The Most Important Books I have read
Books that have shaped my life
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These books have played a huge role in shaping my life and my understanding of the universe and myself. This list is a curriculum of eye-opening, world-changing books that I sometimes wish everyone in the world could read.
In fact, I highly recommend these books as exactly that: a curriculum. I will try to put them in the order in which I think they are the most helpful. If you are looking for an education which will greatly expand your understanding of the world and your place in it, start at the top and work your way through this list. In fact, I am going to set up this list like a syllabus, complete with notes on the different topics, and I invite you to explore it as you will. |
Society and Culture
All of my life I have felt that there is something fundamentally wrong with my culture. I have always known my culture holds great gifts and great value, but have felt instinctively that in the midst of this, something is off, broken, missing. In my teens and early 20's I felt it would be my primary and most important life's work to discover and understand what this was, so that I might figure out how to fix it. I spent years learning everything I could about science, religion, and psychology, and eventually turned to studying other cultures from all over the world, looking for an explanation for why-things-got-to-be-this-way. Then I read Daniel Quinn's book, Ishmael, (and soon after his other books) and discovered that my life's work had already been done by someone else. The explanations I was seeking were all right there, clearly spelled out.
This discovery was both staggering and freeing. It opened up my vision for my life and allowed me to begin to dream of a different purpose for myself and my time on this earth.
All of my life I have felt that there is something fundamentally wrong with my culture. I have always known my culture holds great gifts and great value, but have felt instinctively that in the midst of this, something is off, broken, missing. In my teens and early 20's I felt it would be my primary and most important life's work to discover and understand what this was, so that I might figure out how to fix it. I spent years learning everything I could about science, religion, and psychology, and eventually turned to studying other cultures from all over the world, looking for an explanation for why-things-got-to-be-this-way. Then I read Daniel Quinn's book, Ishmael, (and soon after his other books) and discovered that my life's work had already been done by someone else. The explanations I was seeking were all right there, clearly spelled out.
This discovery was both staggering and freeing. It opened up my vision for my life and allowed me to begin to dream of a different purpose for myself and my time on this earth.
- Ishmael - by Daniel Quinn: This book is about what is wrong with our society and what needs to change for us to fix it. It is the first in a series of books by the same author about just this topic. It is a life-changing book that will open your eyes to a whole new level of human existence and possibilities. It explains our culture in ways I have never seen done before and which finally make sense of things no one has explained before. It makes sense of the wrongness so many of us feel in this culture and explains the history of the human race in a way that I had never heard done. Start here for your most basic lessons in understanding the nature of our culture and the source of the problems we see in the world today. But don't stop here - many people read Ishmael and never go on to read the other two in the series. This is a mistake. The other two books do more than deepen and expand your understanding of the basic principles presented in Ishmael - they add the final pieces. If you skip these books, you are missing the most powerful aspects of Quinn's ideas.
Also - I suggest reading them out of their original order. Read My Ishmael second. The Story of B wraps things up in a way that is much more effective as a conclusion than a midpoint.
Click here for a more detailed discussion of Ishmael.
- My Ishmael - by Daniel Quinn: The second book in Quinn's series, I find the story aspect of this book a little thin, but the ideas are just as potent and life-changing as the first book.
Click here for a more detailed discussion of My Ishmael. - The Story of B - by Daniel Quinn:
Click here for a more detailed discussion of The Story of B.
Human Beings
Once I'd received a framework understanding of my own culture and the origin of the difficult issues which face our world today, my life began to move in a different direction. After decades of following this new path, I now recognize it as a deeper version of the same question I started out asking: instead of understanding my culture and its place in the universe, I found myself seeking to understand myself and my own place in the universe. That lead me to many of the following books, and eventually to the last section in this list.
Once I'd received a framework understanding of my own culture and the origin of the difficult issues which face our world today, my life began to move in a different direction. After decades of following this new path, I now recognize it as a deeper version of the same question I started out asking: instead of understanding my culture and its place in the universe, I found myself seeking to understand myself and my own place in the universe. That lead me to many of the following books, and eventually to the last section in this list.
- The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma - by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.: A phenomenal book I first read during the winter of 2019. This book talks about the extensive research which has been done revealing how trauma re-wires the brain physically changes the abilities and perceptions of its victims. It relates this to our present method of psychiatric treatment and argues that our previous approaches to treatment have been ineffective in large part because they are inaccessible to the changed brains of those effected by trauma. It then goes on to explore new methods of treatment which do work with trauma victims.
This book is riveting and intense, and can be emotional to read at times due to the inclusion of many specific stories of trauma in people's lives. The last 1/4 of the book had very useful information in it but was a little more work to read than the first 3/4, which pulled you in and made you forget how hard it is to get through a non-fiction book.
This book helped me to understand myself and my life as well as the people and world around me much more clearly than I ever had before. Its a great tool for anyone, but should be considered mandatory reading for anyone effected by trauma.
Religion and Spirituality
Seeking to understand myself and my place in the universe started out based in the human, but led, as it always must, to the divine. As I took my questions deeper, I found the ultimate questions - what is God, What am I, and what is our relationship to each other? As you may assume if you have read the books in the lists above, my understanding of God and religion have never been traditional. There was a time when I used terms like "Great Spirit" and "the energy of the universe" more readily than the word, God. And there was a time when I never spoke of religion in relation to anything mystical, but only of "spirituality." These days I have moved away from these linguistic changes and back to the more traditional terms of my childhood, saying God and religion as readily as anything else. This reversion is only because, as I have become more comfortable with my own understandings of the mystical side of existence, I've no longer needed alter my language to stay true to my non-traditional understandings. So know, from the start, that when I say I was searching to understand God, I mean that i was searching to understand the unifying energy which flows through all things, connects all things and is grounded in and the source of all good and positive energy and power. Call it whatever you wish - one thing I know by now is that none of our labels can ever fully describe that which I seek.
Seeking to understand myself and my place in the universe started out based in the human, but led, as it always must, to the divine. As I took my questions deeper, I found the ultimate questions - what is God, What am I, and what is our relationship to each other? As you may assume if you have read the books in the lists above, my understanding of God and religion have never been traditional. There was a time when I used terms like "Great Spirit" and "the energy of the universe" more readily than the word, God. And there was a time when I never spoke of religion in relation to anything mystical, but only of "spirituality." These days I have moved away from these linguistic changes and back to the more traditional terms of my childhood, saying God and religion as readily as anything else. This reversion is only because, as I have become more comfortable with my own understandings of the mystical side of existence, I've no longer needed alter my language to stay true to my non-traditional understandings. So know, from the start, that when I say I was searching to understand God, I mean that i was searching to understand the unifying energy which flows through all things, connects all things and is grounded in and the source of all good and positive energy and power. Call it whatever you wish - one thing I know by now is that none of our labels can ever fully describe that which I seek.