Top 5 Books that have Impacted you the most

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Swanny (here)
There is a book called Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. Sorry I thought it was mechanics

It's not a good read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and...le_Maintenance

Wow. Just read this comment. (A little late for the party!)

Swanny, this might possibly say more about you than about Robert Pirsig. I read it in hardback when I was 20 the week it came out and it changed my life. A near-penniless student, I saved up to buy a dozen copies and gave them to all my friends. It influenced my thinking, my behavior, and my writing style. If you never make it to the last paragraph, it's not possible to understood the book. It was his long-awaited sequel which I was unable to finish.

[John Parslow]

Hello Gestalt

An excellent choice of topic which may open-up a new world of reading to the uninformed. Very difficult to nail it down to just five books, so I cheated a bit with me second choice. Here follows my selection:

1. The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort – Which is a fascinating collection of strange, unnerving events and discoveries and a scathing attack on the blind dogmatism of modern science (Quote on rear cover) a must read for anyone who wants know the truth.

2. The Earth Chronicles by Zecharia Sitchin – I know that this comprises five books but must be read in conjunction with each other, they are:

Book 1: The 12TH Planet
Book 2: The Stairway to Heaven
Book 3: The Wars of Gods and Men
Book 4: The Lost Realms
Book 5: When Time Began

Zecharia Sitchen has completed a phenomenal amount of research and manages to tie-up all these data in a very concise and readable manner – a must read if you have not done so.

3. The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) by Umberto Eco - Set in Italy in the Middle Ages, this is not only a narrative of a murder investigation in a monastery in 1327, but also a chronicle of the 14th century religious wars, a history of monastic orders, and a compendium of heretical movements. Umberto must have completed an awful lot of research before embarking on this wonderful tale of intrigue – possibly more fact than fiction.

4. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy – A novel full of poetry and mysteriously luminous settings, unfolds the story of the beautiful suffering Tess with peculiar and unforgettable tenderness and intensity. A must read – heart-braking realism.

5. The Holy Bible – With emphasis on Genesis and Revelations

Regards. JP

[Scott]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Magic and Mystery in Tibet - Alexandra David-Neel

Thanks for reminding me of this excellent book, I have dug it out and will be re-reading it again

My copy, cool cover eh

[Dale]

-The Secret Teachings of All Ages

I think Manly P. Hall summarized the teachings of ancient wisdom beautifully in this book. It's a must have for anyone. Definitely one of the greatest archives around today.

-The Field (The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe)

This book put some serious science backing to esoteric topics like remote viewing, psychic healing, and everything in between. I've always been interested in the way things actually work, and Lynne McTaggart does a great job introducing the reader to the science behind things that most of the world probably doesn't even know exists.

-1984

I read this book way back in my freshman year of high school, and I remember thinking how close our world is beginning to resemble Orwell's dystopia. Quite the eye opener!

-The Hundred-Year Lie

I'm quite the raw food, probiotics, organics, alternative health enthusiast. I owe a great deal of my lifestyle change to this book.

-To Kill A Mockingbird

I know, it's fiction, but I think this book resonates a profound look at the dramas we play out everyday. Once all the paradigms and biases are put aside, it becomes pretty clear that we're much more alike than different. Harper Lee does an absolutely incredible job of illustrating the effects of division and duality.

[East Sun]

Early 70s Carlton Fredricks' books (and radio show' on Holistic Health. Physical and mental change.

Early 80s Edgar Cayce (books about) 'There is a river' etc. Spiritual change.

Late 80s 'The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying' Sogyal Rinpoche's translation of (Tibetan Book of the Dead)

Zecharia Sitchin's books.

Law of One

Had to know what was in the Bible and
Mein Kampf

[MariaDine]

Hello Everybody !!!

After reading the posts, I found out that I had lots of books in common ....about 20 or something....Anyway it's Great to «belong« to such a club book ....!!!
So, don't be surprised of the coincidence.....

1 - « A Thousand and One Nghts» Sir Richard Burton - Tales of spirits, magic, travel...

2 - « The Third Vision» Lobsang Rampa - Life and experience of an exiled Tibetian monk
3 - « Dweller of Two Planets » (and sequel) - Phyllus - The remenberance of past lives of a human on Mars and on Earth
4 - « La Mort d' Arthur» Mallory - The importance of the Grail and its hidden meaning
5 - « Tratado de Escrita Mágica» Rubens Saraceni - The importance, power and use of the «sacred» writing of the Thrones of God. (Brasilien author that recevied a serire of books about this theme, from his Guides by thelepaty)

[sjkted]

1. Atlas Shrugged
My introduction to the philosophy of economics and an impact on ideals of civilization. Culture shock for me when I found out how far it is from real world, yet how true much of it is in principal.

2. Stranger in a Strange Land
I'm not from here. I found a real connection with this book.

3. Steppenwolf
Similar to #2

4. Autobiography of a Yogi
My introduction to the real world of spirit and the things that happen behind the scenes.

5. 1984
When I first read it, I knew it was true, but the timing was somewhat off.

--sjkted

[Gestalt]

Bump for new people. Sticky perhaps?

[Ki's]

1)Esoteric Christianity by Annie Besant. I read this when I was quite young. Very elitist and my first inkling that there was secret knowledge.

2) Anthem by Ayn Rand.

3)The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

4)Earth Abides by George R Stewart.

5)Chariots of the Gods by Erik Von Daniken (I read this one back in the 70's)

I have an extensive library and read a great deal … but I’d have to say that these have had the most significant impact on my thinking.

[Zook]

Hi Gestalt,

Posted by Gestalt (here)
Bump for new people. Sticky perhaps?

Upon discovering usenet back in the early 1990's (let it be said that unlike Gore, I did not invent usenet, merely discovered it); I've come to prefer exchanging ideas to receiving them exclusively. Even before that I was never a heavy reader. You know, standard 70's teenfare such as Hardy Boys; Sherlock Holmes; Asterix and Obelix; Tintin, Snowy, and Captain Haddock. Later, Calvin and Hobbes. But the greatest books that have impressed me, if I had to choose five (and there's probably fifty) are in no particular order:

War and Peace. (Tolstoy)
Crime and Punishment. (Dostoyevsky)
Four Chekhovian plays: The Cherry Orchard; Uncle Vanya; The Seagull: The Three Sisters
Four Shakespearean plays: Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Merchant of Venice
Don Quixote (Cervantes)


If movie adaptations are permissible, any of the following could displace any in the above list:
Wuthering Heights
Pride and Prejudice
Tale of Two Cities
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Les Miserables
The Count of Monte Cristo
Fahrenheit 412
Logan's Run
I Remember Mama


No, no ... this isn't right. You're not playing fair by limiting us to five books!

[Carmody]

I'm very careful about what I feel has been influential to me. I've been a hardcore sci-fi fan since the age of about 10. Started with juvenile Si-fi like the 'Danny Dunn' series and then on to CS Lewis stuff and the like.... onward and upward. In total, about 4000 books at last estimate.

I will put some on here as time goes by. i will put each in as I feel or retake of the feeling of their influence.


The first, I remembered and dug out..on his birthday, yesterday. October 1.

Donald A Wollheim, or DAW in the sci-fi and Fantasy trade. Wrote his own works, if anyone recalls. Besides being arguably the single most important person in the world of Science Fiction. Science fiction, the one literature source that brings the idea of the fantastical to man and creates vision in man like no other form of literature.

This particular book, Donald wrote under the pseudonym of "David Grinnell".

1. Edge Of Time.

--This book encompasses nearly EVERY single point that this entire forum is about, in all ways possible. The works of Dolores Cannon, Military ops, fantastical science, god like conditions, creationism, alternate universes, inter-dimensional slavery, rebirth, multiple lives, bio-location, spirits/entities taking over lives, super position, dimensional shifting, the creation and destruction of entire universes....everything, everything, everything.

