Best Books To Frame Thinking

Books from various genres that help shape and contour how to conceive reality in the 21st Century.
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4.04 avg rating — 448,127 ratings
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4.37 avg rating — 843,245 ratings
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4.34 avg rating — 1,217,224 ratings
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7

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4.17 avg rating — 570,733 ratings
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8

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4.01 avg rating — 888,910 ratings
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9

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4.19 avg rating — 851,054 ratings
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10

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4.16 avg rating — 189,963 ratings
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11

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4.08 avg rating — 261,325 ratings
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12

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4.08 avg rating — 854,774 ratings
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13

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4.28 avg rating — 1,038,742 ratings
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14

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4.22 avg rating — 415,200 ratings
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15

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3.84 avg rating — 374,570 ratings
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16

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4.01 avg rating — 120,646 ratings
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17

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3.70 avg rating — 3,138,106 ratings
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18

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3.94 avg rating — 38,723 ratings
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19

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3.65 avg rating — 194,772 ratings
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20

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4.19 avg rating — 281,325 ratings
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21

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4.20 avg rating — 64,045 ratings
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22

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4.13 avg rating — 1,806,533 ratings
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23

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4.37 avg rating — 11,969 ratings
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24

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4.03 avg rating — 1,336,933 ratings
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25

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3.97 avg rating — 2,748,484 ratings
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26

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3.94 avg rating — 380,986 ratings
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27

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4.44 avg rating — 310,960 ratings
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28

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4.05 avg rating — 27,262 ratings
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29

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4.21 avg rating — 25,980 ratings
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30

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3.83 avg rating — 84,592 ratings
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31

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4.13 avg rating — 209,045 ratings
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32

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3.89 avg rating — 1,788,688 ratings
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33

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4.39 avg rating — 374,136 ratings
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34

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3.77 avg rating — 201,821 ratings
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35

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4.36 avg rating — 449,245 ratings
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36

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4.16 avg rating — 29,347 ratings
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37

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4.29 avg rating — 78,944 ratings
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38

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4.12 avg rating — 129,885 ratings
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39

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4.03 avg rating — 29,348 ratings
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40

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4.19 avg rating — 209,302 ratings
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41

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4.29 avg rating — 51,885 ratings
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42

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3.93 avg rating — 74,090 ratings
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43

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4.29 avg rating — 52,419 ratings
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44

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45

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3.90 avg rating — 280,395 ratings
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46

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4.22 avg rating — 64,096 ratings
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47

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 757,621 ratings
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48

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3.75 avg rating — 206,339 ratings
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49

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3.81 avg rating — 76,178 ratings
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50

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4.22 avg rating — 172,415 ratings
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51

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3.99 avg rating — 20,930 ratings
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52

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4.10 avg rating — 74,147 ratings
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53

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4.17 avg rating — 359,183 ratings
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54

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4.13 avg rating — 28,812 ratings
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55

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4.16 avg rating — 806,781 ratings
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56

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4.08 avg rating — 101,620 ratings
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56

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4.09 avg rating — 41,302 ratings
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58

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4.10 avg rating — 56,421 ratings
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59

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3.84 avg rating — 17,691 ratings
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60

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 16,146 ratings
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61

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62

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4.33 avg rating — 53,644 ratings
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63

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4.19 avg rating — 5,692 ratings
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64

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4.41 avg rating — 9,475 ratings
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65

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4.03 avg rating — 22,854 ratings
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66

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4.01 avg rating — 846,950 ratings
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67

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4.05 avg rating — 93,674 ratings
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68

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4.30 avg rating — 38,179 ratings
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69

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3.86 avg rating — 35,967 ratings
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70

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4.09 avg rating — 60,182 ratings
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71

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4.01 avg rating — 128,768 ratings
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72

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4.72 avg rating — 8,522 ratings
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73

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4.16 avg rating — 21,245 ratings
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74

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3.84 avg rating — 79,754 ratings
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75

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3.74 avg rating — 8,504 ratings
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76

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4.19 avg rating — 7,234 ratings
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77

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4.07 avg rating — 118,873 ratings
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78

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3.69 avg rating — 102,386 ratings
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79

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3.94 avg rating — 19,124 ratings
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80

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4.09 avg rating — 25,139 ratings
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81

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4.03 avg rating — 7,247 ratings
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82

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3.91 avg rating — 260,411 ratings
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83

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3.96 avg rating — 111,452 ratings
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84

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3.96 avg rating — 616,706 ratings
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85

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4.17 avg rating — 2,400 ratings
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86

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4.03 avg rating — 6,468 ratings
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87

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4.13 avg rating — 7,095 ratings
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88

