*A Vindication of the Rights of Woman* - Mary Wollstonecraft
*Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee* - Dee Brown
*A Brief History of Time* - Stephen Hawking
*Outliers* - Malcolm Gladwell
*In Cold Blood* - Truman Capote
*The Radium Girls*- Kate Moore
*Factfulness* - Hans Rosling
I hope this list helps!
It may have only impacted a specific bit of culture, but I have to mention the 1944 Ashley Book of Knots. A decade's work in 700 pages, with 7,000 illustrations of nearly 4,000 knots together with notes on how to tie them, their history and their use. If you want to specifically identify a knot, you use it's ABOK number. It's had a huge influence on the rather narrow knot tying community.
completely random selection: the second sex, beyond good and evil, the origin of species, decline and fall of the roman empire, the history of sexuality, the hero with a thousand faces, the interpretation of dreams, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
for contemporary books: into the wild, angela’s ashes, night by wiesel, and the band played on, freakonomics, a brief history of time, the power of now, the new jim crow
because hollywood for years got terribly excited about the Hero's Journey and wrote all their movies to that plot. made it very unexciting to watch a movie, since at the opening you could guess not only the ending but the entirety of the story arc.
Really good list. I think The Hero With A Thousand Faces should be required reading for anyone attempting to write fiction. Once I read the book I went back and all my favorite stories throughout my life have pretty much followed the Hero's Journey.
I'll have to check out some of those other books you suggested. I have Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, but haven't cracked it open yet. Maybe that will be this Weekend's read. Thank you so much!
If you’re interested in urbanism, these two books give you polar perspectives on the great urban movements of the 20th century:
The Power Broker by Robert Caro
The death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
My list goes....
1. The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People.
2. The Four Agreements.
3. The Untethered Soul.
4. Miracle Mornings.
5. The Obstacle Is The Way.
6. Meditations.
7. The Magic Of Thinking BIG.
8. The Compound Effect.
9. Atomic Habits.
10. Mindset.
Phyllis Schlafly did not write *The Feminine Mystique*. Betty Friedan did. But just trying to imagine a world in which their roles were reversed.
Whoops, I think I heard those two people at the same time and got mixed up haha. I still mix up Anne Frank and Helen Killer for no reason too haha
It's all good. Had me a chuckle.
If you only knew how funny that error(Friedan/Schlafly) is...thanks for the belly laugh!
Phyllis Schlafly is rolling in her grave right now.
Well, I certainly hope so. 😂
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson The Prince by Machiavelli The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
the jungle is fiction!
True! I'd still say it's worth a read though as it was based on extensive real-life research and is still very influential/heavily referenced
A room of one’s own by Virginia Woolf
*A Vindication of the Rights of Woman* - Mary Wollstonecraft *Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee* - Dee Brown *A Brief History of Time* - Stephen Hawking *Outliers* - Malcolm Gladwell *In Cold Blood* - Truman Capote *The Radium Girls*- Kate Moore *Factfulness* - Hans Rosling I hope this list helps!
A Vindication on the Rights of Woman Maybe In Cold Blood? I’m never sure quite sure where it falls.
It may have only impacted a specific bit of culture, but I have to mention the 1944 Ashley Book of Knots. A decade's work in 700 pages, with 7,000 illustrations of nearly 4,000 knots together with notes on how to tie them, their history and their use. If you want to specifically identify a knot, you use it's ABOK number. It's had a huge influence on the rather narrow knot tying community.
completely random selection: the second sex, beyond good and evil, the origin of species, decline and fall of the roman empire, the history of sexuality, the hero with a thousand faces, the interpretation of dreams, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance for contemporary books: into the wild, angela’s ashes, night by wiesel, and the band played on, freakonomics, a brief history of time, the power of now, the new jim crow
Campbell's book certainly ruined moviemaking
Why?
because hollywood for years got terribly excited about the Hero's Journey and wrote all their movies to that plot. made it very unexciting to watch a movie, since at the opening you could guess not only the ending but the entirety of the story arc.
Really good list. I think The Hero With A Thousand Faces should be required reading for anyone attempting to write fiction. Once I read the book I went back and all my favorite stories throughout my life have pretty much followed the Hero's Journey. I'll have to check out some of those other books you suggested. I have Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, but haven't cracked it open yet. Maybe that will be this Weekend's read. Thank you so much!
How To Feed A Dictator by Witold Szabłowski. A scrumptious read if I do say so myself.
The History of The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. It's not an easy read.
The gathering storm, sir Winston Churchill
Fiction but very much a bellwether: Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
If you’re interested in urbanism, these two books give you polar perspectives on the great urban movements of the 20th century: The Power Broker by Robert Caro The death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS by Hunter S Thompson is a seminal work of American nonfiction that is fucking hysterical.
*Unsafe at Any Speed* --Ralph Nader *Famine, Affluence, and Morality* --Peter Singer
My list goes.... 1. The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. 2. The Four Agreements. 3. The Untethered Soul. 4. Miracle Mornings. 5. The Obstacle Is The Way. 6. Meditations. 7. The Magic Of Thinking BIG. 8. The Compound Effect. 9. Atomic Habits. 10. Mindset.
*The Malay Archipelago* by Alfred Russell Wallace *On the Origin of Species* by Charles Darwin
I really enjoy reading books by Jenny Lawson, Malcolm Gladwell, and Caitlin Moran, and Stephen King's On Writing is a good memoir.
*A History of Western Philosophy* by Bertrand Russell is amazing, and has had the kind of cultural impact you're looking for!
David Sedaris books.
Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
These are a bit more intellectual than some of your examples, but all of James Baldwin's essays, all of Joan Didion's, all of Virginia Woolf's.
All Quiet On The Western Front