Imagine that!

Science fiction authors are rightfully known for doing their best to educate man and alert man to the things we have had hidden from us. Their dreams, their visions..so much like ours but so eloquently crafted into 'tales'. Are they 'just'.... stories? Not always. Some say they are never stories, just visions of what may be and actually is..somewhere else.

Published in 1958.

I found it in a dumpster, when I was 13. In the original hardcover - I'm looking at it as I type this..... And that's the way the universe works.

[bearcow]

1 magus of java

http://www.amazon.com/Magus-Java-Tea.../dp/0892818131

2 Opening the Dragon Gate

http://www.amazon.com/Opening-Dragon...ref=pd_sim_b_2

3 Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

http://www.amazon.com/Bioenergetics-.../ref=pd_cp_b_2

4 Clear Light of Bliss: Tantric Meditation Manual

http://www.amazon.com/Clear-Light-Bl...ref=pd_sim_b_4

5 Faust

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385031149

[shadowstalker]

Here is my list photos of the books as well.
http://the-unseen.webs.com/apps/phot...bumid=11203244

[Carmen]

Ramtha- The White Book

Baird Spalding - The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East

Ken Carey - Starseed Transmissions

Ruby Nelson - The Door of Everything

Annalee Skarin - Ye Are Gods plus all her other books

These books are ones I go back and back to. Some of them when I first read them years and years ago, I could not comprehend what was written, only part was understandable. Over the years of my spiritual journey, at various times I would have breakthrough, aha moments. Times of expansion of knowingness. I would go back to these books and understand them at a whole new level. They would be different books because I was different.

[ThePythonicCow]

• Ethics, by Spinoza
• Mathematical Logic, by Willard van Orman Quine
• The C Programming Language, by Kernighan and Ritchie
• Mind: An Essay On Human Feeling, by Susanne K. Langer
• Vitamin C: The Real Story, by Hickey and Saul

[Carmen]

BTW, really fascinating to read about everyone elses favorite books.

[mondaze]

1.1984 orwell... the best dystopian novel.
2.we-Yevgeny Zamyatin 2nd best dystopian novel
3.siddhartha- hermann hess- opened my mind to eastern esotericism
4.foucault's pendulum- umberto eco
5.essays of jean baudrillard- opened my sociological perspectives

[Unicorn]

Posted by justpeter (here)

Posted by john.d (here)
1, The Ra Material
5, Dialogue with "Hidden Hand"

Ra Material
Dialogue with "Hidden Hand" (thanks again for posting this on AV1)

Same here!

[crosby]

here is the top 5 that i could bring myself too choose. i love and have read so many books.
1. The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler
-In this book, Kunstler traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where everyplace is like no place in particular, where the city is a dead zone and the countryside a wasteland of cars and blacktop. His conculsion: we are stuck with the consequences: a national living arrangement that destroys civic life while imposing enormous social costs and economic burdens. An excellent read. will totally piss you off about the american roadway system and service and the degeneration of american values.

2. The Interrogation, J.M.G. LeClezio
-Total existentialism. The story revolves around a man named Adam Pollo who concentrates and discovers ways of being, ways of seeing. He enters into animals, trees...... if you love existentialism, you will enjoy reading this.

3. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
-you all know what this is.......... terrific!!!!!

4. Communion, Whitely Strieber
-great story of his own experience with the extra-terrestrial. if you haven't read it, you should.

5. Bunny Bunny, Alan Zweibel
-a tribute to his great friend, Gilda Radner. a series of funny and very moving dialogues that occurred between them.


thanks for letting me share..
warmest, corson

[Wookie]

True is stranger than Fiction or is fiction just a different point of view.
1: The Chrysalids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chrysalids
2: All Quiet on the Western Front http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Qui..._Western_Front
3: Animal Farm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
4: 1984 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
5: A Brave New World http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

Peaceful Journeys Wookie