Best Books To Frame Thinking

Books from various genres that help shape and contour how to conceive reality in the 21st Century.
401

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4.09 avg rating — 14,297 ratings
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401

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3.88 avg rating — 109,096 ratings
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403

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4.01 avg rating — 32,578 ratings
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404

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3.99 avg rating — 101 ratings
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404

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3.70 avg rating — 151 ratings
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404

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4.02 avg rating — 304,032 ratings
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407

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4.26 avg rating — 36,882 ratings
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407

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4.18 avg rating — 632,640 ratings
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409

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4.67 avg rating — 97 ratings
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410

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3.80 avg rating — 805 ratings
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410

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3.88 avg rating — 93,383 ratings
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412

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4.20 avg rating — 31,899 ratings
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412

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3.95 avg rating — 13,443 ratings
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414

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3.80 avg rating — 244 ratings
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414

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4.04 avg rating — 632 ratings
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414

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4.25 avg rating — 344 ratings
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414

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4.53 avg rating — 1,644 ratings
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414

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3.78 avg rating — 56,236 ratings
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419

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3.98 avg rating — 27,278 ratings
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419

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4.21 avg rating — 41,975 ratings
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421

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3.98 avg rating — 1,305 ratings
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422

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4.11 avg rating — 530,207 ratings
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423

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 27,021 ratings
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424

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4.22 avg rating — 1,457 ratings
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424

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4.40 avg rating — 12,061 ratings
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426

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4.16 avg rating — 18,254 ratings
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426

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3.67 avg rating — 9 ratings
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428

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4.06 avg rating — 2,892 ratings
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428

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings
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430

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4.27 avg rating — 214,561 ratings
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431

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3.98 avg rating — 10,157 ratings
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431

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4.40 avg rating — 1,130 ratings
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431

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4.14 avg rating — 23,353 ratings
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434

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4.09 avg rating — 44,032 ratings
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434

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3.98 avg rating — 173,845 ratings
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436

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4.69 avg rating — 13 ratings
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436

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4.09 avg rating — 7,783 ratings
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438

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3.92 avg rating — 92 ratings
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438

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4.47 avg rating — 111,037 ratings
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440

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4.02 avg rating — 846 ratings
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440

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4.13 avg rating — 552,496 ratings
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440

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4.55 avg rating — 116,576 ratings
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443

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3.87 avg rating — 16,893 ratings
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443

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3.96 avg rating — 8,420 ratings
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443

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4.65 avg rating — 37 ratings
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443

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4.03 avg rating — 80,634 ratings
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447

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4.25 avg rating — 121,559 ratings
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447

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4.19 avg rating — 496,974 ratings
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449

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3.81 avg rating — 69 ratings
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449

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4.51 avg rating — 18,674 ratings
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449

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3.75 avg rating — 432 ratings
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452

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4.26 avg rating — 1,885 ratings
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452

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3.84 avg rating — 703,189 ratings
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452

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4.27 avg rating — 62,542 ratings
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455

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3.73 avg rating — 284 ratings
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455

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4.08 avg rating — 138,725 ratings
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455

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4.28 avg rating — 18 ratings
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458

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4.57 avg rating — 28 ratings
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459

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4.25 avg rating — 526 ratings
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459

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7,466 ratings
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459

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4.43 avg rating — 16,938 ratings
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462

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4.04 avg rating — 458 ratings
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462

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4.16 avg rating — 183,048 ratings
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464

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3.95 avg rating — 1,839 ratings
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464

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3.88 avg rating — 137 ratings
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466

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3.67 avg rating — 3,208 ratings
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466

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4.02 avg rating — 19,813 ratings
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468

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3.85 avg rating — 2,229 ratings
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468

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3.65 avg rating — 12,192 ratings
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470

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4.19 avg rating — 161 ratings
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471

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4.10 avg rating — 138 ratings
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471

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3.94 avg rating — 1,177 ratings
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471

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4.18 avg rating — 27,168 ratings
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471

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3.89 avg rating — 24,556 ratings
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475

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it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings
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476

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4.02 avg rating — 254 ratings
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477

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3.91 avg rating — 1,092 ratings
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477

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4.25 avg rating — 8,832 ratings
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479

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4.60 avg rating — 42 ratings
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480

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3.77 avg rating — 7,185 ratings
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481

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4.61 avg rating — 64 ratings
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481

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4.50 avg rating — 36 ratings
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483

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3.93 avg rating — 445 ratings
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483

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3.93 avg rating — 11,955 ratings
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483

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4.17 avg rating — 62,065 ratings
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486

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4.46 avg rating — 457 ratings
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487

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3.71 avg rating — 70 ratings
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487

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3.79 avg rating — 2,440 ratings
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489

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3.79 avg rating — 687 ratings
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489

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4.11 avg rating — 16,927 ratings
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489

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3.97 avg rating — 38,404 ratings
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489

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4.47 avg rating — 11,964 ratings
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493

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3.99 avg rating — 3,053 ratings
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493

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3.76 avg rating — 1,713 ratings
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493

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4.14 avg rating — 152 ratings
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496

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3.56 avg rating — 306 ratings
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497

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3.38 avg rating — 855 ratings
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497

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4.38 avg rating — 1,341,384 ratings
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499

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4.18 avg rating — 40 ratings
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500

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4.07 avg rating — 2,637 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
108 friends
Jenny 321 books
68 friends
Janet 168 books
62 friends
Jacob 1972 books
41 friends
Joe 663 books
260 friends
Steve 323 books
215 friends

More voters…


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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