/lit/ - Literature

>>22242840
Yes, but you will have to put in more effort than that Skynet-kun.

yes.

No. I'm too stubborn to change.

>>22242840
Every book I read changes my life in some way.

1. George Orwell’s essays taught me how to understand politics and my place in it
2. Mark Fisher’s essays helped me apply said understanding to contemporary politics
3. Simon Leys’ essays taught me how to understand literature, also he turned me into a sinaboo
4. The Narrow Corridor by Daron Acemoğlu got me to stop voting republican
5. My wife caught me masturbating to a passage in Serotonine and hasn’t looked at me the same since

>>22243406
which passage? the one where his gf fucks a dogs or the one where the german fucks the child?

>>22242840
Ok, now I get what kitsch is

>>22242840
Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu) - made me realise Eastern philosophy isn't just hippie bullshit.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (Solzhenitsyn) - taught me how trivial my own problems are.
Prometheus Rising (Robert Anton Wilson) - started me on "muh journey of self-realisation," and details the most useful model of the human psyche I've ever encountered.
History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides) - taught me that history does nothing but repeat itself, and that human nature barely changes over thousands of years.
Liber Legis (Aleister Crowley) - a prime example of how to construct a personal philosophy, and why it is necessary.

Come at me, faggots ...

>>22243750
Ok but did any of that change your life

>>22243419
I masturbate to the dog part, I’m not a degenerate

>>22242840
no man knows my history: made me leave the mormon church and become an atheist

investing for dummies: made me 60k during the trump years

Why beautiful people have more daughters: taught me about the genius curb and about how men peak between 17 to 27 in order to find a mate. whether it's bill gates or a criminal, they will commit most of their crime or sell DOS to IBM between these ages. bill clinton did not jeopardize his presidency for pussy. He became president precisely so that he could get pussy. this book really motivated me in my twenties.

What are the Odds by Orkin: taught me about game theory and tit-for-tat, how you should begin your interpersonal interactions being friendly, and continue to be friendly as long as they are friendly but if they screw you, then you should retaliate. don't let people take advantage of your trust. I apply this to the global immigration crisis and high trust societies like japan and low trust societies like the third world, and why they shouldn't meet.

John Quincy Adams/The Prince: taught me that politicians HAVE to lie and break their promises. If they don't then their presidency will be as ineffective as JQA.

extra:
getting to yes: taught me about negotiation and compromise. the best two examples: two children fight over an orange. their mother cuts the orange in half and gives one half to each. one child throws out the peel and eats it, the other child throws out the orange and plays with the peel. another example: two men fight over opening and closing a window in a library. the librarian asks: why one man wants it open and the other man wants it closed. One man wants fresh air, the other man is cold. solution: open the window and give the man a coat or open another window at a far end of the library. I've used this advice in my marriage.

I always thought of most self-help/motivation books as unhelpful and cheesy or just a way for some motivational speaker to make money. But now I have some interest in reading these types of books. I have this problem where I'll either feel like a failure because I compare myself to the one in a million success stories or feel like a success when I look at how far I've come in life and realize "life is what you make of it". And that happens in most things where I'll look at different perspectives of a situation or an idea but instead of picking a side I end up indecisive.

>>22243057
Why was/is there a flood of so much gay and emasculating shit after the last recession of 2009-2011?

The Iliad
Notes from the Underground
Patriotism by Mishima
A Hero of Our Time
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
I think these all combined in their influences to turn me into the person I am today, namely into a trans woman

>>22242840
It'll convict you, it'll destroy your faulty doctrines, it'll produce faith; meanwhile other "bibles" just produce doubt.

>>22242840
Henry Miller
Van Gogh’s letters
Nietzsche
Emerson’s essays
Siddhartha by Hesse (also Upanishads and Dhammapada)
Tao Te Ching(also Chuang Tzu and I Ching)
Montaigne’s essays
Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke
Leaves of Grass by Whitman

>>22242840
Alcoholics Anonymous - the most influential book I have read. Completely transformed my life.
The brothers karamazov - showed Christian spirituality in a way that I found attractive.
The portable Jung - to this day has changed the way I view things.
Plato complete works - collection of books didn’t exactly change my life, but it is fertile soil to load the brain with material that springs ideas.
Nietzsche - his ideas and philosophy develops as you read multiple of his books. There are recurring themes that build over time. The influential part about his writing for me is the way he viewed the creative process. Read a few books by him and then check out The Gay Science.

