The world's best books

[spindrifter]

The Sunday Times March 19, 2006

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2092174,00.html



~snip~

There was the American revolution, the French revolution, perhaps most important of all the industrial revolution, the draining of populations from the countryside to the cities. There was the extension of the lifespan, the eruptive transformations brought by the advances of technology. The rise and rise of mass consumerism. . . A mere book seems a very unlikely contender as a world-changing catalyst.

Yet for those of us who love to read, the idea that a book can have an influence is not news. Our perceptions have been shaped through books, our store of information heaped up, our tastes extended, perhaps refined, our sense of humour tickled, our sense of well-being restored or reinforced; we have been excited, alerted, moved, consoled, felt less alone, even felt morally improved and inspired — at least for a while. We know that books can change us as individuals.

[LouisianaLiberal]

1. What do you think of this list?

It isn't that its so Anglo-centric. I've always liked Bragg, but with four exceptions his list is sort of silly.

"Book of Rules of Association Football (1863) by a group of former English public-school men" is more important to the modern world than any work of Kant or Hegel? Gosh, what about Aristotle? And hey, if weren't for Plato, we wouldn't have the wonderful, world-altering thoughts of that great con man Leo Strauss.

I guess I should read his book to understand what he means, but this sort of list has been attempted many times before, and done more successfully in the past.

[spindrifter]

2. He seems to have

gone for a really different perspective. The great philosophers definitely influence the world in major ways--This guy, odd as it may seem, has chosen everything from the football rules to the 3-volume treatise on electricity. I thought the list gives a lot of food for thinking about the world in a very broad way.

[Matilda]

3. It's a very worthy list, and probably rather elitist.

I don't doubt that these works have changed the thinking of academics and inspired further thinking
at the highest intellectual levels, but how many ordinary mortals have ever read them?

A list of books that have changed the thinking or attitudes of the average person, and I'm thinking
of intelligent people who are not necessarily intellectuals, would be a rather different,I suspect.

I think such a list would be more likely to include works by people like Charles Dickens, Mark
Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dostoevsky, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Rachel Carson. They're the kind
of people whose work has a broader appeal, while still being original and quite profound.