Top six books for you

[Mountains]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

How can you have read Nietzsche and Camus and still think highly of Rand??? WTF!!!!

Rand's philosophy has its strengths and weaknesses, much like anything else.

Besides, the question was about which books in my life were the most powerful and meaningful, not which I happen to agree with the most. Atlas Shrugged, without a doubt, qualifies for this list; I read it as a freshman in high school, and (along with a number of my friends) was a hardcore objectivist for most of the next four years. Rand's ethics still hold some allure to me.

 

[mickey711]

Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes
1984 George Orwell
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro

Originally Posted by Jude Law

why not?

Because the majority of those who follow Ayn Rand's philosophy fail to realize that the opportunities in our society are afforded, in large part, to governtment institutions and taxes, and that they do not make every dollar entirely by themselves. For instance, government funding in basic research over the past century has allowed us to enjoy the fruits of technological and scientific progress, from MRI machines, lasers, computers to the Internet.

 

[Teacher]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

He's a good writer? You don't even need to agree with him...

Well, okay....

 

[MarquisMagic]

Catcher in the Rye
Great Expectations
Moby Dick
Of Mice & Men
The Bible
Sex Kittens Go to College

 

[Humperdink]

As an excuse to boost my post count:

The Fixer Malamud
The Stranger Camus
Of Grammatology Derrida
Lolita Nabokov
Japan's Modern Myths Gluck
Undoing Gender Butler

I just realized what a passionless human being I am...

 

[leftover_salmon]

Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon
The Corrections Jonathan Franzen
The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
Barbarians at the Gates Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
King of the World David Remnick

 

[rogermood]

Brave New World
Into Thin Air
Hamlet
Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead
A Brief History of Time
These are the top six in my list.

 

[Scrumhalf]

Near impossible to narrow down to 6, but I like these a lot and come back to them often:

The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
The Castle - Kafka
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch - Solzhenitsyn
The Mismeasure of Man - Stephen Jay Gould
Neuromancer - Gibson
The Remains of the Day - Ishiguro

 

[Korben]

Lord of the Flies
A Brief History of Time
Elegant Universe
Bible
Odyssey
Divine Comedy