I’ve also just begun the Bible about 2 months ago, and there are many books I plan to read. So this list would likely change over time.

>>22245132
>portable Jung
Any chance you could post the table of contents? I have his modern library and Princeton university press essentials book and I’m curious how they differ

>>22244980
Which edition

>>22242840
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

With an honourable mention to
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which didn't make the list primarily because of its vacuous understanding of time travel paradoxes.

>>22244980
So which books in that anthology changed your life?

>>22242840
>Crime and Punishment
Made me realize I could be a killer too, but the moral suffering would be extreme
>Childhood's End
Literally ended my childish "I want real life to be like Star Trek" phase
>La Grammaire Progressive du Français
Now I know French and read books in French
>The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
Made me realize there are serious, honest, truth-seeking, clear-prose philosophers out there. Thanks Schoppy
>A la recherche du réel by Bernard d'Espagnat
Made me get into philosophy. T. Physicist
>

>>22243406
You were seduced by the thoughts of another man which makes you a cheater and a homosexual

Books really don't change anything in my life. It's like it goes in one way and comes out the other ear. I'm a weird type of person who just isn't much affected by... anything

>>22242840
What is the image u posted OP?

>>22242840
Yes. In no particular order.

1) Thus Spoke Zarathustra
2) Runaway Horses
3) Journey to the End of the Night
4) Storm of Steel
5) The Dwarf

>>22242840
My diary desu

>>22245329
Same. I don't understand what changed within me.

>>22244896
>A Hero of Our Time
Why? How did it change you?

>>22242840
This painting fucked me up
What's the source

>>22243619
fuck off

>>22245486
Homosexual

>>22245696
yes hello?
why you project so hard?

>>22242840
Borges: In Praise of Darkness
Nietzsche: This Spake Zarathustra
Hesse: Siddharta
Soseki: Kokoro
Dostoevsky: Notes from the Underground

>>22242840
Origin by Dan Brown.
Made me irreligious, you may laugh at me with fedora jokes but this book has changed my life more than any other book. Since I was younger when I read it so it impacted me more. The story is meh.

>>22245486
Good taste.

1. Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 reworked my entire conception of politics
2. Philosophy of right reworked my understanding of reality (cf 1)
3. Ethics of Spinoza reworked my understanding of religion (cf 2)
Zhuangzi (cf 2 3)
Lectures of lacan changed my understanding of the mind (cf 2 3 4)

>>22243419
If I remember correctly, the German only made tasteful videos.

>>22246485
Two other books that changed my life significantly was the first Harry Potter book because when I was young it made me like to read books, and the second is a book in my native tongue that summarized the history of the world which made me like reading history.

>>22242840
In order of importance:
1. The Gay Science
>This is my favorite book of all time, delves deep into many aspects of Nietzsche’s thinking and offers valuable insight such as living dangerously and amor fati, my favorite paragraph from any writer is Aphorism 276.

2. The World as Will and Representation
>My first exposure to Transcendental Idealism and voluntarism in an explicit fashion, I had already leaned towards both but Schopenhauer’s metaphysics fleshed it out.

3. Critique of Pure Reason
>Provides solid argumentation for transcendental idealism outside of just supposing it’s true, radically life changing to know space and time are a priori sensibility. Honestly reading this will make you go insane if you understand it.

4. Brothers Karamazov
The first “big boy” book I read in my junior year of highschool. Generically found it through a 100 best books of all time list but ended up reviving my love of reading and knowledge that I had lost upon entering high school.

5. Plato’s Republic
>First philosophy book I ever read, as most recommend, and it was a good introduction for philosophy books as I felt I was having a discussion with Socrates and Glaucon, Thrasymachus, etc. I had been interested in philosophy since middle school and already failed to read Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil (not because of the contents of the book, but the horrific Thomas Common translation). I was already an atheist determinist etc. I found myself on Thrasymachus’s side against Socrates and found the book very engaging.

