/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18573395]

Anyone have a nonfiction book that is actually mindblowing? I've read 600 books and every single book I've read has just been kinda eh. At most the reaction is "hm interesting". Even when reading philosophy the philosophers are just writing 600 pages on stuff that we have already heard before. It's nothing that makes you "go holy shit my life is changed". At most it's just like "hm interesting". Like even history/politics. Oh really the US committed crimes in the past. Is this supposed to be mindblowing. This shit has an effect on you? Oh man we're being watched. Really? Would have never guessed. I've never seen one book that one could actually make someone have an intense reaction.

[Anonymous No.18573403]

You sound young. Experience makes novels/politics/philosophy etc more profound

[Anonymous No.18573438]

>>18573403
Notice how you didn't name any books and you won't even after I post this.

[Anonymous No.18573465]

>>18573395
Imagine getting filtered by non-fiction in general.

[Anonymous No.18573468]

>>18573465
Imagine not being able to post any books because you know you have nothing.

[Anonymous No.18573474]

Theodor W. Adorno
Walter Benjamin
Hannah Arendt
Gilles Deleuze
Frantz Fanon
Oswald Spengler
Robert Nozick
Donald Davidson
George Edward Moore
Willard Van Orman Quine
Gottlob Frege
J. L. Austin
Rudolf Carnap
Bertrand Russell
Ernst Bloch
Wilfrid Sellars
John Rawls
Karl Popper
Carl G. Hempel
Henry Sidgwick
Charles Sanders Peirce
Ernst Mach
Hilary Putnam
Richard M. Rorty
John R. Searle
Fredric Jameson
Giorgio Agamben
Gaston Bachelard
Edmund Husserl
Roland Barthes
Marcel Mauss
Marshall McLuhan
Karl Jaspers
Giambattista Vico
Benedetto Croce
Isaiah Berlin
Antonio Gramsci
William S. Burroughs
Jacques Lacan
Georges Sorel
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

[Anonymous No.18573497]

>>18573395
The Technological Society by Ellul.

[Anonymous No.18573501]

>>18573474
Not op, but too many jews

[Anonymous No.18573520]

>>18573501
jews have some of the most original ideas

[Anonymous No.18573571]

>>18573474
Nice spam and I've read most of these so if you want pick your favorite 3 works out of all of them and we can go over why they're simplistic and why you're a retard if you had intense reaction to them.

[Anonymous No.18573582]

>>18573497
Wow massive technological progress can have unwanted negative effects. Who coulda thought of that. Your mind must of really been blown to learn that for the first time while reading that

[Anonymous No.18573585]

>>18573395
600 books, really? How? I’m 20 and I‘ve barely read maybe a hundred twenty books as an adult, a lot (30%) of which I haven’t finished; and maybe another 80-90 papers since starting uni two semesters ago. I read at least 30-50 pages every day.

Either you’re 30+ or reading is all you do.

[Anonymous No.18573599]

>>18573585
Reading a 100 pages a day is not hard. 50 in the morning 50 at night. I know guys who are in their 20's with 2/3k worth of books read.

[Anonymous No.18573607]

>>18573585
>I read at least 30-50 pages every day.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHHA

You dedicate a whole half an hour to reading a day? Wow, I am impressed.

[Anonymous No.18573619]

>>18573607
t. YA faggot

[Anonymous No.18573623]

>>18573395

[Anonymous No.18573631]

>>18573607
>>18573599

Do you read the books or do you just read the books. I know plenty if people who do 200 pages a day but in the end they don’t remember jack shit or just know the facts but haven’t really under the book.
Also, fiction doesn‘t count, obviously. When I say 30-50 pages I‘m talking about philosophy. Reading 50 pages an hour of Hegel or Quine, or Davidson is a brisk pace to say the least.

[Anonymous No.18573643]

>>18573631
I won't lie I only remember like 20 out of the 600 books but that's okay. Most books are useless anyways. Just keep notes on the useful information you get from books and that's all you need and you won't forget it.

[Anonymous No.18573654]

>>18573395
You're welcome.

