the most profound book you ever read

[Var]

I'd have to go with, "The Path To Enlightenment". -14th Dalai Lama

or

"The Mastery Of Love". -Miguel Ruiz

 

[Little Wing]

Gulag Archipelago

 

[Shae]

I just picked up Sex by Madonna at a local record and book store. DAYUM, there is some raunchy shit in there!

 

[kvyd]

As DR chiro said. Ishmael by daniel quinn. Read it. Then read My ishmael. Easily the most eye opening book ever written.

 

[Big Smoothy]

There are a few:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Die Broke by Steven Pollan

Some others I've forgotten.

 

[drew_c]

Psycho Cybernetics was pretty interesting

I'm going to have to grab a copy of 48 laws from amazon.. Peaked my interest

Anyone have more suggestions?

 

[Little Wing]

Dr. Seuss "The Lorax". I did a book report on it mirroring it to today's issues and it really stuck with me in 7th grade. I wonder if that's what led me to work in photovoltaics?

Ty just signed The Lorax out of the library minutes ago.

 

[vader]

Atlas Shrugged

 

[KelJu]

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

 

[lnvanry]

Finger Prints of the Gods by G.Hancock

 

[flashinglights]

Culture of Narcissism
Who Moved My Cheese
The Conscience of the Eye
The Fall of Public Man
The Geography of Nowhere
Suburban Nation
Respect In an Age of Inequality


I like reading intellectual books but some of them take too long to ponder and decypher. I read The Law of Peoples by a famous philosopher by the name of John Rawls. It was the most boring thing I've ever read. Reminds me of the phrase "If this young man speaks in terms too deep for me, then what a singularly deep young man this deep young man must be". ZzzZzzZz

My friend read a book called Deerhunting with Jesus. He said it was really good. It's about small town conservatives not voting in their best interest because the church is more closely alligned with the Republican party.

 

[flashinglights]

Are you there God? It's me, Margaret
It taught me (at a young age) to be grateful that I was born a guy.

I'd rather read Chelsea Handler's book "Are you there, Vodka? It's me, Chelsea".

 

[vader]

also 1984 affected me in a strange way too

 

[maniclion]

Encyclopedia Britannica 1987 Edition: A-Z, read all of them as a kid when I was grounded sometimes up to a month. It was either stare at the walls, go outside and mow the yard or read the Encyclopedias or an approved book from the School library, most days I didn't want to go to the library so it was read the E.B's.......

 

[min0 lee]

mein kampf.

 

[IronAddict]

"Symbols of the Gods in Mesopotamian Art" E. D. Van Buren.

That's just the latest.

 

[flashinglights]

This is one of my favorite poems. I don't usually read poems but this one is kinda famous. Not just profound but inspirational.

Arthur O'Shaughnessy. 1844–1881

6. Ode

WE are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

 

[maniclion]

YouTube Video

 

[tallcall]

I like almost anything by Noam Chomsky - Especially "Manufacturing Consent." "Failed States" is also good.

"Groping for Ethics in Journalism" by Ron F. Smith.

"The Problem of the Media" by Robert W. McChesney.

"What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News" by Eric Alterman - I'm sure people will point this one out as a very biased selection, but that is the point - to get people to take their own biases into consideration when making judgements - everyone sees things through their own personal bias (think of it as seeing the world through a type of rose-colored glasses).

"A Lateral View: Essays on Culture and Style in Contemporary Japan" by Donald Richie

"Ganguro Girls" by Kate Kilppensteen and Everett Kennedy Brown. I used it in one of my international and intercultural communication projects back in my Masters program. It was, and still is, a very interesting topic because my teacher for that class was Japanese and always brought pieces of her culture to class for us to study. I expressed my interest in her culture and she helped me with this bit of research. These last two books basically go into Japan's ever changing style and culture and I tried to draw relatonships to growing western influences and the Ganguro and J-pop trends among young people - showing that in some cultures the media literally has a direct impact on it's audience and that it is important to take that into consideration when we make something for consumption elsewhere in the world.

These are all interesting to me and tend to inspire me to look deeper into the business I'm in and see just exactly how it effects people. I've done a lot of studies regarding Mass Media effect theories. I remember studying the Elaboration Likelihood Model, Cognitive Dissonance Theory, Cultivation Theory (one of my absolute favorites), Spiral of Silence (I love this too), Social Cognitive Theory, and the Uses and Gratifications Theory (I love it as well, it's a basic approach but a good one).

 

[tallcall]

Some of my favorite Poems -

John Donne - Death Be Not Proud

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and souls delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppie, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better then thy stroak; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Dante Alighieri - Inferno Canto III:

Inscription on the Gates of Hell:
"Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.

Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"


La Vita Nuova:

Introduction:

In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be read,
there is a heading, which says:
???Incipit vita nova: Here begins the new life???.
Under that heading I find written the words that it is my intention to copy into this little book: and if not all, at least their essence.

--This is my favorite version of his introduction:

"In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, ???Here begins a new life???."

 

[flashinglights]

YouTube Video

lol I love that part of the movie.

 

[maniclion]

lol I love that part of the movie.

When I was 15-16 my garage band was going to focus on making songs about or parodying all of our favorite childhood fantasy movie's like Willy Wonka, Neverending Story, Princess Bride, The Hobbit, TRON, etc. etc.... We called ourselves The Luck Dragon's, we were going to be The Rock Biter's but a friend told us it sounded like we were going to be "biting(stealing)" other peoples music so we dropped it against my protesting..... One of our songs was "The DingleBerries taste like DingleBerries" and we sampled the musicmakers part and would loop it during my solo.....I think if Billy our drummer hadn't gotten hooked on coke( all he wanted to do was get high and watch The Doors movie over and over) and then I hadn't moved away we would have gone somewhere.....we even had this electronics guy who worked at Texas Instruments who invented a few effects pedals for guitar and bass that sounded fantasy-like, another he put a memory chip so you could loop a 10 second riff and then bring it in or out by rocking the wah-wah pedal, plus he made wireless transmitters for all of us before they were even popular I could walk across the street while playing and not need a 100' cord. There were three bands on our block and one guy even had a full studio in his garage... I learned so much back then and then gave up when I moved away. It was one of those rare opportunities you hear about how other bands came together yet it never came to fruition for us.....