/lit/ - Literature

The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein

>>3219274
infinite jest

What you're asking for doesn't exist OP. The world is vast and ideas are complicated. Even if you read an encyclopedia, you're merely skimming the surface of topics. Pick a topic and research the hell out of it if. Rinse and repeat. That is the only way to be truly knowledgeable.

how instrumentalist of you

my advice is you should pick up a copy of fucking kill yourself

>>3219371
yeah thats the downside. i'll only deveop, most likely, a superficial understanding of anything i read. thats all u need though fromn a social perspective

>>3219509

I really hope you see the wisdom in learning some approximation of the truth rather than walking through life eating half-truths and misinformation till your grave.

>>3219546
unless your consorting with eminent intellectuals or keen scholars on a social basis there is no need to learn things in comprehensive detail unless your especially interested in them.

>>3219567

>is no need to learn things in comprehensive detail unless your especially interested in them.

Or, unless you're not a fan of bullshit.

>>3219570
not learning something in extensive detail =/= learning bullshit

>>3219274

I can relate. I'm not much for fiction, except for maybe a few classics here and there, much of fiction today I find surfeiting.

If you can torrent, I recommend heading over to The Pirate Bay and search for University Press under the E-book section. You'll find some nice things, probably.

Right now I'm reading:

Critical Pragmatics, An Inquiry into Reference and Communication by Kepa Korta & John Perry

The Origins of Grammar, An Anthropological Perspective by Martin Edwarde

Both are approachable books in linguistic. You don't need any technical background to get what's being discussed. So far, I've found them surprisingly intriguing. I feel they give more things for my noggin to play with then fiction does.

>>3219577
A shallow understanding can be worse than having no understanding of something.

>>3219578
i'm not looking for knowledge that's applicable to fostering and enhancing personality/charisma. origins of grammar wont do the trick. but thanks ill have a look.

>>3219595
only if the individual is irresponsible and excessively favourable of how much he knows. if your aware that you have a modest understanding of something and you are integrity you wont run into this problem

>>3219618
>i'm not looking for knowledge
i meant i am. sorry.

>>3219618

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The 48 laws of power by Robert Greene is a great book that may help you understand powers struggles with in society and it offers suggestions on how to deal with it. This book has helped me a lot!

>>3219678
how to win friends and influence people totally disinclined me to read anything of the sort.

can u gimme an idea of what it's like.
i saw a list of the 48 different parts and it loooked lame

>>3219274
>Which nonfiction book contributed most valuably to your knowledge and/or informed your personality the most?

As a chid I had this book series called "365 Days Around the World" that had a fact for each day. I loved learning the trivia. They got me interested in science, and I credit them for my shift toward reason and away from dogma and faith.

Ishmael - Daniel Quinn 1992

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_%28novel%29

>>3219707
good i like that

>>3219274
penispenispenispenispenispenispenispenispenispenispenis

>>3219274
These books are all short, easy to read, and will cover in modest depth a huge amount of stuff. Also they are probably pretty cheap.

"A Little History of the World" - E.H. Gombrich
"The Story of Philosophy" - Will Durant
"Journey through Genius" - William Dunham

>>3219274
a pic fail

>>3219837
>>3219837
thanks

>>3219837
i've been wanting to read a little history of the world for a long time but i cant find an epub file or pdf

>>3219274
The God Delusion

I'd reccommed the very short introduction books.
They are just what they sound like. You can probably find torrents with a bunch of them or find them at a library. Pick a subject you think is interesting and read a book about it in a day.

Be aware that what you're getting is really a very short introduction with many elements missing. For an example, I read the very short introduction to political philosophy and found it's discussion of anarchism to be simplistic and unfair towards the subject, me having read some anarchistic literature (along with the very short introduction to anarchism).

In my language the word introduction is the same as the word for entrance. A professor I had in one of my introductory courses explained the course as being sort of like an introduction (entrance) to a large building. There can be many entrances, but they all give access to the entire building. So I'd suggest exploring many topics shallowly, and then exploring those further that interest you.

>>3219274
Protip: "engender the most fruition" is far more effective at getting me to laugh at you then getting me to help you.

>>>/cringe/

dictionary

>>3222161
fucktard

In Cold Blood.

Here me out, I'm not some try-hard trying to make the killers into heroes.

But it showed me better than any other work how every story has two sides, and that even the worst men may not be as bad as you think.

At any rate, it's a book a think about a lot.

>>3219687
it is lame. trust your instincts. only could someone deluded by numeromancy attribute significance to the '48' rather than correctly believing it's '48 arbitrary things i pulled out of my arse.'

>>3222842
i enjoyed it a lot too

Just watch a bunch of TED talks instead, you can feel smart without the investment of time and effort normally required.

Gödel, Escher, Bach

>>3222846
i find it hard to accept rigid intellectual tenets for social interactions. they are an infinite number of variable that alter how one ought to behave.
your behavoour shouldn't be guided by some vague axiom - "never reveal what you're thinking"

>>3222861
i'd like to see some nigerian peasant, person otherwise culturally situated, try to apply the '48 guides to success' that these americans gratuitously pump into the self-help self-perpetuating anxiety abyss.

>>3222861
>>3222846
Self-help is shit.

They transform experience in method, goals in sole truth, ideas are juxtaposed in the form of lists, they make life a performance test, they poison your head with "facts", one overlapping the other. Every year, the secret to success, peace, happiness and love come out in a "5 things you need to do" manner and somehow, it's never enough, because the shelves are always changing with new "secrets" and people continue to buy them. Wasn't the first one enough?

It feeds itself on comparisons, on "how to be like that successful guy", how to be part of a relationship just like the one you see in the bank commercial, they are books that speak too much with no room for listening, so you stop listening to yourself.

There is no "how to", people cannot be effective, because life is not a task. It's the way they say it, ignoring the options, ignoring sacrifice and struggle, ignoring the unexpected. They create an image of who you should be and the book sells you how to be that. You get lost in this imaginary life of "effectiveness", they are selling you a dream.

Of course you can take things from it, just like with everything. But one needs to understand the trick and illusion of these books, which take for granted that perhaps you are better off doing the complete opposite of what they say.

Self-help books are not harmless, they are poisonous. Step away to see the big picture, because you are going to be drawn in if you stay too close all the time.

>>3222868
good post. i think if you dont have an inveterate and unconscious understanding of the way in which people interact, reading a book about it will scarcely effect any kind of positive change

>>3222877
it's a copypasta that i rediscovered a while ago and which i later figured out that i wrote, although i was suspicious. i've been browsing the chans for years and i often run across copypasta and say 'damn, who wrote that? sounds like me. i like it.' i had to search for it in the archives and found the original where some wanker, me, was talking about plutarch instead of self-help in the same thread, and then it all clicked. it's such a strange feeling but i think it's because my personality dissociates from everything i do on 4chan.

>>3222880
what

pic related

it may look and sound new-agey, but it is far from it. the man synthesizes eastern and western philosophy beautifully, but also helps u find a way to apply it to your thinking. and what i love is how meticulous he is about citing his sources. one of my favorite books.

10/10
will read again

>>3222908

opps. here is pic