As the title says! I want to start reading books that will enhance my brain and knowledge. I started reading 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century' by Thomas Piketty, a (as i understand) classic, and want to read more of these kind of books. I don't want self-help or anything as I am not really interested by them (tried books like Atomic Habits but didn't really find them interesting), just some factual and interesting read on any subject.
I'm trilingual so I can read in English, French or Spanish, so it doesn't HAVE to be in english (I even prefer french if possible).
Also, I don't want any heavily biased book, so I would like to stay "far" of politics, unless it's about political history that can be fact checked and aren't full of opinions and clear bias. Suggest away!!
by LettuceIsPog
21 Comments
Try looking at prize winners, like the Nobel prize in literature, booker prize, etc.
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Both books by Isabel Wilkerson and Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehneriech
Status and Culture by David Marx
Veblen – Theory of the leisure class
For a well-written historical survey of literature and other arts, “From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present” by Jacques Barzun
You could work your way through the St. John’s College Great Books curriculum:
[Great Books Reading List](https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/great-books-reading-list)
the world and africa
shock doctrine
a history of the world in 6 plagues
[Penguin Great Ideas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_Great_Ideas) are great to get to know a lot of ideas from history and discover what you want to know more about.
Explaining Hitler by Ron Rosenbaum is an examination of all the ideas that try to explain Hitler and still has me thinking years after reading it.
Im always gonna say terry pratchet ringworld, the gift that keeps on giving.
Coming off of Picketty, you might appreciate the counter-balance of Niall Ferguson’s *The Ascent of Money*. Though he’s partisan in other facets of his life, the book itself isn’t really polemical and is a pretty decent economic history.
I am currently 2/3 of the way through The Human Cosmos: Civlization and the Stars by Jo Marchant and am kind of stunned by how wide-reaching and brilliant it is. Can’t tell you yet if she’s sticks the landing, but really good so far.
Dune. The Count of Monte Cristo. To Kill a Mockingbird. Just bust down on all the books that make it into every top ten list.
One piece.
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes, We by Yevgeny Zamayatin, Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind, From The Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.
New Ideas from Dead Economists. It’s hilarious, and goes through some of the underlying assumptions of our systems as short biographies of the economists who formed it. Recommended by a very senior economist friend as being “the essential reading.”.
The Ascent of Money. Similarly interesting historical overview.
Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry. Speaks for itself. Systematic overview of personal finance gurus.
African Friends and Money Matters. Explains at least half of all intercultural miscommunications. Slim, simple, and very insightful.
The State of Africa. Great, but DENSE. Also published as The Fate of Africa. Similarly, the biography “Mukiwa” is both hilarious and informative and covers that time period from white settler experiences, south-east Africa. I’ve heard that while Half a Yellow Sun is a novel not a biography, it’s similar and award winning, from a local Nigerian perspective.
21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act, by Robert P. C. Joseph. Canadian. Extremely slim and a great read.
Non-fiction:
*The Story of Civilization* by Will & Ariel Durant
*A History of Western Philosophy* by Bertrand Russell
*A Brief History of Nearly Everything* by Bill Bryson
*The Body* by Bill Bryson
*The Social Animal* by Elliott Aronson
*The Greatest Show on Earth* by Richard Dawkins
*A Brief History of Time* by Stephen Hawking
Fiction:
*The Iliad* and *The Odyssey* by Homer
*The Mahabharata* by Vyasa
Any of the “Four Great Classic Novels” of Chinese Literature
*Don Quixote* by Miguel de Cervantes
The works of Shakespeare
Get yourself this amazing publication by the American Library Association, More Outstanding Books for the College Bound: a list of book recommendations in all genres put together by librarians since 1959 [https://www.amazon.com/More-Outstanding-Books-College-Bound/dp/0838935532/](https://www.amazon.com/More-Outstanding-Books-College-Bound/dp/0838935532/)
Asterisk and Cleopatra is a gem
Gotta read infinite jest then
Cien Años de Soledad
The Brothers Karamazov
Top 2 fav right now, but i guess all the classics are worth trying.
Upfront, I have not read any of these (in full) yet, but they are foundational/highly influencial texts in their own right (plus, some of them were originally written in French):
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
Some Nietzsche and/or Kant would fit nicely in there too (depending on the translation they will probably be quite challenging to read.)
Seconding Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class.
Can’t hurt to dive into the Western Canon and then mix in some modern literature that’s been well-received. Think Pulitzer and Booker winners – White Teeth, Shuggie Bain, Less, Kavelier and Clay, Lonesome Dove, The Line of Beauty, Orphan Master’s Son, Sympathizer to name a few.