Books you should read before you die

[Moksha]

Alright... the point of this thread is to list essential books/essays/works for the brain. In other words, works that are commonly quoted and referenced by intellectuals, academics, etc. (NOT your favorite William Gibson fiction or the latest Michael Moore piece of shit). You don't have to have read the entire thing to list it... but it does need to be an important work. I need to read more productive stuff, and am looking for suggestions!

I'll start things off with a few faves (mostly philosophy/criticism):

Bible
Most of Shakespeare (Troilus and Cressida is boring. Skip it.)
Communist Manifesto
Das Kapital
Understanding Media
The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
The Interpretation of Dreams
Civilization and Its Discontents
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
The Psychology of the Unconscious
Symposium
Phaedrus
Republic
Candide
Discourse on the Method
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Beyond Good and Evil
The Social Contract
Confessions (Augustine)
The Power of Myth
Mythologiques
The Transcendence of the Ego
What Is Literature?
Madness and Civilization
Writing and Difference
Any collection of essays that sum up Lacan's major theories


more to come....

[ngeso]

You know we have a DHP Book Club?

[djmarbll]

Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"
Lomas and Knight's "The Hiram Key"
Manley Palmer Hall's "The Secret Teachings of All Ages"
Karl Evanzz' "The Judas Factor"
Miles Davis Autobiography w/ Quincy Troupe
Malcolm X's autobiography
The Book Your Church Doesn't want You to Read edited by Tim Leedom
Cheik Anta Diop's "Civilization or Barbarism"
John G. Jackson's "Christianity Before Christ"
George Granville Monah James' "Stolen Legacy" (it's better to start at chapter 7 first and then read the book from the beginning)
Tony Browder's "Nile Valley Contribution to Civilization"

Thats all I can think of so far.

[dj c-los]

Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"

i started reading that a month ago.
interesting stuff

[Bill Blake]

Still think this is a damn good collection:

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Books-We...6410766&sr=8-1

[Moksha]

Still think this is a damn good collection:

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Books-We...6410766&sr=8-1

God... that IS a good collection!

[Bill Blake]

God... that IS a good collection!

I use to pick at it in High School, best education I got at that time. During my lunch break, can't believe they actually had it, should have stole the whole fucking thing. No I did not get any pussy back then.

I still want my own set. You can find them used for cheaper. It’s one of those thing I always wanted but never got. Unlike like pussy.

[Bill Blake]

O but remember Orion, that collection gets a lot of backlash as ‘old dead white man’ set o-books.

[djmarbll]

i started reading that a month ago.
interesting stuff

Yeah, I read it back in college, but pulled it back out again since Columbus Day will be coming up soon.

[Jozana]

A book that made a major impact on me and its very hard to find. 'Inside Boss' by Gordon Winter. 'Boss' was the South African apartheid regime's CIA and Gordon Winter was their top spy. He infiltrated the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and London all the way to the top and his activities caused much damage and many deaths. Its one of those books that brings out so many different emotions. Makes you so angry that you have to put it down to calm yourself but so interesting that you can't put it down for long. Its very personal for me because a lot of people he really hurt during his spying days were friends of my parents. Made me ask myself, 'should I hate him for all the damge he did to the movement or should I be thankful to him for exposing all the evil that was actually sanctioned by the regime. The fact that he took such meticulous notes during his spying makes you think he always intended to expose it(as his wife claims in the book) and that's one reason I think its an interesting read even if you're not connected or that educated on the subject.

[djmarbll]

O but remember Orion, that collection gets a lot of backlash as ‘old dead white man’ set o-books.

Its still a great collection regardless. My father has it in his library. You used to be able to get a degree in literature once you've read all the books.

[djmarbll]

A book that made a major impact on me and its very hard to find. 'Inside Boss' by Gordon Winter. 'Boss' was the South African apartheid regime's CIA and Gordon Winter was their top spy. He infiltrated the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and London all the way to the top and his activities caused much damage and many deaths. Its one of those books that brings out so many different emotions. Makes you so angry that you have to put it down to calm yourself but so interesting that you can't put it down for long. Its very personal for me because a lot of people he really hurt during his spying days were friends of my parents. Made me ask myself, 'should I hate him for all the damge he did to the movement or should I be thankful to him for exposing all the evil that was actually sanctioned by the regime. The fact that he took such meticulous notes during his spying makes you think he always intended to expose it(as his wife claims in the book) and that's one reason I think its an interesting read even if you're not connected or that educated on the subject.

Sound like an interesting book. I gotta check it out.

[E-Phi]

Almost all of the religious texts in the world are on this DVD-ROM. The site also has links to each one if you chose not to buy the DVD-ROM.
Sacred Texts DVD-ROM

[DJ Michael Terzian (Sinister)]

"The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran
"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coehlo
"Broken Wings" by Kahlil Gibran

[12th house]

mods, can we get this one into the Book Club forum?

[Armento]

keep it here.. noone goes to the libriary forum.

Amen on Das Kapital. Thanks for the list.

i'd add this one

[DJ Johnny Key]

Purely for the intellectual, I revisit this one for reference every now and then...

[Bill Blake]

The Power of Myth

I would though, replace that with his four part series Masks Of God; probably the most comprehensive work in comparative mythology ever.

http://www.jcf.org/works.php?id=259

[AK]

Invisible Man--Ralph Ellison

[BrazenMuse]

I would though, replace that with his four part series Masks Of God; probably the most comprehensive work in comparative mythology ever.

http://www.jcf.org/works.php?id=259

Absolutely. The series is interesting indeed.
Hero with 1000 faces also.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

[Bill Blake]

http://www.amazon.com/Sauces-Classic...6422637&sr=1-1

And so to be all-encompassing, this is the most comprehensive book on sauces ever complied. For humanity purposes—food science, this one is pretty important.

[Moksha]

mods, can we get this one into the Book Club forum?

Wait until it has run its course here before sending it to no man's land

[BrazenMuse]

Nag Hammadi Library.
By Elaine Pagels: "The Origins of Satan," "Gnostic Gospels," "Adam, Eve & the Serpent"

[Moksha]

Some more:

Don Quixote (as unabridged as you can find it)
The Stranger
The Prince
Justine
Dante's Inferno
Canterbury tales
On Photography
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
Labyrinths
Odyssey and Iliad
Gulliver's Travels
A Modest Proposal
Genji
The Cherry Orchard
1984


What are the essential works of feminism?
Essential literary criticisms?
Histories? (Should a well-read person have picked up Churchill?)
Poetry?

[BrazenMuse]

If you are going to include The Prince, then:

The Book of the Courtier by Baldesar Casteglione