Top 25: The Best Books I Discovered In 2014

[Mudhammam]

I know the year isn't quite over yet, and I have a few books that I intend to read before the New Year, but I felt the inclination to compile this list now as there was already an ample selection to choose from. It was difficult compiling my favorite books that I read this year, as there were many that qualified.

25. Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977) - Robert Anton Wilson
24. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God (1982) - John L. Mackie
23. The Nature of Things (55 B.C.E.) - Titus Lucretius Carus, A.E. Stallings (translator)
22. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (1999) - Brian Greene
21. The Provincial Letters (1656-1657) - Blaise Pascal, Thomas M'Crie (translator)
20. The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) - Anne Frank
19. Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will (1839) - Arthur Schopenhauer, Eric F. Payne (translator)
18. The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul (1981) - Daniel C. Dennett (editor), Douglas R. Hofstadter (editor)
17. The Catcher in the Rye (1951) - J.D. Salinger
16. Explaining Consciousness: The Hard Problem (1997) - Jonathan Shear (editor)
15. The Selfish Gene (1976) - Richard Dawkins
14. Crime and Punishment (1866) - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett (translator)
13. Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy (1989) - Irvin D. Yalom
12. The God Delusion (2006) - Richard Dawkins
11. The World as Will and Representation, Vol 1 (1818) - Arthur Schopenhauer, E.F.J. Payne (translator)
10. The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study (1964) - Milton Rokeach

9. The Friend of the Family (1859) - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett (translator)

8. 1984 (1949) - George Orwell

7. Critique of Pure Reason (1781) - Immanuel Kant, J.M.D. Meiklejohn (translator)

6. Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) - Hermann Hesse, Ursule Molinaro (translator)

5. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) - David Hume

4. The Anti-Christ (1888) - Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Kaufmann (translator, editor)

3. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995) - Daniel C. Dennett

2. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) - William James

1. The Brothers Karamazov (1880) - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Richard Pevear (translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (translator)


Honorary mentions (I wanted to add these two excellent works but having limited my list to twenty-five, they were right at the cut off):

The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus (1999) - Earl Doherty
With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful (2011) - Glenn Greenwald


What were your most memorable reads of the year?

[Exian]

Normally, I don't read a lot of fiction (aside from recently getting back into comics with my daughter), but a friend recommended Chuck Palahniuk during a movie discussion, and he must have caught me in the right mood. He suggested Survivor, which I enjoyed so much I ended up reading all of Chuck's books.

Because I don't normally read fiction, they stand out to me this year; specifically Rant. On another recommendation from the same friend, I read John Dies at the End by David Wong, which I had a lot of fun reading. Those two titles stand out this year.

[Strider]

Nice list, Pickup_shonuff. I don't read nearly as much non-fiction as I need to, but I've been trying to change that a bit. For me the first book that comes to mind for this year is Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage. The book recounts the harrowing tale of Ernest Shackleton and his crew as they battle for survival for more than a year in the Antarctic seas. It is adventure literature of the highest caliber, and all the more powerful because it is a true account.

I also read Frankenstein again; I haven't read it since I was a teenager. Oftentimes, early 19th century prose can be a chore to slog through, but that isn't the case with Shelley's work.

Normally, I don't read a lot of fiction (aside from recently getting back into comics with my daughter), but a friend recommended Chuck Palahniuk during a movie discussion, and he must have caught me in the right mood. He suggested Survivor, which I enjoyed so much I ended up reading all of Chuck's books.

Survivor was the first title I read from Palahniuk also. I should give it another read as the details have faded into the foggy vastness of my memory now.

[Mudhammam]

I'd like to get into some more fiction, which come to think of it, I left Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut off my list. D-: But there's him, Henry James, and Franz Kafka that I'm eager to explore a bit more.

[FatAndFaithless]

My top 3 all time for me have been the same for several years now:

3) Brave New World (Huxley)
2) Lolita (Nabokov)
1) Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)

Also...I did a google search for Lolita just to make sure I spelled Nabby's name right...and got a notice at the top of the search results saying "Child pornography is illegal, get help now".

Really hope Chris Hanson doesn't suddenly appear at my door..

[downbeatplumb]

I discovered a fantastic Author who has quite a few free books on kindle his name is Dominic Green.
He writes a sort of cross between Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.

His Ant and Cleo books are my favourite but Small world is good too.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/575...inic_Green

Although I see here he has the temerity to give a Terry Pratchett book only three stars.

[Mudhammam]

Brave New World has been on the edge of my radar for some time. There's just so many books and too few minutes in a day...

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

1. Naughty Night Nurses

2. Ist Dat Ein Bratwurst In Zie Pokket....

3. Women Who Spank And The Men Who Fear Them

4. Lady Garden Of Earthly Delights

5. Glory Hole-llelujah.

6. Sticky Stickerson Gets New Sheets

7. A Streetcar Named Desiree.

8. Crotch Colognes of The Mongol Hordes. (non-fiction)

9. Swimming To Cambootya

10. Nineteen Eighty Whore

Boru

[Mudhammam]

[vorlon13]

Probably not for everyone, but I am wading through The Changing World of Mormonism, and it is pretty much like the literary equivalent of an extremely gory car accident.

I already know more than enough to reduce the next pair of missionaries I encounter to a glowing fog of atoms, but I keep going back and reading another chapter.

I realize the rest of you are already sure in your disbelief of everything emitted from the corrupt mind of Joe Smith, but mark me down as 100% thunderstruck at just how BAD Old Joe was at Religion 101, and yet he still managed to amass millions of followers, each and every one obsessively and compulsively credulous or just as conniving as Joe himself. Additionally, it is stunning just how voluminous the pile of crap he managed to gestate, and staggeringly, most of it, despite his representations that it was all 100% direct from God Almighty, Joe still had the osmium balls to go back and REVISE it all, and quite a bit of it, many times.

Anyhow, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ain't a religion. I don't know what the fuck it is, but it sure as hell isn't a religion.


No shit, Xemu does it better than Joe.

hock: