understand it. It takes quite a large mind to be able to read it on your own and "get" everything out of it.

 

[JSC437]

The new George Soros book is good.... but that is not literature.

 

[Seanallen]

I just finished The Great Gatsby, can anybody recommend me any books that portray American Life / American Dream, I'm thinking of picking up On the Road Again
Basically, American Classics in which the setting is 1920-1970