Books that “bite and sting”. That “wake us up with a blow to the head”. And which “affect us like a disaster, that hurts us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves”.
Ever read a book like that? Which was it? How did it affect you? What did reading it do to you?
[1] Brief an Oskar Pollak, 27. Januar 1904. , https://homepage.univie.ac.at/werner.haas/1904/br04-003.htm.
English (ChatGPT): "I believe one should only read those books which bite and sting. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, then why read the book? To make us happy, as you write? My God, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and those books that make us happy, we could write ourselves if necessary. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that hurts us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like if we were being driven into forests, away from all people, like a suicide, a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
Original: "Ich glaube, man sollte überhaupt nur solche Bücher lesen, die einen beißen und stechen. Wenn das Buch, das wir lesen, uns nicht mit einem Faustschlag auf den Schädel weckt, wozu lesen wir dann das Buch? Damit es uns glücklich macht, wie Du schreibst? Mein Gott, glücklich wären wir eben auch, wenn wir keine Bücher hätten, und solche Bücher, die uns glücklich machen, könnten wir zur Not selber schreiben. Wir brauchen aber die Bücher, die auf uns wirken wie ein Unglück, das uns sehr schmerzt, wie der Tod eines, den wir lieber hatten als uns, wie wenn wir in Wälder vorstoßen würden, von allen Menschen weg, wie ein Selbstmord, ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns."
1. How small ideas can have big consequences - each section is a logical consequence of the former, and
2. How multidisciplinarism is greater than the sum of its parts. One can be an ok historian, sociologist, or political theorist, but combined can find connections outside of the narrow scope of any single domain.
The accounts of working conditions, especially of children, will never leave me.
A fascinating memoir by a philosopher turned brain surgeon, facing a terminal cancer diagnosis. A person who spent their entire life pondering the morality of life being faced with their own ultimatum.
I reread it once a year, at minimum. A deeply moving book.
If you've never seen it, I highly recommend to watch it.
Not giving any spoilers, but as a father, the ending of the talk made me shed a tear.
https://marydoriarussell.net/novels/the-sparrow/
Almost didn't finish it. Whatever your feelings on religion are, it's a fascinating and heartbreaking exploration of how far a man can be pushed before he loses faith in his god.
I often read fantasy fiction and someone recommended Hobb for having a joker/fool character along the lines of Wit in Sanderson's Cosmere universe.
Well, it turns out Hobb is brutal when it comes to writing stories that destroy people. I finished the trilogy, but I was more impacted by it than any other work of fiction I've read in years.
I was 13 at the time, and I was lucky enough to have a passionate English teacher that gave us challenging books to review. I chose "1984". It was the first book I'd read, up to that point, that didn't have a "Hollywood ending". The hero didn't save the day and get the girl… just the victory of tyranny over individualism. Admittedly, I had read a lot of crap, up till then.
As the leader directly tells Winston (i.e. you, the reader): "If you want a picture of the future, think of a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
I was gripped by the writing up till the very last words, then a panic set in… I thought that there were pages missing… I literally checked that someone hadn't torn out the last chapter where everything is made right again. No. There was no liberation. I sat stunned for the better part of an hour.
"The Dispossessed" by Ursula le Guin: never have I experienced the idea of a working anarchism described in such a genuinely coherent form.
For me, Borges answers both. It would've changed things.
Off the top of my head, the most moving books I've read are The First Circle, any long Dostoevsky novel, The Master and Margarita, The Tartar Steppe, any Elena Ferrante, any Cormac McCarthy, some Murakami (Ryu and Haruki), Gene Wolf (The Book of the New Sun), 2666, parts of Moby Dick, any Alice Munro. All well known "good books".
I can't even ...
Parts of it also feel like it was written specifically for me. So that doesn't help.
A biography of Dr Paul Farmer and how he dedicated his life and sacrificed everything to solve (in his words) “easily preventable” health problems in Haiti.
It hits on many levels: his unapologetic empathy for ordinary people, the global abuse and abandonment of Haiti by western powers, the flaws of thinking about global health through a lens of utilitarianism, the real change that just one person can initiate, etc
Highly highly recommended!
Going in, you know things are going to end badly. The foreshadowing is so deep that it gets painful to turn pages as you watch everyone make mistakes that would condemn all those men to death. But the two days on the ice?? I read a lot and have read some truly painful books, but some of those stories still haunt me.
Among other things, it discusses the famine in China under Mao in the late 1950's and early 1960's.
Some families traded children with each other. That way, they could kill and eat someone else's children instead of killing and eating their own.
I'm not sure what it is about it. On the surface it's a fairly straightforward story but the way the everyday struggles of the times, strong friendship and love are interwoven, is perfect.
Both offer a look at how humanity holds up under difficult circumstances. Do not watch the movies, read the books.
Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States
Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel
Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma
Ayn Rand's the Fountainhead
Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics
Julian Jaynes's the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Iain McGilchrist's the Master and his Emmisary
Varlam Sharlamov's the Kolyma Tales
Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: the Formation of Men's Attitudes (or alternatively Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death)
impossible to communicate the experience. run, don’t walk.
prefer the audiobook.
The genocide by the Spanish of directly and indirectly ~110M indigenous peoples and African slaves in the Americas needs a "Holocaust"-type unique name.
It is revolting, offensive, sepulchral, demoralizing, profoundly human, and a cascade of other powerful emotions I couldn’t even name, all at the same time. During my first read through, I recall being angry and disgusted by it at several points. It would weigh heavy on my mind even days after I had set it down, and a few times I would be unable to help but sob uncontrollably at work, the gym, supermarket, etc. I went through a long stretch of deep depression after reading it. Ultimately, it triggered a long examination of some of my values, how I perceived and treated others, and some of the negative influences in my life, and lead to a lot of positive changes. Later read throughs felt much more profound and even beautiful.