Chrisb (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} suddenlynaked) wrote,@ 2008-03-03 11:09:00 |
|
Three Essential Books
Ok - maybe someone has already done this, but I think it would be a cool meme to spread.
If you could get a basically educated populace to read three books, what would those books be, and why would you have everyone read them, in order of importance. This is assuming functional levels of literacy, basic math skills, rudiments of world history, bits of science, music, theatre, a basic understanding of important works of fiction (works one should know to understand the culture) in other words enough high school to get by.
Mine would be:
1) Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark."
Sagan's ability to make the scientific method not only understood by ANYONE as something so easy to apply to your life and thinking (science as the marriage of skepticism and wonder") but also the sheer joy he communicates in his clarity make this such a standout piece of work that it should be taught in every school in the world. The clear guidleines for bullshit detection, how "psychics" do a cold "read" would put every preacher and faith healing charlatan out of business.
2) Gary Snyder's "Practice of the Wild" Gary Snyder vies for Sagan as one of the two most sane minds that ever put pen to paper. Gary's thoughts on understanding our sense of place and our relationship with the natural world just make an enormous amount of sense to me. This is a poet who has also walked the walk on sustainability in his personal life - he's made his idealism practical. I really like his poetry as well which comes out of much of his experience. This was guy who hung out with Ginsberg and Kerouac made a name for himself as a POET, and then got a job as an oil room pipe cleaner on a freighter to get himself to Japan to study Zen. Stayed for ten years and came back and attended the Gathering of the Tribes in Berkeley 1968 and wrote of the subculture in mythical terms. I'd pretty much recommend ALL of Snyder, but if I was choosing essays vs poetry, "Practice of the Wild" is the one I'd go with.
3) I'm torn between several for book number three, but I think I'm going to go with Carl Zimmer's "Evolution, the Triumph of an Idea." In spite of it's abysmal title, it's the most comprehensive layman's book on evolution that I've read, and I really do think I understand the basics of natural selection at this point. My good friendrev_dr_ace gave me almost of all of his writing and I've sucked them down whole, for the most part. I think if everyone understood the basics of evolution, the human race would get it's priorities straightened out.
So, like I said, these recommendations assume something like a 9th or10th grade education - they could be (and maybe in some places ARE) part of a high school curricculam, but they make great reads at pretty much any age where they could be understood. If you haven't read them yet, Especially the first two might really change your thinking. For me they were like "coming home."
What are your three?
Ok - maybe someone has already done this, but I think it would be a cool meme to spread.
If you could get a basically educated populace to read three books, what would those books be, and why would you have everyone read them, in order of importance. This is assuming functional levels of literacy, basic math skills, rudiments of world history, bits of science, music, theatre, a basic understanding of important works of fiction (works one should know to understand the culture) in other words enough high school to get by.
Mine would be:
1) Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark."
Sagan's ability to make the scientific method not only understood by ANYONE as something so easy to apply to your life and thinking (science as the marriage of skepticism and wonder") but also the sheer joy he communicates in his clarity make this such a standout piece of work that it should be taught in every school in the world. The clear guidleines for bullshit detection, how "psychics" do a cold "read" would put every preacher and faith healing charlatan out of business.
2) Gary Snyder's "Practice of the Wild" Gary Snyder vies for Sagan as one of the two most sane minds that ever put pen to paper. Gary's thoughts on understanding our sense of place and our relationship with the natural world just make an enormous amount of sense to me. This is a poet who has also walked the walk on sustainability in his personal life - he's made his idealism practical. I really like his poetry as well which comes out of much of his experience. This was guy who hung out with Ginsberg and Kerouac made a name for himself as a POET, and then got a job as an oil room pipe cleaner on a freighter to get himself to Japan to study Zen. Stayed for ten years and came back and attended the Gathering of the Tribes in Berkeley 1968 and wrote of the subculture in mythical terms. I'd pretty much recommend ALL of Snyder, but if I was choosing essays vs poetry, "Practice of the Wild" is the one I'd go with.
3) I'm torn between several for book number three, but I think I'm going to go with Carl Zimmer's "Evolution, the Triumph of an Idea." In spite of it's abysmal title, it's the most comprehensive layman's book on evolution that I've read, and I really do think I understand the basics of natural selection at this point. My good friend
rev_dr_ace gave me almost of all of his writing and I've sucked them down whole, for the most part. I think if everyone understood the basics of evolution, the human race would get it's priorities straightened out. So, like I said, these recommendations assume something like a 9th or10th grade education - they could be (and maybe in some places ARE) part of a high school curricculam, but they make great reads at pretty much any age where they could be understood. If you haven't read them yet, Especially the first two might really change your thinking. For me they were like "coming home."
What are your three?