[Anonymous No.18573671]

>>18573599
>>18573607
Do you *read* the books or do you *just* read the books. I know plenty of people who read 200 pages a day but in the end they don’t remember jack shit or just know the facts but haven’t really understood the book and thought with the author, set him into context. Studying a book vs *just* reading it.
Also, fiction doesn‘t count, obviously. When I say 30-50 pages I‘m talking about philosophy. Reading 50 pages an hour of Hegel or Quine or Davidson is a brisk pace to say the least.

t. phone posting

[Anonymous No.18573680]

>>18573395
Pic related might interest you. It breaks down how computers actually work, from the transistors in the processor all the way up to the mouse click.

[Anonymous No.18573693]

>>18573654
this is wild speculation

[Anonymous No.18573706]

>>18573680
Actually a good recommendation. I know nothing about how a computer works.

[Anonymous No.18573757]

>>18573585
>>18573599
Do you count how many books you read?

[Anonymous No.18573766]

>>18573438
Quintessential brainlet post. If I could show this to you when you're 60, I would.

[Anonymous No.18573787]

>>18573766
This whole board's history is gonna be very cringy when we're 60

[Anonymous No.18573799]

Everyone ITT is a goddamn dipshit

[Anonymous No.18573800]

>>18573757
I have goodreads

[Anonymous No.18573808]

I'm just here to shill biology as a discipline by convincing you of the quantitative and experimental rigor of the field. Bonus scenes of grad student torture included

[Anonymous No.18573809]

>>18573766
This is a good bait. If I wasn't an experienced user I would seriously reply to this bait.

[Anonymous No.18573811]

>>18573757
Count them. I own a lot of books and I remember when, why and how I read them. With PDFs/epubs I have a folder where I put everything I’ve read.

[Anonymous No.18573822]

This. Will. Destroy. You.

[Anonymous No.18573830]

I have a feeling this thread is going to die without a single person posting a book. For as much as this board circlejerks about knowledgable everyone is no one is going to be able to post a book that isn't STEM related

[Anonymous No.18573833]

My favorite non-fiction book is "The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman. Kinda changed my outlook on "culture" and medicine and I also liked how the book was structured.

[Anonymous No.18573856]

The Bible

[Anonymous No.18573872]

>>18573395

[Anonymous No.18573971]

>>18573395
Visions of excess by Baitaille veers between extremely retarded and mind blowing.

[Anonymous No.18573975]

>>18573571
Has anything ever impressed you or have you always been such a jaded little bitch?

[Anonymous No.18573982]

>>18573830
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

[Anonymous No.18573983]

>>18573395
Discourses on Thinking by Heidegger for me reawakened an awareness of the strangeness of existence.

[Anonymous No.18573987]

>>18573395
Dungeon Master's Guide

[Anonymous No.18574137]

>>18573582
That isn't the thesis of the book at all.

[Anonymous No.18574328]

find a book about philosophy of plant life it will blow ur mind make you disturbed trust me

[Anonymous No.18574404]

>>18573395
Arthur Melzer, Philosophy Between the Lines. Also, if you're reading just to rack up reads, then you won't get anything out of it. People used to read a small selection of works repeatedly over the course of a lifetime. You don't have to read The Republic over and over again until the day you die, but you should look for books that have something close to that level of value for you and ignore books that don't.

[Anonymous No.18574637]

Unironically The Selfish Gene or anything in biology

[Anonymous No.18575293]

>>18573822
cringe

[Anonymous No.18575699]

>>18573571
Adorno/Horkheimer - Dialectic of Enlightenment
Arendt - The Human Condition
Heidegger - Being and Time

[Anonymous No.18575740]

The Sovereign Individual blew my mind.

[Anonymous No.18575933]

I'm peak midwit, but I can give you some of the books that have changed my perspective or/and blowed my mind.

>The Selfish Gene
Read it at 18 years old, I knew of evolution by then, but the concept of replicator was eye opening

>The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
Another evo book, but very interesting even if it's mostly speculation. Tries to explain the origin and the advantages of sexual reproduction. It eventually starts talking about more "controversial" topics such as differences between men and women, sexual strategies, etc.

>The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Someone already recommended this, but I also thought it was very interesting. I like the way Jaynes writes and it's very funny to read about the homeric heroes as unconscious actors guided by godly voices.

I also had similar reactions to things like Hoppe's Democracy book (which opened my eyes to non degenerate libertarianism), Mises' "Human Action", Stephen Goodson's "History of Central Banking", Catherine Shanahan's "Deep Nutrition" and to a certain extent things like "Antifragile" from Taleb.

