A Significant Influence
My regular readers will be aware that I’m moderately obsessed with the idea of want to read ‘significant’ works of literature (generally non-fiction) as part of my on-going self-education project. This I’ve been doing with some effect for a few years now and, I believe, I’m getting better at working out or discovering exactly what constitutes a significant or influential book. I know that can sound kind of silly as influential books are obvious… right? But I’m finding my way and picking up trails as I go along (plus being me I’m doing this the roundabout – AKA hard – way!). Anyway, finally to my point…. Below is the list of significant/influential books I’ve read so far (in the time of producing this Blog) and as always the newest works are at the top in bold:
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence
The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
The Rights of Man by H G Wells
The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes
The Two Cultures by C P Snow
The City by Max Weber
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
The War of the Flea – A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory & Practice by Robert Taber
Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P Newton
Seize the Time – The Story of The Black Panter Party and Huey P Newton by Bobby Searle
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
The Autobiography of Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley
Achtung Panzer! – The Development of Tank Warfare by Heinz Guderian
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
About Looking by John Berger
A Vindication of The Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
War on Wheels – The Evolution of an Idea by C R Kutz
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
Design as Art by Bruno Munari
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz
The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
The Rebel by Albert Camus
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara
This is becoming, even though I say it myself, a reasonably impressive list. I have another three to come this year (at least) plus a few more possibly hanging around in the background. I’ll try to have at least one or two that most people have heard of. The ones I have in mind presently are from a wide range – how could they be anything else with my kind of mind – from a New Age classic, an Ecological primer and a cultural book that shot the author in the foot. As always watch this space for more!
5 comments:
How is your list of prospects drawn up? Is there one you're reading from, or do you mentally highlight influential books and go after them later?
It's a mixture of things. Sometimes its serendipity - I see something I'd heard of or things sometimes pop up in my Amazon searches. For example I've been looking at classic Feminist texts from the 1st and 2nd Wave. Also you can't help but notice certain books constantly referenced in others as influential at the time something else was happening - the 70's counter-culture and so on. Sometimes I just keep my eye open to them showing up (its how I picked up a cheap copy of The Second Sex recently) and other times I make an active plan to acquire them.
Essentially I'm still floundering about a bit - just maybe not as much as I have been [grin]
admirable process... you might find a book on Zen interesting: i studied it fairly intently a few years ago and found it quite enlightening...
Is there anything you’ve discovered from reading these books? Is there a common characteristic they possess, or anything they say about the human condition in a way that other books have not? Is there a reason they are influential books? Quality of writing, unique topic or perspective?
@ Mudpuddle: I've read a bit of Zen over the years. Some I've struggled with some was fascinating. I must dip into it again...
@ V V: I can't think of an exact common style or theme among them. They are, however, all 'radical' in one way or another - breaking away from the accepted conventional view of things - ground breaking you could say or challenging in ways that fire people's imaginations.
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