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Wow - big subject
Daniel Boorstin is number one ~ probably one of the smartest people who ever lived. All non-fiction, this Chief Librarian of the Library of Congress wrote one of my favorite books, The Discovers. Stronly recommended tome on the major voyages of discovery, from the technology to the politics to the human triumph that went into them...interwoven precedents over hundreds or thousands of years leading to four major human achievements.
Hesse - German philosopher/writer does great stuff. Loved a book of poetry with English/German versions on facing pages. Uber die feldern wandert meine Mutters verlorenes kind. Over the fields wanders my mother's lost child. Also wrote Siddhartha, arguably the best treatment of the life of the prophet and sage.
Kurt Vonnegut - Kept me going while doing 'tower rat' duty at a nuclear missile site in Germany thirty years ago. I've read everything he'd done to about 20 years ago, at least a couple / few dozen books.
Alvin Toffler - the most prescient futurist of the last century IMHO (in my humble opinion). Anyone interested in futurism today should read Future Shock and The Third Wave. Business people today should follow that with Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte - the number one primer on the fundamental differences between brick and mortar and digital business. Ray Kurzweil and Lawrence Lessig are also important for business owners and anyone else interested in the future.
Isaac Asimov and others not only write the genre well. They just plain write well. Been over 30 years since I got into science fiction. It is important for people to read at some point, preferably while young, IMHO.
For youngsters, Shel Silverstein - The Giving Tree. Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time and the rest of hers...you can't go wrong turning kids onto Newberry Medal winners like hers. My absolute favorite as a kid, The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree by Louis Slobodkin. The rest of his books are excellent, too. Real young boy drama and adventure, friendship, ethics... All of these are the kinds of books one can read, enjoy, learn from and use to form strong convictions to serve them well in life. To these I would add the Boy Scout Handbook ~ (sooner or later I'm hoping they'll pull their head out of the sand regarding gay leaders and take a lead in confronting the world the way they did long ago with youth protection).
Also believe Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People should be on every youth and adult reading list. I've read it three times, early teens, early twenties, mid-thirties.
JRR Tolkein, of course.
Douglas Adams was absolutely brilliant and hysterically funny!
I read a ton of self-help, marketing and sales books and the like. And I've listened to many on tape dozens of times each. I like Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar a lot. Tony Robbins kind of grew on me. Wayne Dyer and others are good. Phone Power and Power Talking are excellent. I've taught courses based on those until I actually spoke with the author, George Walther, who I found to be a jerk. Nevertheless, the books are still good.
Hoping to have my own book on the streets soon, WebForging, A Practical Guide to the Art of Forging Your Web Presence.
Many other great books out there. For fun I mostly read presidential biographies. The best so far, 'Plain Speaking' by Merle Miller, about Harry Truman.
I'm looking forward to retirement started by a speed-reading course.
Cheers!
Regards,
Keith
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