[Anonymous No.18576029]

>>18573680
Does it hold any interest to a wannabe programmer?
Plus, can I make my own computer?

[Anonymous No.18576149]

>>18573808
bait

[Anonymous No.18576195]

Over half of any reading experience comes from the reader, not the book. I think you're probably not trying hard enough, or don't know how, to appreciate and understand what you read. So you might want to read books on reading, like some literary criticism or essays on literature. Reader-response theory is one particular kind of literary criticism that blew my mind and seriously changed how I think about what I read, so maybe look into that and critics like Stanley Fish. Or maybe books on the meaning and philosophy of history that could change how you read history; Reinhart Koselleck is pretty interesting, for one example.

[Anonymous No.18576200]

>>18573395
Understand Media by McLuhan, Denial of Death, and also Civilization and Technology by Mumford

[Anonymous No.18576213]

>>18573582
What >>18574137 said. You're being dense OP.

[Anonymous No.18576327]

>>18573395
The Bible

[Anonymous No.18576453]

>>18573680
This is an actually interesting recommendation, thanks anon.
OP is a fag btw.

[Anonymous No.18576501]

>>18573395
>I've read 600 books
yeah okay buddy.

[Anonymous No.18576567]

only boring suggestions so far. the only author that matters is Guénon, OP.

[Anonymous No.18576765]

>>18573438
What's the point? You'll just try to refute it instead of embracing it

[Anonymous No.18577636]

I've searched for rare non-fictions on /lit/ for years. I've found much better sources online desu senpai

[Anonymous No.18577647]

>>18573395
The Gospels.

[Anonymous No.18577702]

>>18577636
Would you share some of those sources?

[Anonymous No.18577739]

>>18577702
i've foraged everything. community websites, wikipedia lists, syllabus, forum archives. i've approached this with a level of insanity and autism you could not comprehend.

[Anonymous No.18577788]

>>18573571
You're not helping yourself, OP.

[Anonymous No.18577791]

>>18573607
t. Faggot speedreader

[Anonymous No.18577805]

[Anonymous No.18577806]

>>18573395
You must read some pretty fucking dull shit. What kind of fucking non-fiction are you reading? You should consider that you might be too stupid to understand those books, OP. Unironically, not even joking, maybe you should look for professional help. Do you have any reading problems?

[Anonymous No.18577811]

>>18573571
b8

[Anonymous No.18577813]

>>18577806
Or learning disabilities. You should get diagnosed.

[Anonymous No.18577818]

[Anonymous No.18577833]

[Anonymous No.18577836]

>>18577791
i'm an average-to-slow reader and (depending on the book) 30-50 pgs takes me about an hour. that's soft non-fiction though, anything math heavy is 10x that time.

op try mosteller's 50 challenging problems in probability. recently got through it myself and found it very interesting.

[Anonymous No.18577849]

Check out how ol'Schoppy explained how someone can read himself stupid. I thought that wasn't possible but looks like you made it, OP.

[Anonymous No.18577853]

[Anonymous No.18577873]

>>18577739
Do you keep a list?
pic related, in the process of transferring it from paper to text file. Maybe I should share it here when complete

[Anonymous No.18577884]

[Anonymous No.18577889]

[Anonymous No.18577909]

[Anonymous No.18577920]

[Anonymous No.18577926]

>>18573654
speculative, outdated, simplistic bullshit.
next

[Anonymous No.18577943]

[Anonymous No.18577947]

>>18573395
Why are reading so much if you're not getting anything out of it?

[Anonymous No.18577948]

[Anonymous No.18577976]

>>18573395
It is a huge meme on here and the internet in general but Oswald Spengler is really the only writer that ever gave me this experience. I had just literally never imagined that particular idea before, like not even the vaguest thing like it, whatever culture I was raised in taught the the exact opposite of that worldview. The idea that history itself has meaning, that the world is imbued with significance idk, it was just mindblowing. It's not even Spengler's particular schema which has many problems, it's just the general idea itself, that it isn't all just randomness or chaos, which when you think about it, it's a bit weird that we believe that as a society. It could be randomness and chaos sure, but why are we so sure about that? It could just as easily be some kind of overarching metaphysical meaning, we really don't know.

