15 books that influenced me, a meme
via ironed_orchid and others
Take no more than 15 minutes to produce a list of 15 books that have influenced you in style, ideas, relationships, language, or other ways that you find important, and/or books that have really stayed with you -- you keep thinking of that quote, you are always remembering that character, you are frequently reminded of that moment.... that kind of thing. This is not a favorites list.
Time starts now:
The Roads to Freedom - Jean Paul Sartre
The Making of the English Working Class - Edward Thompson
The Poverty of Theory - Edward Thompson
Games Climbers Play - Ken Wilson
Flatland - EA Abbott
The Pyramid Principle - Barbara Minto
The Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius
The Republic - Plato
Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
The Book of Common Prayer - Cranmer et al
Feudal Society - Marc Bloch
A Dance to the Music of Time - Anthony Powell
The Making of the English Landscape - WG Hoskins
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
The Road to Reality - Roger Penrose
The earliest influence here would be Flatland read, I think, when I was thirteen and just moved from prep to public school. It gave me an insight into why mathematics is beautiful and important and fun that I've never lost. Penrose is representative of my ongoing interest in how mathematics 'represents' the real world, particularly those aspects of it that aren't accessible any other way. I suspect that without Abbott I would never have acquired the skills needed to read Penrose.
Games Climbers Play and The Making of the English Landscape (and maybe I should have included Bill Mason's books here too) are crucial influences on my relationship with the natural and not so natural landscape. Why do we climb? Who was here before us and how do we tell? Maybe I should have also included Eric Morse's Fur Trade Canoe Routes of Canada. Maybe it's my own habit of 'reading' a landscape that made the annaliste approach to history seem so natural. Maybe it's just common sense to use all the data available to try and synthesise a more complete picture of a past world. In any case Bloch says it best and Feudal Society can stand proxy for his work and those who followed him.
Orwell, Sartre and, above all, Thompson were my early political influences. All three are internationalists but with a sense of specificity of time and place rather than being lost in vague generalisations unrooted in any actual lived experience (Perry Anderson, I'm looking at you). Thompson's essay The Peculiarities of the English is probably the single most important thing I have ever read.
Philosophy is something I came to much later than politics. I think it needs a certain amount of life experience to be fully appreciated and by my late thirties I'd acquired a fair bit! Boethius and Marcus Aurelius both seem to me to say much about how to live life, especially about how to cope with its vicissitudes. Plato taught me a great deal he probably didn't intend about, among other things, problem solving approaches.
The remaining three books are about style rather than substance (I'd like to think I'm 80% substance, 20% style!). Powell and The Book of Common Prayer in their different ways delight me with their use of language. I'm probably stylistically closer to Cranmer than to Powell. I favour a fairly direct approach though my word choices can be esoteric. Barbara Minto made me a much better business/technical writer than I could ever have been without her. I'd recommend her to anyone who wants to write clear, compelling reports and proposals. he's probably less suitable for academics as she lays a lot of stress on being clear about what one is trying to say.
Take no more than 15 minutes to produce a list of 15 books that have influenced you in style, ideas, relationships, language, or other ways that you find important, and/or books that have really stayed with you -- you keep thinking of that quote, you are always remembering that character, you are frequently reminded of that moment.... that kind of thing. This is not a favorites list.
Time starts now:
The Roads to Freedom - Jean Paul Sartre
The Making of the English Working Class - Edward Thompson
The Poverty of Theory - Edward Thompson
Games Climbers Play - Ken Wilson
Flatland - EA Abbott
The Pyramid Principle - Barbara Minto
The Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius
The Republic - Plato
Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
The Book of Common Prayer - Cranmer et al
Feudal Society - Marc Bloch
A Dance to the Music of Time - Anthony Powell
The Making of the English Landscape - WG Hoskins
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
The Road to Reality - Roger Penrose
The earliest influence here would be Flatland read, I think, when I was thirteen and just moved from prep to public school. It gave me an insight into why mathematics is beautiful and important and fun that I've never lost. Penrose is representative of my ongoing interest in how mathematics 'represents' the real world, particularly those aspects of it that aren't accessible any other way. I suspect that without Abbott I would never have acquired the skills needed to read Penrose.
Games Climbers Play and The Making of the English Landscape (and maybe I should have included Bill Mason's books here too) are crucial influences on my relationship with the natural and not so natural landscape. Why do we climb? Who was here before us and how do we tell? Maybe I should have also included Eric Morse's Fur Trade Canoe Routes of Canada. Maybe it's my own habit of 'reading' a landscape that made the annaliste approach to history seem so natural. Maybe it's just common sense to use all the data available to try and synthesise a more complete picture of a past world. In any case Bloch says it best and Feudal Society can stand proxy for his work and those who followed him.
Orwell, Sartre and, above all, Thompson were my early political influences. All three are internationalists but with a sense of specificity of time and place rather than being lost in vague generalisations unrooted in any actual lived experience (Perry Anderson, I'm looking at you). Thompson's essay The Peculiarities of the English is probably the single most important thing I have ever read.
Philosophy is something I came to much later than politics. I think it needs a certain amount of life experience to be fully appreciated and by my late thirties I'd acquired a fair bit! Boethius and Marcus Aurelius both seem to me to say much about how to live life, especially about how to cope with its vicissitudes. Plato taught me a great deal he probably didn't intend about, among other things, problem solving approaches.
The remaining three books are about style rather than substance (I'd like to think I'm 80% substance, 20% style!). Powell and The Book of Common Prayer in their different ways delight me with their use of language. I'm probably stylistically closer to Cranmer than to Powell. I favour a fairly direct approach though my word choices can be esoteric. Barbara Minto made me a much better business/technical writer than I could ever have been without her. I'd recommend her to anyone who wants to write clear, compelling reports and proposals. he's probably less suitable for academics as she lays a lot of stress on being clear about what one is trying to say.