Bill's Required Reading List: 12-29-2001 (revised 02-06-2004)

Bill’s Required Reading List:  12-29-2001 (revised 02-06-2004)

1) “The Story of Civilization” by Will and Ariel Durant.  Magnificent ten volume set.  Good to just open a volume and start reading.  Well researched, well written, good introduction to history.

2) “Conquest of Mexico” by William Prescott.  Well written, thorough introduction to this great epic story.  Even though it was written circa 1850 it reads very well and is still the best reference today.  Incidentally, Prescott revolutionized history writing with this and his other books.

3) “Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment” by Thaddeus Golas.  Fun little sixties style self help book.  Became popular by word of mouth.  Don't let the casual hippie style fool you -- for me it had some important messages.

4) “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu, translated by Gia Fu Feng and Jane English. This is by far my favorite translation of this classic.  A collection of 81 "poems" that stands up to repeated reading and thought.

5) “I Ching” by King Wen, commentary by Confucius, translated by James Legge.  Classic book of divination.  One of the five books that survived the purges of Emperor Ch'in who unified China and built the Great Wall.

6) “Devil's Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce.  Insightful book of satirical definitions.  Ambrose Bierce was a newspaper columnist in San Francisco and this book is culled from his columns.  A brilliant, bitter intellect and master of the English language.

7) “Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien.  The classic fantasy story. Necessitates several re-readings to fully appreciate.  Tolkien was a linguist who studied Old English.  He invented languages for each of the races of elves, dwarfs, orcs, and hobbits that populate his stories.

8) “Essay on Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  A jewel.  The definitive work on the challenge to be an individual.

9) “The Courage to Create” by Rollo May.  An inspirational book on the moral and spiritual challenge of being an artist.

10) “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl.  The author survived Hitler’s concentration camps and discovered what gives meaning to life.

11) “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” compiled by Paul Reps.  Good introduction to some of the central writings of Zen.

12) “Wisdom of Insecurity” by Alan Watts.  Good explanation of "going with the flow".

13) “The Crack in the Cosmic Egg” by Joseph Chilton Pearce.  Hard to describe book explores miracles and paranormal experience.

14) “The Mountain People” by Colin M. Turnbull.  Chilling account of the Ik tribe and what their culture was reduced to by the "reservation system" in east Africa.  To me -- a warning for the industrial socialist welfare state.

15) “The Forest People” by Colin M. Turnbull.  Touching account of living with the Pygmies in Central Africa.

16) “Watership Down” by Richard Adams.  Moving Fantasy story written for his children.

17) “Dune” by Frank Herbert.  Great Science Fiction.  The best of the series.

18) “Pissing in the Snow and other Ozark Folktales” collected by Vance Randolph.  All the stories this Folklorist couldn't publish during his professional career, because they were too ribald.  Hilarious.

19) “Megatrends” by John Naisbit.  Uses techniques developed by the Allies in WWII to predict future trends in the US.  A little dated, but still quite good.

20) “Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig.  Not much about Zen, but a well crafted adventure into Quality and Life.  Best description of “Quality” ever written.  Classic.

21) “Why Men are the Way They Are” by Warren J. Farrell.  Good social, biological critique that makes a lot of sense.  Not very popular with women.

22) “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” by Balthasar Gracian.  Keen insight into human nature.

23) “The Turning Point” by Fritjoff Capra.  Epic theory of the pivotal point that we are at in history.  After over 2,000 years of reductionistic thinking in science and philosophy, a change to a more holistic world view is necessary to save us and the planet from extinction.  Scholarly.

24) “The Tao of Physics” by Fritjoff Capra.  Explanation of the parallels between traditional Eastern Philosophy and new revelations from research in sub-atomic and quantum physics.  Easy to read and understand explanation of deep truth as told by a research physicist.

25) “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis.  Insightful look into the mind and spirit of evil.

26) “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.  A book predicting the future that is becoming truth faster than he could have imagined.

