Hi Folks - newbie here on a mission. I’m interested in your top rated books. Books that are highly influencial and/or life changing. Books the "you gotta" read ... in your own humble opinion.

If you please, create your own Top 10 Best Books in-the-whole-goldurned-world list here, and perhaps copy it over to comment on my blog:
http://whatacharacter.wordpress.com/2007/01/08/magic-in-books-best-in-10/

I have no intention of evaluating your choices, I just believe we would all benefit from knowing people’s opinions, as books are really one of the prime means of affecting our worldview and motivation in life.

Thanks. Books are swell.

My pitiful list (hey, I'm sharing here - writer delayed as an art history major and technogeek: too many art books and computer manuals)

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

2. Siddhartha, Herman Hesse

3. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins

4. Catch 22, Joseph Heller

5. Prey, Michael Crighton

6. The Red Tent, Anita Diamant

7. Plato’s Dialogues

8. U.S. Constitution

9. Dante’s Inferno

10. Sundry Biblical: Gospel of John, Epistle to the Ephesians, Proverbs, Psalms

Pardon my incredulity ... but is the literary desert this topic has become due in part, perhaps that no Neil Gaiman books appear on my top 10? Am I blacklisted!?!

Believe me, even if there aren't 10 on your list, anything is worth contributing. If you've read nothing "life-changing" perhaps "eye-opening"?

Maybe as more people contribute (or see my blog) you *will* have something life-affecting to read?

Narrowing it down to 10 is hard, and I believe this isn't the first Top Ten Books thread. I'm not sure Neil would get into my top 10 either, though I know my #1 is William Gibson's Neuromancer.

hi whatacharacter and welcome to the boards.

i suspect that people haven't been replying to you as you came here as a new poster and asked us to go to your blog and help you out.

whilst we are a very friendly and helpful bunch, it tends to be polite to get to know people before expecting them to help you.

and as zone states, we've done this or thinks like several times before.

like here which you would have found if you'd used the search engine for topic with the words "top 10" and other recomendations thread.

but that being said, i hope you stay here and we all get to know you better, and vis-versa.

Hey guys! thanks for the reply. Apologies for sounding as if I merely wanted any focus to be on my blog, or if *I* needed to be *helped out* (also my bad for not using the search - while I did take a long look down the line ... but still, I guess I figured no one has taken quite this approach for books). I am actually happy if the only conversation is here.

My intention is not to simply list good novels or great writers per se in the fictional literary genre, rather titles of deep world-changing significance, which might include some weighty philosophical issues wrapped in a fairy tale. As such, I offer "Lord of the Rings," for not yet having read any Huxley, or Chomsky ...

My blog has no adds, and I am no hit-whore, but I am very interested in compiling as big a list of people-picked books (not from 'experts')- which I think of as having itself some global significance (I would hope, to everyone's advantage).

I'll go ahead and post my original "statement of purpose" here:

quote:

"Thank you for joining us. The written word is why we’re all here, and so I ask what life-changing 10 books would you recommend? Please share and if you can’t think of 10, or otherwise recall a tome both important and influencial you always meant to read but haven’t, plug it in anyway, and perhaps mention a quick “why.” Post on your blog and/or here … I’ll try adding it here somehow.

Simply “good reads” need not apply - I’m looking for intellectual substance and philosophical enlightenment, with global impact, be it social, spiritual, scientific, ficticous, etc. Which book transformed you? What do you think is a “must read” for it’s ground-breaking lasting and timeless affect?

Plato once railed against the poets and playwrites of ancient Greece. A theory explains that the theater and poety of his day simply rehashed the collective ethos of preliterate history, and failed to provoke the audience to intellectual awareness, critical thinking, individual social responsibility, or moral honesty.

Might today’s 21st century media fail us in the same way? Was South Park correct in lambasting Family Guy for titilating the masses with vapid, out of context and arbitrary references to popular culture? What kind of literate nourishment do our brains best require??"

oh, and thanks Smaug for the link. There are def some titles there fitting my intent, but not many I think. I hope you all get what I'm aiming for here (?) It's kinda hard to express, and a subjective puzzle, ferinstance "Red Badge of Courage," and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" may have been ground breaking over 100 years ago, but do they still provoke and move us forward today? Again these are more literary than philosophical treatises, which is the core of what I'm looking for ...

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