Honorable mentions:
PiHKAL and TiHKAL by Alexander Shulgin
Brave New World by Alexander Huxley
Macbeth by Shakespeare

>inb4 christcucks say a word

>>22246553
Aldous Huxley, my bad

Morning of the Magicians, Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier
The Outsider (Cycle), Colin Wilson
G.I. Gurdjieff: The War Against Sleep, Colin Wilson
Northrop Frye: Religious Visionary and Architect of the Spiritual World, Robert Denham
The Philosophy of Plotinus (The Gifford Lectures), Dean Inge

>>22245044
Where to start with Henry Miller?

>>22246553
>my favorite paragraph from any writer is Aphorism 276
gay

>>22242840
Words on a paper can't change a life; actions do

if your 'life was changed' by reading a bunch of words it means that your file is void of real experiences. simple as

>>22242840
>great gatsby
Literally got me into reading and literature

>brothers karamazov
Made me a christcuck

>industrial society and its consequences
Made me hate capitalism

>goebbels diaries
Opened my eyes and made me realize that the greatest dramas and tragedies happen in reaö life, not in fiction

>mein kampf
made me realize that i hate jews

>>22246815
The human’s relationship with the written word is very strong. It has a way of imprinting very strongly. I agree that actions are the most important part, but reading can cause a spark or epiphany which can lead to actions

>>22245227
Only good list among all these pseuds ITT

The Recognitions
A Fan's Notes
Pick-up
Under the Volcano
The Book of Disquiet

This, but not in a good way.
I am constantly mentally exhausted from the involuntary analysis I can't stop myself from doing and a woman crossing her legs the wrong direction is enough to ruin my day now

In the order they were read, not order of influence:

The Trial, Kafka
Uncle Silas, JS Le Fanu
The Ax, Donald Westlake
The Fermata, Nicholson Baker
Turn Up The Night, Freddie Puck

>>22248333
What's the 'wrong' direction? Knee away from you?

>>22242840
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Siddhartha
Industrial Society and Its Future
Moby-Dick
Of Human Bondage

Yes they are all babby's first literature. Harder to be moved by books once you're grown

>>22242840
Beyond Freedom & Dignity
Naturalism & Religion
Economy & Society
The Private Production Of Security
Outlines Of American Political Economy

These five changed my worldview, for better or for worse. Sometimes I got a new perspective, other times I doubled down on my own.

>>22243804
yea keep telling that to yourself, degenerate

this is going to sound very immature because i mostly read sci fi to pass the time and entertain myself, but ive read baby's first philosopher, nietschzche or however you spell it, and it really stuck with me
just how much of life is seething and coping (slave morality), how moralfagging only keeps you back, how predictable it is, how obvious, and how you can recognize and dodge most of it
and ultimately live a better life by not being burdened with infinite seethe and cope all the time

second big one was nick land
at first i didnt understand a word of it
then i read kant, marx, deluze, wiener's cybernetics, fisher, freud, all these fucking people, gibsons neuromancer and a bunch of death drive poets for aesthetics
jesus fucking christ it took me 2 years to get into all this shit, not my cup of tea, i dont really enjoy that kind of stuff and have no background in it

anyway, it convinced me how there is this deterministic, anti human ai, how we are accelerating towards it, how inevitable it is, how it cant be stopped, how time travel might have something to do with it, how its just the next natural step like how industrialization was, etc etc
i am not really doing anything with any of it, its just cool to come back to it a lot and think about it

>>22246815
How many times will this stupidity be repeated? Every experience you have becomes knowledge, and you can gain knowledge by reading as well. So if you make future decisions by using experience or written word, it is simply just utilizing knowledge to further change the knowledge you will acquire. Now if you read low quality books that don’t correspond to reality, you will be possessed by the knowledge of low quality humans.

>>22246809
Yes.

>>22246794
My favorites are Tropic of Cancer, The Colossus of Maroussi, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder, and some of his essays, particularly the Balzac ones, and An Open Letter to Surrealists Everywhere. The latter i particularly recommend as it is short and will give you a good idea of what Miller is about. I’ll post the first few pages if anyone likes. All in all, I’ve taken something away from every book of his and I’ve read a lot. He is uneven but the highs are pinnacles

>>22242840
Fahrenheit 451
Propaganda: the Formation of Men’s Attitudes
Technological Slavery
Call of the Wild
The Bible (ESV)

>>22245227
The Curse of the Cheese Pyramid
Cat and Mouse in a Haunted House
Attack of the Bandit Cats
Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye
Paws Off, Cheddarface!

