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5 Mind Blowing Books!
I am going to list here my pick for the 5 mind blowing books I have read, but before I start I have to say this: I do agree it is both necessary and useful to read, yet I do think that the mainstream media made reading books into something way bigger than it is and that kind of hit on my nerve.
I do read a lot.
But that doesn’t make me more sophisticated – or whatever fancy word you might think of that is usually associated with reading – than anyone else.
And no, a good book is not better than a good movie.
A good movie is a good movie, and a good book is a good book.
You can be a respectable, productive and creative human being without reading a single book. Ironically, too much reading might fuck with your creativity – more on that in a later article.
People who make reading books into that huge deal are people who sell books, and they do it to sell more books.
So it is a terrible way to start an article about books with this kind of introduction, especially when you are somehow selling books in it 🙂
I had to get that out of the way before starting this article for some reason.
Anyway,
Here are the 5 books that blew my mind when I read them.
5 Mind Blowing Books!
None - almost none - of these books are fiction books, these mind blowing books are talking about fantastic observations and findings made by awesome people about the weird world we live in.
These five books challenge most of what you, and I, took for granted about our world.
So the "mind-blowing" part of them aren't because of some unusual twist at the ending, but rather these 5 books are mind blowing because of all the epiphanies and the maybes you will get from reading them.
I do read fiction books from time to time, they are very entertaining and sometimes they have some mind blowing twists to them, but I do not read them that often because I feel like they cause some distracting noise in my pursuit to better understanding the world around me.
Maybe I will write a list of 5 mind blowing books from the fiction categories, but in today's article, we are focusing more on the 5 mind blowing books that are closer to reality.
Anyway, back to the 5 mind-blowing books.
In no particular order, here are the 5 mind blowing books - in my opinion.
1- The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.
This book is regarded by many as a horrible book because of what it preaches, people see the prince as the book of deception and bad morality, and it is understandable why they think that.
The prince made so much impact that people came up with a word to describe the behaviors illustrated in this book.
That word is Machiavellianism "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or general conduct."
I do see the immorality in what Machiavelli talks about in his book The Prince, yet sadly that is how reality is when it comes to rulings.
In short, the Prince is the book about the rules of rulers.
A few things to know before reading this book:
Before Machiavelli wrote The Prince, he was accused of treason and brutally tortured by the very family that he addressed the book to - the Medici.
While The Prince is supposed to be directed to a nobleman (Lorenzo de Medici), it was originally written in Italian, which was spoken by the common people, not Latin which was spoken by the nobility, and also Machiavelli himself. Machiavelli could have written the Prince for the people, to satirize or shame the Medici by showing the common people the cunning and brutality of how the Medici ruled. This would make some sense given that the Medici had tortured him.
In The Discourses, Machiavelli states that history is cyclical and that every good government eventually becomes corrupt. In times of anarchy, he believed that a strong Prince was needed to restore order through sometimes seemingly oppressive means, and then return the government to the form of a mixed republic, which is the strongest and most resistant to corruption.
If you can remove your moral convictions entirely from the picture, and thus read the book as it's meant to be read, it becomes a unique collection of insights into the implications of human nature within the political realm.
Your options for getting this book are:
A- Get your ass to the local library and read it over there.
D- Buy the hardcover book and add it to your impressive library Click Here to get The Prince From Amazon.
5 Mind Blowing Books!
2-Genealogy Of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche
“To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty,
human, all-too-human principle [....] Without cruelty there is no festival.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo
In this book, Nietzsche question if it is self-evident that the best moral system is one that emphasizes compassion and virtue?
Regardless of how bad this statement may seem, I do see the possibility of error in trusting such system, I do believe that our salvation will be in a selfish system, I will write about that later.
Friedrich Nietzsche – a radical philosopher, born in the mid-19th century – examined moral judgment in his three-essay work, On the Genealogy of Morality. He believed that feelings typically considered as ‘moral’ – such as compassion, selflessness, and piety – were based on the Judeo-Christian religion – and he saw alternatives to this point of view.
In his essays, Nietzsche identified two competing moral frameworks – the ‘noble’ framework and the ‘slave’ framework.
Each had its definitions of good and bad.
In the ‘noble’ framework, ‘good’ is defined as meaning strong, powerful, brave.
But in the ‘slave’ framework, to be ‘good’ is to be pious, compassionate and virtuous. Masters brought up to think in term of the ‘noble’ framework defined ‘bad’ as weakness, impotence – something that was beneath the consideration of better men. But priests and slaves using the ‘slave’ framework believed that ‘bad’ encompassed power, strength, and haughty honor.
Nietzsche states that the ‘slave’ framework was created as a result of slaves and priests turning the ‘noble’ framework on its head, because of their repressed anger at their situation.
He, therefore, argued that the ‘slave’ framework enshrined in Judeo-Christian ethics was a perversion of a pre-existing – and superior - moral framework. A reversal of moral standpoints – a transformation
A reversal of moral standpoints – a transformation of moral sentiment. How does it happen?
This book is mind blowing in a way that you will have to put it down now and then just to cope with all the epiphanies you are having, all these concepts you took for granted since your day one are being challenged one by one.
Crazy stuff.
Plus, this is the only book in my life that directly got me laid. I once met a Professor that teaches in a university in Frankfurt -That I did not attend-. I slept with her - she is mid 30's, super smart, knocking hot, don't judge - and that day in the morning she told me the reason she decided to sleep with me was that I had this book and L’Être et le néant by Jean-Paul Sartre right next to my bed. - True Story.
So, it has its magic 😉
Your options for getting this book are:
A- Walk to your local library and read it.