27) “The Prince” by Machiavelli.  Classic book on gaining and holding power.

28) “The Holy Bible.”  What the Heck -- it is an enduring book.  I like Genesis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Matthew.  Revelations would make a great animated feature.

29) “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg.  Epic poem of the Beat Generation.  Life in America.

30) “Handbook of Epictetus.”  Famous Stoic Philosopher was born a Roman slave.  His sayings were written down by his student Arrian.  Stoicism is an historically influential philosophy.   His teachings are central to a moral and ethical life.

31) “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoi.  Chronicle of a Russian Noble’s slow death and his gradual realization of the meaning of life, the hollowness of his professional life, and his final resolution of this conflict.

32) “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry.  Classic story about the meaning of True Love.

33) “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller.  A personal favorite because it rings so true to the family I grew up in.  I am most like the Biff character

34) Any poem  by Stephen Crane.

35) “The Art of Peace” by Morihei Ueshiba.  Wisdom from the inventor of Akido.  

36) Anything written by Flannery O'Conner.  Gifted author belongs in the ranks of Faulkner, Hemmingway, and Fitzgerald.

37) Anything written by Michel de Montaigne.  He invented the Essay Form.

38) Anything written by Alan Watts.  Brilliant religious philosopher. 

39) Anything written by Aldous Huxley.  Tremendous scholar. 

40) Anything written by Ray Bradbury.  50’s Science Fiction writer that always emphasized the human element.

41) “What Uncle Sam Really Wants” by Noam Chomsky.  Sad account of the moral bankruptcy of the United States foreign policy

42) “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens.  Scrooge learns the true meaning of life.

43) “The Third Wo*rd War” by Ian Lee.  Book of collages and captions that defies description.  An exploration of meaning, perception, and intelligence.

44) “Music, Mind, and Meaning” by Marvin Minsky.  What we learn from music.

45) “Jokes and the Logic of the Cognitive Unconscious” by Marvin Minsky.  Why humor is funny.

46) “Against Empire” by Michael Parenti.  A brilliant expose of the brutal realities of U.S. Global Domination.  Describes the true anti-democratic intent of the U.S. government.

47) “Lies My Teacher Told Me” by James W. Loewen.  Everything your American history textbook got wrong.  How and why history is taught as propaganda in U.S. high schools.

48) “Chicken Soup for the Soul” by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen.  101 stories to open the heart and rekindle the spirit. Warm, humanistic, stories inspire love and the strength to face the challenges we all share.

49) “Chuang Tzu in a Nutshell,” edited by Robert Van de Weyer.  Simple wisdom from the 4th Century B.C. China.  Chuang Tzu was a student of Lao Tzu.

50) “Divine Horsemen - Living Gods of Haiti” by Maya Deren.  Good description of the spirit and culture of voudon.  Begs the question, “Why are African Religions not included in lists of the World’s Great Religions?”

51) “Notes to Myself” by Hugh Prather.  From the author’s diaries comes this collection of self-observations that all can relate to.

52) “Looking out for Number One” by Robert J. Ringer.  How to get what you want in life.

53) “Amazon Beaming” by Petru Popescu.  Describes the psychic adventures of Loren McIntyre with the Mayoruna Indians.  McIntyre later went on to discover the true source of the Amazon River.

54) “In Praise of Idleness” by Bertrand Russell.  Essay examining the “virtues” of work and the sins of the leisure class.

55) “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.  Great book by the man who was the grandfather of the self-help movement.

56)  “A little Compendium on That Which Matters” by Frederick Franck.  Critical examination of life and morality by a great artist and humanitarian.

57) “Webster’s New World Dictionary“, Second College Edition.  This is my favorite dictionary.  A purely subjective assessment.

58) “The Brown Wasps” by Loren Eiseley.  Touching essay on the ephemeral nature of life and living.

59) “Welcome to the Monkey House” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.  Good collection of some of his best short stories.  My favorites are Harrison Bergson and The Euphio Question.

