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How to think, act and live better - great books and other material!

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brotherS:
books that changed my life:

A Brief History of Time by S.W. Hawking http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brief-History-Time-Black-Holes/dp/0553175211/sr=1-2/qid=1167998174/ref=sr_1_2/202-6750647-0951050?ie=UTF8&s=books
-nudone (January 05, 2007, 06:07 AM)
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I thought about reading it a few times, maybe I will some day.


i pretty much hated the idea of reading books because of what i was forced to read at school.

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Crappy teacher(s) :( Luckily I started to enjoy reading books before I had to read them in school, some of what we had to read wasn't that good...


i then picked this up in my early twenties and realised i was a complete moron and that there were people out there that knew things i couldn't even imagine.

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Be thankful you got 'the wake-up call' early in life. Too many never get it.  8)


The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins http://www.amazon.co.uk/Selfish-Gene-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0199291152/sr=8-1/qid=1167998085/ref=pd_ka_1/202-6750647-0951050?ie=UTF8&s=books
after being introduced to the marvelous world of popular science by mr. hawking i then read dozens more by popular science authors. reading the selfish gene was not unlike being woken from a dream - or to be more dramatic - like the scene in 'the matrix' when neo discovers things aren't quite what he thought they were.

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Ha! Thanks, I forgot about this one, someone else recommended it to me once. I ordered it now (one minute ago)!


Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell http://www.amazon.co.uk/1984-Nineteen-Eighty-Four-George-Orwell/dp/014118776X/sr=1-1/qid=1167998605/ref=sr_1_1/202-6750647-0951050?ie=UTF8&s=books
i don't read many novels but this is one i read at school. i think it fair to say it shaped my view on the world from that point on.

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Yes, I bet that's awesome, I only saw the (really good) movie.

I'm directly looking at >4000 unread book pages piled up next to me (I wonder why Amazon doesn't yet send me xmas presents  ;)).

Deozaan:
Along those lines, I'd have to say that The Real America by Glenn Beck changed my life.
Book Description
There are some things people think but don't say....

"Political correctness is the classic Great Idea Gone Wrong. All it's done is shut us up. It hasn't changed anybody's mind. It hasn't changed our hearts. It's changed our faces. It's taken every opinion we have, it's taken every joke we have, and it's forced us to conceal it and hide it and bury it. It's made us superficial."

"Terrorism isn't caused by poverty, poverty is caused by terrorism. Terror is a tool used by those seeking power to keep the masses in need of an answer."

"Too many people blame everything on everybody else, and because they do, they will expect too little from themselves and too little from their children."

Glenn Beck says all that, and more.
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The way he opens the book (if my memory serves me) is how it is hard to find people that are real. How we've all become superficial. His great example is the contrast in how many people behaved on September 10th, 2001 to how people behaved on September 12th, 2001. On the 12th people really wanted to know when they asked someone how they were doing. They really wanted to find a way to help and be the real people they are inside--caring human beings--instead of having a 3-foot thick pane of plexi-glass between themselves and the next person.

It's changed my life in learning how to really be honest with others and myself. It's changed my life in not buying into what Hollywood and the Media and what Politics tell me life is like. It's changed me from trying to fit in with the crowd into being happy as someone who is unlike the majority of others trying to fit the image the world makes up for them.

I'd recommend this book to anyone.

zridling:
I've read most of the classics, and while In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust* is my favorite novel, Martin Heidegger's Being and Time and Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality had the biggest impact on my thinking for the rest of my life. Both books seemed to explain everyday life and the cosmos in ways that were true to my experience.

* Proust's masterpiece can also be downloaded free at the Online Books Page.

brotherS:
I just stumbled upon a great quote that nicely fits this topic:

Of all the things that can have an effect on your future, I believe personal growth is the greatest. We can talk about sales growth, profit growth, asset growth, but all of this probably will not happen without personal growth.
-- Jim Rohn

urlwolf:
I've read most of the classics, and while In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust* is my favorite novel, Martin Heidegger's Being and Time and Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality had the biggest impact on my thinking for the rest of my life. Both books seemed to explain everyday life and the cosmos in ways that were true to my experience.

* Proust's masterpiece can also be downloaded free at the Online Books Page.
-zridling (January 10, 2007, 12:51 AM)
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Hi Zaine,

It seems that 'in search of lost time' is not available in that site :(

Thanks for the recommendations.

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