ENJOYABLE BOOKS THAT MADE ME QUESTION THE WORLD AROUND ME.
Discover thought-provoking books that entertain and challenge your perspective. Explore this curated list of enjoyable reads that make you question the world around you.
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Ishmael
by Daniel Quinn
One of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published, Ishmael has earned a passionate following. This special twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a new foreword and afterword by the author. âA thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet . . . laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny.ââThe New York Times Book Review Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person. It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime. So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. It is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorillaâa journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankindâs place in it. In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanityâs origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves? Explore Daniel Quinnâs spiritual Ishmael trilogy: ISHMAEL ⢠MY ISHMAEL ⢠THE STORY OF B Praise for Ishmael âAs suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year.ââThe Austin Chronicle âBefore weâre halfway through this slim book . . . weâre in [Daniel Quinnâs] grip, we want Ishmael to teach us how to save the planet from ourselves. We want to change our lives.ââThe Washington Post âArthur Koestler, in an essay in which he wondered whether mankind would go the way of the dinosaur, formulated what he called the Dinosaurâs Prayer: âLord, a little more time!â Ishmael does its bit to answer that prayer and may just possibly have bought us all a little more time.ââLos Angeles Times
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The Losers' Club
by Richard Perez
WHAT IS LOVE? In the game of love, there are winners and losers. In THE LOSERS' CLUB, Richard Perez tries to answer the eternal question. Set in downtown New York City, THE LOSERS' CLUB tells the story of Martin Sierra, an unlucky writer addicted to the personals. His journey brings us into the East Village, pre-9/11-and in contact with Nikki, his dream woman, who remains unattainable romantically yet becomes his friend and confidant during his illuminating misadventures. Populated with characters and surprises few will ever forget, this energetic, comic novel is as much about a generation (we won't say "X") as it is about a specific time and place.
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The Razor's Edge
by W. Somerset Maugham
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brillant characters - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.
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Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse
The classic novel of a quest for knowledge that has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of readers, writers, and thinkersâa perennial favorite for graduation gifts. Nominated as one of Americaâs best-loved novels by PBSâs The Great American Read Though set in a place and time far removed from the Germany of 1922, the year of the bookâs debut, the novel is infused with the sensibilities of Hermann Hesseâs time, synthesizing disparate philosophiesâEastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualismâinto a unique vision of life as expressed through one manâs search for meaning. It is the story of the quest of Siddhartha, a wealthy Indian Brahmin who casts off a life of privilege and comfort to seek spiritual fulfillment and wisdom. On his journey, Siddhartha encounters wandering ascetics, Buddhist monks, and successful merchants, as well as a courtesan named Kamala and a simple ferryman who has attained enlightenment. Traveling among these people and experiencing lifeâs vital passagesâlove, work, friendship, and fatherhoodâSiddhartha discovers that true knowledge is guided from within.
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Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
An autobiographical novel featuring Harry Haller in "an experimental mix of symbolism, realism, and fantasy."--Cover.
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The Teachings of Don Juan
by Carlos Castaneda
"Published by arrangement with the University of California Press."--T.p. verso.
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Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
Huxley's story shows a futuristic World State where all emotion, love, art, and human individuality have been replaced by social stability. An ominous warning to the world's population, this literary classic is a must-read.
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The Man who Grew Young
by Daniel Quinn
A masterful tale of a future world where life runs backward, and the trials of one man who cannot find a mother to return to.
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Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham
A masterpiece of modern literature that mirrors Maughamâs own career. Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham's novels. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, Philip settles in London to train as a doctor. And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.
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é垡çť
by Lao Tsu
For nearly two generations, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English's translation of theTao Te Chinghas been the standard for those seeking access to the wisdom of Taoist thought. Now Jane English and her long-time editor, Toinette Lippe, have revised and refreshed the translation so that it more faithfully reflects the Classical Chinese in which it was first written, taking into account changes in our own language and eliminating any lingering infelicities. They have retained the simple clarity of the original rendering of a sometimes seemingly obtuse spiritual text, a clarity that has made this version a classic in itself, selling over a million copies. Written most probably in the sixth century B.C. by Lao Tsu, this esoteric but infintely practical book has been translated into English more frequently than any other work except the Bible. Gia-fu Feng and Jane English's superb translationâthe most accessible and authoritative modern English translationâoffers the essence of each word and makes Lao Tsu's teaching immediate and alive. This edition includes an introduction and notes by the well-known writer and scholar of philosophy and comparative religion, Jacob Needleman.
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The Glass Bead Game
by Hermann Hesse
Setting his story in the distant, post-Holocaust future, Hesse tells of an elite cult of intellectuals occupying themselves with an elaborate game that employs all the cultural and scientific knowledge of the ages. The most imaginative and prophetic of Hesse's works.
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Beneath the Wheel
by Hermann Hesse
Constitutes an attack on educational systems that foster intellect, purposefulness, and ambition to the detriment of emotion, instinct, and soul.
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The Dancing Wu Li Masters
by Gary Zukav
Gary Zukav has written "the Bible" for those who are curious about the mind-expanding discoveries of advanced physics, but who have no scientific background. Like a Wu Li Master who would teach us wonder for the falling petal before speaking of gravity, Zukav writes in beautifully clear language--with no mathematical equations--opening our minds to the exciting new theories that are beginning to embrace the ultimate nature of our universe...Quantum mechanics, relativity, and beyond to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect and Bell's theorem.
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The Tao of Physics
by Fritjof Capra
The book that started the dialogue between science and Eastern religion--with a new Foreword by the author. Line drawings & halftones.
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robert M. Pirsig
While cycling through the western states, a disillusioned American questions the meaning of existence after confronting the ghost of his former, uninstitutionalized self.