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4.22 avg rating — 1,120,472 ratings
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89

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4.52 avg rating — 115,616 ratings
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90

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4.12 avg rating — 39,231 ratings
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91

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4.04 avg rating — 1,738 ratings
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92

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4.08 avg rating — 468,178 ratings
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93

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3.71 avg rating — 13,913 ratings
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94

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3.89 avg rating — 32,523 ratings
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95

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4.06 avg rating — 2,189 ratings
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96

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4.18 avg rating — 46,291 ratings
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96

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3.97 avg rating — 277,097 ratings
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98

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3.88 avg rating — 7,008 ratings
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99

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3.60 avg rating — 3,449 ratings
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100

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3.89 avg rating — 5,345 ratings
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1,270 books · 1,361 voters · list created August 14th, 2010 by Charles (votes) .
2081 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Charles 26053 books
3660 friends
Tara 725 books
62 friends
Tyler Knowlton 432 books
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Jenny 321 books
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Janet 168 books
62 friends
Jacob 1972 books
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Joe 663 books
260 friends
Steve 323 books
215 friends

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Comments Showing 1-19 of 19 (19 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Charles (new)

Charles Thanks to everybody who has added on to this!

~Charles


message 2: by Leo (new)

Leo Walsh Excellent. I've read all of the top twenty five save the exact Chomsky titles (though I've read plenty of his work, and his key points tend to be stable), "Green Illusions," and "Hot Flat and Crowded" -- though I confess that I started the book, but never finished. Not sure why...


message 3: by Lacewing (new)

Lacewing Great list! Thank you, Charles, for starting it and everyone else for building it up. I'm tempted to put every one of 'em on my to-read list, except for the mere half dozen or so I've read.


message 4: by Charles (new)

Charles Leo wrote: "Excellent. I've read all of the top twenty five save the exact Chomsky titles (though I've read plenty of his work, and his key points tend to be stable), "Green Illusions," and "Hot Flat and Crowd..."

So what would it look like for these top titles to actually shape the thinking of leaders?


message 5: by Charles (new)

Charles Lacewing wrote: "Great list! Thank you, Charles, for starting it and everyone else for building it up. I'm tempted to put every one of 'em on my to-read list, except for the mere half dozen or so I've read."

You are welcome! How are you coming on the reading?


message 6: by Aurora (new)

Aurora Maybe add Nassim Taleb's Black Swan as a complement to the Structure of Scientific Revolutions?


message 7: by Maria (new)

Maria Fantastic list. I've added a few of these to my To Read list.


message 8: by Alisha (new)

Alisha Awesome list!! Thanks for creating it. Definitely reading some of these for my 2016 reading challenge :)


message 9: by Vincent (new)

Vincent Noel Too much Pinker, but this is a f*ing good list


message 10: by Sid (new)

Sid S Great list! I think I'll contribute a few books to this list too.


message 11: by Victor (new)

Victor Gotta say, this is the best list I've ever seen on the goodreads. Thank you


message 12: by Parker (new)

Parker commenting so I can remember where this list is


message 13: by Doodle (new)

Doodle Fascinating List. Thank you


message 14: by Alex (new)

Alex Great list!


message 15: by Anish (new)

Anish Sinha Such a great list!


message 16: by Valerie (new)

Valerie Brett This is like, ALL white men


message 17: by Yinzadi (last edited Jul 18, 2018 06:39AM) (new)

Yinzadi Valerie wrote: "This is like, ALL white men"

If for some reason you don't want to read European authors, just in the top 100: Jared Diamond, Naomi Klein, Viktor Frankl, Howard Zinn, Daniel Kahneman, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Sigmund Freud, Christopher Hitchens, Saul Alinsky, Yuval Noah Harari, Franz Kafka, Douglas Hofstadter, Carl Sagan, Thomas Kuhn, Jared Diamond, M. Scott Peck, Dan Ariely, David Graeber, Charles Murray, William Deresiewicz, Steven Levitt, Thomas Friedman, Jonathan Haidt, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Jonathan Safran Foer are Jewish (plus the Bible, obviously), Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Daron Acemoğlu, and Edward Said are also Near Eastern but not Jewish, Malcolm Gladwell, Paulo Freire, and Gustavo Gutierrez are Hispanic, Mohandas Gandhi is Indian, and Martin Luther King, Jr. is African.

It seems like much more of a Judeocentric than a Eurocentric list to me, but I agree that it's totally androcentric.


message 18: by hami (last edited Nov 19, 2018 05:50AM) (new)

hami It is still mostly white men.
and one Nazi person (Martin Heidegger)

The list is so race-blind that I am guessing the author probably thought Gandhi and Martin Luther King ,Jr are also white.


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