[Anonymous No.18578025]

[Anonymous No.18578382]

[Anonymous No.18578403]

>>18573395
Hidden in plain view: narrative and creative potentials in war and peace - gary saul morson
problem of dostoevsky's poetics - mikhail bakhtin
some of joseph brodsky's essays
rousseau's confessions
tolstoy's non-fiction
some of virginia woolf's criticism

[Anonymous No.18578413]

>>18573395
try A Short History of Nearly Everything.

It's not philosophy or some other arbitrary shit, it's just facts, put in a way that will make you enjoy the world more.
Yes, philosophy is arbitrary and secondary to psychology, which is secondary to biology.

>hurr durr philosophy above all

yeah, please tell me about the philosopher that wasn't constrained by his human brain.

[Anonymous No.18578464]

any biography of napoleon
screw that jesus fellow, this guy was the real superhero
and we killed him

[Anonymous No.18578823]

>>18573654
BASED

[Anonymous No.18579025]

OP is a faggot

[Anonymous No.18579062]

Read any old physics books, specifically on magnetism and electromagnetic spectrum and find out how weird the world is and how many mysteries remain. Sorry you’re an NPC brain, op… that’s brutal. You lack the curiosity required to actually THINK which is vastly more important than just reading. You must think and synthesize and cross pollinate your interests. This is not considered work for the naturally curious imagination, but instinctual. I’m not saying you can’t turn that burning curiosity switch on! But understand it’s not for everyone.

[Anonymous No.18579763]

Try to understand all the systems around you from the ground up. That way you'll see a lot more when you look at the world.

Also, try Proofs from the Book for a collection of math proofs deemed the most elegant

[Anonymous No.18579767]

>>18578464
Has the Sassanach begun to learn guilt? I'm impressed

[Anonymous No.18580669]

>>18578413
>Yes, philosophy is arbitrary and secondary to psychology, which is secondary to biology.
Which is secondary to physics, which is secondary to metaphysics

[Anonymous No.18580742]

>>18573571
I'm not reading the thread past this, just wanted to say you're a massive faggot.

[Anonymous No.18580803]

>>18573395
Spinal Catastrophism by Thomas Moynihan is complete and utter nonsense from start to finish but as a concept its just so damn interesting. It's like if Schopenhauer tried to write a book on evolutionary history and ended up making pulpy nihilistic sci-fi garbage.

[Anonymous No.18580812]

Heidegger's Confrontation with Modernity by Michael Zimmerman.

[Anonymous No.18581882]

>>18578413
Brainlet and clearly not trained in the sciences.

[Anonymous No.18582010]

>>18575293
>>18573822
No argument within has ever been refuted.

[Anonymous No.18582209]

>>18580669
what biology is secondary to is irrelevant since it is the perciever, the experiencing entity's limitations, that will shape this philosophy based on what it is designed to be able to comprehend and not.

>>18581882
butthurt and no argument kthxbye

[Anonymous No.18582497]

>>18573395
Manly P. Hall - The Secret Teachings of All Ages
Conspiracy theories
Also Vedic astrology

[Anonymous No.18583328]

>>18578025
great one
thanks, mate

[Anonymous No.18583389]

If you want a life changing experience, you should read about things related to your life and interests. I don't know any of your interests, so I'm going to be hard-pressed to consistently give you life changing knowledge.
If I give you a study on the health effects of drinking pomegranate juice, it's only life changing if it causes you to drink pomegranate juice.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3678830/

[Anonymous No.18583394]

Both major books by Carroll Quigley

[Anonymous No.18584588]

always found evolutionary psychology to be very interesting. so many things make sense with that as a framework.

[Anonymous No.18585812]

>>18573395
a culture of critique
the history of central banking

[Anonymous No.18585869]

>>18573395
>Anyone have a nonfiction book that is actually mindblowing
The Bible. The point of life is not for you to entertained or "enlightened" but to entertain God and follow His very clear and easy to understand rules so that you may join Him and live forever. Imagine thinking "ohh me so smart, me read 6 gorillion books" while standing in front of the Omnipotent Creator of everything... Think next time anon

[Anonymous No.18585965]

>>18573822
>>18582010
>This. Will. Destroy. You.

[Anonymous No.18585990]

>>18573474
Not OP but this is the least helpful thing anyone could ever have posted

[Anonymous No.18586114]

>>18577791
Cope for your slow granny reading

[Anonymous No.18586123]

>>18573671
That's because they are retarded. I read and understand everything fine.

[Anonymous No.18586131]

>>18573619
Cope, I would never read that trash