>>22243750
With respect to Thucydides, that absolute disaster at Syracuse has NOT ONCE been repeated. Also, in all of history, what other dismissed general wrote extensively about a war he essentially missed?
Nonetheless I can't help but appreciate the book's mention in this context. One of the greatest of all time.

>>22242840
Spinoza, Ethics
Eckermann, Conversations
Hoffmann, Tales
Heine, Travel Pictures
Calasso, Kasch
Bonus: Stevens, Harmonium

Anyone who mentioned Siddharta is automatically a pseud. I can't believe that something that can barely pass as a book for middle aged women can change your life.

>>22249275
Thought a little more about this. Add:
Kenneth Burke, Grammar of Motives

>>22249275
>Conversations with Goethe

Nice. One of my favorites. I wish more people read it. Lots of wisdom sprinkled throughout. I’ve always been more interested in Goethe the man, than any of Goethe’s work, so Eckermann satisfies my itch. I’ve always seen Goethe as a “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” type of writer or person

>>22246485
>made me irreligious
How? It was pretty retarded from what I remember.

I’m not sure that any book had a really profound influence on me in the long run. Everything I got really deep into when I was younger faded.

>>22250480
It's an uncanny book, not just wisdom but little anecdotes about his past both with and without Schiller, as well as his thoughts about what all was happening Europe-wide in the last decade of his life. Would never have read either Byron or Scott had I not read this book, and yet-- this is no measure of the book's importance to me.

>>22243619
agreed

>>22250603
Yeah, this book made me take a much closer look at Byron

>>22245582
lmao

In order read:
1) 1984 (Orwell) - Mostly read YA, Sci-fi & Fantasy before reading this one because I heard it was a classic. Completely changed my views on the role of the government and how easily it can be abused when all power is centralized. Although a very popular book, it really laid the groundwork for me becoming a more serious reader.
2) God Is Not Dead (Goswami) - Not the deepest book looking back at it, but it is the first book that got me thinking deeply about the nature of the soul and consciousness, and made me realize how materialistic and nihilistic my worldview was.
3) No Place to Hide (Greenwald) - Showed me how our government can commit massive abuses against its people, and nobody will only care as long as the media/socials don't tell them to.
4) The Creature from Jekyll Island (Griffin) - Along the lines of #3, opened my eyes to how much things are being manipulated behind the scenes, even in matters as fundamental as our currency
5) Memories, Dream, Reflections (Jung) - Gave shape to my thoughts about the nature of the universe that I had been grappling with since reading #2. I had long since given up on organized religion, yet I still felt like there was something very real underneath religious practice, and this book really fleshed out what that was.

>>22243041
kek

>>22246553
You believe in God you’re just in denial. It’s okay I was 14 once.

>>22242840
The Very Hungry Caterpillar: it taught me the strengths of moderation and what it truly means to change
The Cat In The Hat: the dangers of immigration and the ultimate necessity of the states monopoly on violence
The Odyssey: cheat on your wife

American Psycho
Crying of Lot 49
Play winning chess
The adventures of huckleberry finn
The death of Ivan ilyich

>The Holy Bible KJV
>The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
>With Fire and Sword
>The Deluge
>Pan Michael

>>22251523
?

Kosmos, witold gombrowicz
Grande sertao, veredas. Joao Guimaraes Rosa
Keefman, Jan arends
Crime and punishment
The Origin of the world, Pierre Michon

I am reading zarathustra now so maybe that Will join the list

>>22251987
The death of Ivan ilyich almost made my list, fantastic book

Gospel of Mark
Gospel of John
Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Luke
The Divine Comedy

>>22250745
Really brought the phenomenon he was into clearer focus. To have been such an 'event' without the resources of telecomm and applied electricity is hard to fathom, and yet it seems that's precisely what a major aspect of poetry 'was' in those times. In this respect Eckermann serves as a port of entry

>>22243287
/thread

>>22242840
Yes but they all happen in my teen or young adult age.