Hello everyone!
I’m putting together a long-term reading list.
I'd love if you could suggest me the books that made you bleed words. The ones that changed how you think, feel and see the world.
Here are the main categories I want to cover (open to adding more) :
\ Philosophy*
\ Psychology*
\ History*
\ Politics & Power*
\ Literature*
\ Economics*
\ Feminism*
\ Science*
\ Self-knowledge*
\ More*
P.S. I’m open to recommendations in Arabic and French as well.
Looking forward for your suggestions! THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!
by Fragrant_Judgment326
17 Comments
Do-Loon-Ai Express: The Mind Experiment is fitting most of them
Shadows at Noon, Joya Chatterji
Most influential books for me have been
All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten by Robert Fulghum
Times Square Red Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany
Ejaculate Responsibly by Gabrielle Blair
Girly Drinks:A World History of Women and Alcohol by Mallory O’Meara
Tacky: a love letter to the worst culture we have to offer by Rax King (this one’s a bit of a stench genre-wise but I adore it and will forever recommend it)
Best of luck! 🤞🏼
I recently read
East of Eden – John Steinbeck
I thought it was incredibly written and really made me reflect a lot on what it means to be good or evil.
The Sublime Object of Ideology by Zizek. Really fucked my head up when I was in college.
Philosophy: Sophie’s World – it’s a good simple introduction to philosophy, but in novel form.
Economics: The Undercover Economist, and How To Make The World Add Up, by Tim Harford (the second one has a different US title).
Feminism: Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. Women and Power by Mary Beard, We Should all be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. The first is about how women are missing from the statistics that are used to shape the world and politics around us. The other two are excellent slim volumes, giving clear insight into why we need feminism.
Science: Bad Science by Ben Goldacre talks about what makes bad science in medicine using examples such as the MMR vaccine misinformation scandal.
Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.
Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Flacks by Rebecca Sploot
The Emperor of Maladies by Siddharta Mukharjee
NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan was THE book that changed my whole life. It explains the basis of critical thought and scientific method that you will use for every other aspect of your life.
Now, some others for after Carl Sagan:
The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker)
The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber and David Wengrow)
A History of God (Karen Armstrong)
Origins of Totalitarianism (Hannah Arendt)
The History of White People (Nell Irvin Painter)
I’ll force myself to stop here, but I have way more recs if you are interested on a specific subject. I’m a huge History lover.
Also, you can trust Oxford’s “Very Short Introduction” series of books for any subject, they are very well researched and written by scholars.
Feminism:
Whipping Girl 2nd ed by Julia Serano
Thick and Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Ain’t I A Woman? by bell hooks
Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Skin by Dorothy Allison
[How Many Do You Want?](https://hardcover.app/@JDM_books/lists/intelligence)
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is one of my biggest foundational brain reads.
Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker is a guy who researched the psychology of language and you can tell because his language usage can be super obscure.
Really enjoying Huxley’s writing. After Brave new world I moved onto Island and Doors of Perception (like to have multiple books going at once), and I feel like these books have a great mix of psychology, philosophy, and general world knowledge. Everything Huxley wrote in the mid century is relevant today.
I’m also gonna add Paglia’s writing to my list for feminist reading.
Read the encyclopaedia britannica
Howard Zinn’s **A People’s History Of The United States**
and
**Malcolm X** by Alex Haley
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurtson
Pick anything by James Baldwin
For history, the Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Stationery Shop, The Kite Runner, Daughter’s of Shandong