60) “Be Here Now” by Baba Ram Dass.  Ram Dass was born Richard Alpert. 

In the early 1960’s he got his PhD and was one of Timothy Leary’s cohorts at Harvard.  Later he went to India and studied with the Guru Bhagwan Dass. 

He became a Guru himself and wrote this marvelously illuminating book. 

It is unlike any other book.

61) “Zen in the Art of Archery” by Eugen Herrigel.  The story of a German philosopher trying to learn the nature of Zen by studying archery with a Japanese Master.

62) “Sidhartha” by Herman Hesse.  A head strong youth seeks truth and finally finds it many years later as an old ferry pilot, watching the river flow by.

63) “Kama Sutra of Vatsayana,” Translated by Sir Richard Burton.  Classic Indian book on physical love.

64) “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth” by Buckminster Fuller.  A most optimistic view of man and the future of the Earth.

65) “Sex and the Brain” by Jo Durden-Smith and Diane deSimone.  Interesting book on the biological basis for human behavior and the difference between the sexes.

66) “The Dragons of Eden” by Carl Sagan.  Very readable, very deep discussion on the biological basis of human behavior and our evolutionary heritage.  Fascinating.

67) “Lust for Life” by Irving Stone.  The life of Vincent Van Gough.

68) “The Gospel of Thomas” by Didymous Thomas.  Very early Gnostic Text of sayings attributed to Jesus.  Quite possibly the famous “Q” source that the other Gospel writers referenced.  One of the Nag Hammadi Texts.

69) “Plunkitt of Tammany Hall” by William L Riordon.  Published in 1905 as Very Plain talks on Very Practical Politics by George Washington Plunkitt, a member of the Tammany Hall Machine.  This is how “democracy” really works.

70) “The Mysterious Stranger” by Mark Twain.  His last novel, published posthumously, and quite unlike any of his other writings.  Lucifer comes to earth in the form of a beguiling adolescent.  Get the original published version that was edited by his editor.

71) “The Songlines” by Bruce Chatwin.  Amazing book that starts out being a travelogue about the author’s visit to his teacher friend in the Australia Outback, and ends up being a poetic treatise on Humanity’s nomadic heritage.

72) “Selected Lives and Essays” by Plutarch.  Plutarch was a Greek Author and Historian from the second century AD.  He was a Priest at Delphi and wrote about the lives of famous Greek and Roman Statesmen.  His writings were popular with the Emperors and when rediscovered were instrumental in reshaping the intellect of the Renaissance.

73) “Murders in Eden” by Marvin Harris.  Excerpt from Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures by Marvin Harris.  Essay examines quality of life and the transition to civilized life in the past 20,000 years. 

74) “The Soul of an Indian” by Ohiyesa (Charles Alexander Eastman).  The account of the author’s boyhood among the Dakota people and his explanation of the way and life of the American Indian Culture.

75)  “Play the Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin To Bleed A Bit” by Charles Bukowski.  This book was given to me at Burning Man 1998.

76) “Last Night of the Earth Poems” by Charles Bukowski.  Meditations on life from a gritty, but honest, old man at the end of his life.

77)  “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written by Himself.”  A record of cruelty, ignorance, and inhumanity in america and one mans indomitable spirit.

78) “Civilization and its Discontents” by Sigmund Freud.  This paper examines the compromises we all are forced to make to live in a society.

79) “A People’s History of the United States, 1492 to the Present” by Howard Zinn.  Scholarly and compelling story of wealth and power and the horribly difficult life of the slave, the indian, and the immigrant.

80) “A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century” by Barbara W. Tuchman.  Amazing story of life in the 1300’s.  The Hundred Years War, The Black Death, The Anti-Pope, The Crusades, The Mad King, and The Peasants Revolt all make you glad you live in the 21st Century.

81) Anything by Dr. Seuss.  After all it has been said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  It has also been said, “I will not eat green eggs and ham.  I will not eat them, Sam I am ...”