D- Buy the hardcover book and add it to your awesome library The Genealogy of Morals on Amazon, Buy it now, CLICK HERE
5 Mind Blowing Books!
3-Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.
Personally, I view Malcolm Gladwell like an excellent car salesman. He can convince you that a certain idea is quite impressive, even if it is a bit shoddy and second-hand.
I quite enjoyed the book. Gladwell asks the question, "How do people become extremely successful at what they do?" His answer is that it is more nurture than nature. He writes that
“The successful are those who have been given opportunities and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”
The book is a series of narrative examples to buttress this idea.
Some work. Some are questionable. Most will make the reader think.
Gladwell examines why outliers exist; why do some people succeed and others don't? He starts out by arguing that child prodigies exist because of the number of hours of practice they put into their skill (Gladwell argues you have to practice for 10,000 hours) e.g. Mozart didn't hit his stride until he had his 10,000 hours of practice. 'Practice isn’t the thing you do once you're good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.'
Another good section is when Gladwell looks into why Asian children seem to understand Mathematics more than western children. His arguments make sense.
Success has nothing to do with being bright. It's about seizing the opportunities that come your way.
I think that this book isn't based on a strong scientific background, the arguments sound convincing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are true.
It is an excellent read, give it a shot.
A- Walk to your local library and read it.
D- Buy the hardcover book and add it to your awesome library Outliers: The Story of Success, get it now from Amazon, CLICK HERE
5 Mind Blowing Books!
4-Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá
If you believe in love and your other half, the soul mate, then do not read this book.
This book well not just destroy the lovey-dovey dream of monogamy, it will shit all over it too.
Sex at Dawn, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, is a bestselling science book that sets out to present a radically new model of human prehistory. The authors’ thesis is that, before the invention of agriculture, the human species lived in small, roaming hunter-gatherer bands that had no notion of personal property or privacy. In these tribal societies, they say, promiscuous sex was the norm, and this acted as a social glue: since no man knew which children were his, every man cooperated in raising all the tribe’s children, to the benefit of all, and there was virtually no warfare or violence. The book’s strongly-implied conclusion is that monogamy is unnatural and harmful to human beings and that we’d all be happier if we recognized this.
Ryan and Jetha’s argument is based in part on anthropological evidence, drawn from observations of present-day hunter-gatherer and pastoralist societies.
I might make a list of the books you shouldn't read, if I ever did, this book might be over there as well.
This book gives dark and painful realizations, read at your risk.
A- Walk to your local library and read it.
D- Buy the hardcover book and add it to your awesome library Sex at Dawn, get it now from Amazon, CLICK HERE.
5 Mind Blowing Books!
5-The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
This book belongs to the fiction category, and I wanted this list to be devoted to nonfiction works, so I originally intended to list The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
BUT
This book is awesome; it is too awesome to ignore.
I am planning to re-read it soon; that is why I included it in this list.
A word of warning, this book is one of the hardest and most challenging books to read EVER!
I think I have only read two books that surpassed this one in difficulty, the Holy Quran and The Phenomenology of the Spirit by G.F. Hegel.
You will be tempted to put down this book multiple times throughout the way, the start of the story is a bit slowish, and the names in the story are godawful hard to pronounce or remember - at least for me.
This book is favored by lots of great people.
Sigmund Freud called it "The most magnificent book ever written."
Vonnegut said about this book “There is one other book, which can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.”
In his youth, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is a coarse, vulgar man whose main concerns are making money and seducing young women. He marries twice and has three sons: Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha. Fyodor Pavlovich never has any interest in his sons, and when their mothers die, he sends them away to be brought up by relatives and friends.
This novel is built around the emotional and intellectual rivalries of the three Karamazov brothers – Dimitri, Ivan, and Alyosha. Out of these rivalries, Dostoevsky creates a passionately spiritual drama about God, faith, doubt and reason, set against the background of the social fragmentation of a Russia attempting to move from a feudal to a modern world. The key debate takes place between Ivan, a fervent rationalist and would-be philosopher, and Alyosha, a gentle, generous, almost Christ-like figure, who is a novice in a monastery. Ivan refuses to accept God’s authority because God has created this world full of undeserved suffering. ‘It is quite impossible to understand,' he observes, why the innocent, especially children, ‘should have to suffer and why they should have to purchase harmony with their sufferings.' He adds that ‘if all the sufferings of children have gone to replenish the sum of suffering that was needed in order to purchase the truth, then I declare in advance that no truth, not even the whole truth, is worth such a price.'
I love this book so much because I find it's emotional rawness and its philosophical depth to be unparalleled.
I think a good way to get into the book is to start by reading it carefully during meals or at times when you have nothing else to do. Then as the story builds, you will probably find yourself wanting to read it more and more.
Also, it's key to try and identify emotionally with the characters.
A- Walk to your local library and read it.
D- Buy the hardcover book and add it to your awesome library The Brothers Karamazov, But it now from Amazon, CLICK HERE
These were the 5 mind blowing books in my opinion, I have never read a book the blew my mind more than these 5.
If you have more mind blowing books, suggest them in the comment below!
Try to read at least one of these, damn, read just the summary to one of these.
As I said, reading books can be considered cool, and very useful, just not as necessary as they made you believe.
Do not do shit out of societies pressure, do thigs because you want to do them.
Read books, because you want to read books, not because it is the cool thing to do.
2017 is just behind the corner, start this year with a new and exciting book, a book that will blow your mind.
To recap!
Here are the 5 most mind blowing books!
1- The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.
2-Genealogy Of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche.
3-Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.
4-Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá.
5-The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Regards,
5 mind blowing books
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