The Bible as lame as it is to say. Particularly Ecclesiastes and Job. Absolutely brilliant, beautiful, full of humanity.
The Lord of the Rings. It has become such a big part of my cultural self. I love everything about it, but especially the fact that there is an entire universe Tolkien created, mainly because of his love for languages. That kind of passion is absolutely amazing and it kind of taught me that it’s good to be passionate about something. It also taught me that some thing “nerdy” is actually very widely accepted to be one of the greatest works ever written (and one of the greatest films), and in turn it led me to accept that you shouldn’t be ashamed of the thing you like, even if they are nerdy/geeky/dumb or stupid in other people’s opinion. It also got me super interested into world building, which I’m expressing currently in building a boardgame.
Favourite part is hard, but the Ride of the Rohirrim gives me goosebumps everytime someone even mentiones it.
Two things about getting into LoTR, especially as a younger person, that easily go undervalues:
- It is basically a gateway drug to history. The world building goes beyond just “a world”, it’s a history. In fact I’d argue that Tolkien wasn’t aiming at “world building”, except for the minimal amount … but rather “history”, “culture” and “geography” building, which is why his “world” feels so real. As a young person, you’ll basically become a history nerd without realising it.
- It demonstrates very well some powerful ideas about what heroes actually look like. Neither Gandalf nor Legolas nor Aragorn are the heroes of that story. Not even Frodo, as he fails at the end despite his many virtues within the context of the story. It’s Sam and Hobbits in general … the little people with big selfless hearts who made the difference in the battle between good and evil. Eowyn is obviously a relatively feminist figure against the patriarchal backdrop of the world, but without knowing Tolkein’s intent with that character, it’s a pretty natural character arc when you’re already doing the whole Hobbits thing.
Someone should explain point one to the fake nerds over at WOTC!
The dungeon is an abandoned mine. Fine.
What mineral did they mine here? 🤷♀️
Who mined it? 🤷♀️
What was it used for? 🤷♀️
Where was it smelled and processed? 🤷♀️
How was it transported there? 🤷♀️
The whole economy is just a big fake window dressing prop.
What’s WOTC?
Wizards of the coast, the publisher of D&D.
His Dark Materials. I was already doubting the faith I grew up with and those books helped me finally shedding all that non-sense.
Funny. I was going to say this, but for entirely different reasons (I already didn’t have any faith).
It was one of the first books I read after/during puberty. I’m pretty sure now that it majorly influenced me in the way I thought love should be (not only between Lyra & Will) and what I thought to look for as far as love goes.
But yeah, now I know of course that it’s not at all like that :D
it’s great to see this one here. first thing that popped up on my mind
and not because of faith tbf, but because that world is so damn cool. it’s the only series I had to read more than once (probably 3x) just so I could be immersed there again
I think for me it’s Terry Pratchett’s ‘The Colour of Magic’. Not because of that book in particular, but because of it being a gateway to the Discworld as a whole.
As much as I enjoy those books, and have read almost all of them at this point, it’s more that they taught me how to be a thoughtful, empathetic person when I was a thoughtless, selfish teenager. Almost on the sly, Terry instilled values in me simply by virtue of the heroes of his stories being mostly good people who just want to have a positive impact, even if they’re flawed in different ways.
Like, Sam Vimes is undoubtedly a hero. Night Watch shows us that he strongly believes in the power of good, and that people can - and should - band together to limit the tyranny of power. But he’s also distrusting and curmudgeonly. Nanny Ogg is foul-mouthed bon viveur who places a lot of emphasis on living her best life, but she always puts her family and friends before her if she needs to. Even the Nac Mac Feegle work together for the greater good, even if, in their case, that means being able to get more drunk and fight more violently.
GNU Terry Pratchett
Honestly, Same Vimes is my all time hero. What a character
It was Guards!Guards! for me. GNU
I’ve known I was coming to computer something even from a very young age, and when I read ‘The Soul of a New Machine’ by Tracy Kidder in high school I had even done some consulting.
It was like a window directly on my future professional life. I did EE at school and have been in chip design for over 20 years. This Tracy is not a computer scientist. He is a writer, but his effective reporting of the world is so spot on.
Days of War, Nights of Love, by the Crimethinc Ex-Workers Collective.
I’m not gonna pretend I’m now some completely freegan anarchist living on the fringes of society or anything like that, but this book really opened my eyes up to what it means to live and the weight of making (or not making, more often) choices about how you live your life.
It was also the kick in the teeth I really needed at the time to finally break free from the (imo rather oppressive) religious structure I had grown up in. I think it would have happened eventually anyways, but it really did a great job of making for a good clean break, in a way where I really feel no lingering regret about it whatsoever (again, choosing how to live), other than maybe wishing it had happened sooner.
I just really wish I had kept in touch with the person that gave me the book in the first place.
Just ordered my copy.
Literarily: Ulysses. Such a layered work, poetical and so run through with themes and styles.
Philosophically: the mind’s I by Dennet and Hofstaedter, great selection of articles surrounding consciousness and digital structures.
The Mind’s I lead me to Lem, which lead to Tarkovsky which lead to “serious film” in general…
1984- one hell of a way to start caring about politics
1984- one hell of a way to start caring about politics
1984- one hell of a way to start caring about politics
1984- one hell of a way to start caring about politics
Hyperion, first of all it’s just great and should be right up there with other classics. Second, in this age of AI I keep thinking back to Hyperion.
Momo by Michael Ende.
That time is the most precious gift we have to give and we should choose wisely how to use it.
My Side of the Mountain. Kid gets tired of family problems, runs away to live in the Catskills off the land on an old family farm. Befriends a librarian who lends him books on survival. He makes his own clothes from deer skin, catches his own fish with homemade hooks, lives in a hollowed-out tree, that sort of thing.
I am currently a bushwhacking bookworm. I suspect it was all that book.
Mists of avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Was questioning the faith I’d been raised in, and reading this book, a feminist retelling of Arthurian fantasy, as a teen… it clicked, that religion is subjective
