Books that are at the core of your identity - We already know you're a faggot just prove it

[Creep3r]

Brave New World I guess.

 

[KateHikes14]

Catch-22. The horrors of war, young men dying futile deaths thousands of miles from home, and rapes, all written in a manner that refuses to dwell on them for a second longer than necessary and contrasted by autistic detailing of ledgers. It's an odd book, but I love it.

 

[draggs]

Relic

Pendergast stan for life. I won't go into a museum I don't want my guts ripped out and my brains eaten

Really tho probably the USA trilogy by Dos Passos

 

[Swiss46]

Stinky Steve

 

[Gilgamesh]

im lil sci fi bitch
basically anything by asimov, but the foundation trilogy just did it for me man. Specifically Foundation and Empire, just wow
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card was a favorite back in 5th grade
Snow Crash is sick
All Quiet on the Western Front made me cry
Also The Epic of Gilgamesh gives a good moral foundation for a 5000 year old book

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

The Hobbit. It was the first novel I ever read, and it was the thing that made me love reading because unlike a lot of other books for kids my 8 year old self had encountered The Hobbit doesn't talk down to or underestimate it's audience. It's so well written most adults can enjoy reading it, and in face it's one of 3 books I make a point of rereading every few years, the others being Starship Troopers and Jurassic Park.

 

[Pomniman]

Justine, The Cannibal, and of course, My Twisted World.

 

[Syaoran Li]

The Stand made me realize how fragile civilization is and how the slightest slip up can have cascading effects that lead to barbarism, cruelty, and collapse. Without modern society in place, we'll either perish or be trapped in a miserable tribalistic Hell on Earth.

Candide and Gulliver's Travels made me realize how much I hate intellectuals and the academic classes with their pretentious squabbling and ridiculously unrealistic views of the world. The pretentiousness and smug cynicism and moral grandstanding of Current Year only reinforces my decision to be a Philistine.

The 120 Days of Sodom proved to me that vulgar and obscene shitposting existed centuries before the invention of the internet.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

The Bell Jar, The Joy Luck Club, and Cyndi Lauper's memoir.

But to be honest i would say White Teeth.

 

[Dumpsterfire Enthusiast]

already been said a few times but 1984

Kinda wish it were written later though because it would have been more interesting if it included the sort of technology that realistically could be used that way. Would be neat to see the same thing but instead of a book hes trying to get a VPN to get onto the free part of the internet that supposedly exists but gets honey potted the same way

 

[Calandrino]

Industrial Society and It's Future

Michel Houellbecq's 'The Possibility of an Island'
Thomas Ligotti's 'The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror

These posts in particular make me wonder why I exist... we're all more or less the same person, and I'm sure a lot of you are even doing a better job of it.

I'll throw in Genealogy of Morals. I'd never thought of any of that before, but it all seemed pretty obvious in hindsight.

 

[Overgame]

Atlas Shrugged has a special place in my heart for helping me realize that we are entitled to the sweat of our brow

 

[Jason Wynn]

The Dark Tower series.

They're not deep or philosophical, the quality of the writing gets a bit iffy in the last two books, but without going into TMI too much, they came into my life at a point where I needed them. No other series of novels gripped me as tightly as those novels did. It's a great story with great characters and helped me get through a bad time in my life. I've had a soft spot for those books since, and still go back to reread them every few years or so.

 

[Frostnipped Todger]

Tropic of Cancer is (in my opinion) the greatest novel of the last 100 years. I've read it innumerable times and have given away more copies than can remember. Also, for reasons I don't understand, women find it hot, and I have read it aloud to at least 3 women while they are in the bath.

Maybe I attract crazy women though...

 

[Prince Lotor]

Pretty much everything Robert Anton Wilson ever wrote. His book 'Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You & Your World' was pretty influential on me, along with his books 'Prometheus Rising' and 'Sex, Drugs and Magick: A Jouney Beyond Limits'.
His 3 semi-autobiographical books 'Cosmic Trigger vols. I, II, and III' are filled with some frequently poignant and personal experiences of his, such as his daughter's murder and his reactions to and thoughts on it.

Probably the most influential on me was actually the 3rd novel in his 'The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles' series titled 'Nature's God', specifically the protagonists journey of self-exile in the American Wilderness of the 1700's.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Ironweed - William Kennedy
Steppenwolf - Hemann Hesse
Meditations - Marcus Arulieus
Man & Technics - Oswald Spengler

I'd like to say Schopenhauer but I doubt I understand him well enough.

Darkness at Noon (Arthur Koestler) and The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne) might have been on the list at one time, dunno.

 

[Syaoran Li]

On a more serious note? These would be my picks...

The Stand, Stephen King
The Dark Tower Saga, Stephen King
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Omerta, Mario Puzo
The Fourth K, Mario Puzo
Candide, Voltaire
Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
Animal Farm, George Orwell

 

[Lemmingwise]

King Rat by James Clavell is probably the big one, though I can’t quite explain why.

Finished that recently.

What the fuck.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

Finished that recently.

What the fuck.

I think that’s why it stuck with me.
Besides being based on a true story, it really drove home the idea that every character involved was in some way broken, sometimes by each other even though they were all in the same prison. Even the King was reduced to nothing, nothing he did the entire book mattered once he got freed, not even the money, not even his luxuries. At the end, he’s not even a king anymore, he’s just another soldier.
Basically, what good is there in being a king if you are only king of rats? Why would you eat each other just to become the king of nothing?
I don’t know, but it sticks with you, that book.

 

[Lemmingwise]

I think that’s why it stuck with me.
Besides being based on a true story, it really drove home the idea that every character involved was in some way broken, sometimes by each other even though they were all in the same prison. Even the King was reduced to nothing, nothing he did the entire book mattered once he got freed, not even the money, not even his luxuries. At the end, he’s not even a king anymore, he’s just another soldier.
Basically, what good is there in being a king if you are only king of rats? Why would you eat each other just to become the king of nothing?
I don’t know, but it sticks with you, that book.

Guess we took other things from it.

I took it more as a "it's better to be king of the rats, but remember that it's always temporary" if I were to reduce it to a kind of moral line.

It's pretty fascinating. My grandfather really liked the book and he was in one of those camps (in Japan).