Wisest book you've read?

[spiltteeth]

I remember Melville once said the wisest book has to be the saddest, and the saddest is Ecclesiasticus in the old testament, I'll agree with him.

[Raúl Duke]

I don't know, haven't read enough books I suppose, plus it's a bit subjective.

[Pogue]

Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice

:p

[MarxSchmarx]

War and Peace by Tolstoy.

[RHIZOMES]

Watchmen by Alan Moore
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

it's a constant battle between those two for the #1 spot :bored:.

[Rakhmetov]

Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

State And Revolution by Lenin

Killing Hope by William Blum

Hamlet by Shakespeare

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Inevitable Revolutions: The United States In Central America by Walter LaFeber

[Invincible Summer]

I'm not sure how to determine "wise,"t but I found V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and Neuromancer by William Gibson to be quite profound

[Paul Cockshott]

Judged by time of writing and subsequent progressive influence:

Lucretius : De Rerum Natura,

Adam Smith : Wealth of Nations

Darwin : Origin of the Species

Marx : volume 1 of Capital

Einsteing : Relativity


For current books it is impossible to judge future influence but some key contributors to modern materialism:

Dennet : Darwins Dangerous Idea

Dawkins : The Blind Watchmaker

Deutsch : The fabric of reality

[rosa_rot]

Robert Kurz: Blackbook Capitalism
Herman Hesse: Siddharta
Jack Kerouac: On the road

So different, so genial.

[Pogue]

I'd seriously probably actually say Fight Club

[Rakhmetov]

I forgot to mention there is a book by Harold Bloom called Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? I highly recommend it.

[ComradeOm]

Small Gods

[red cat]

Grimm's Fairy Tales :D

[manic expression]

My first a-political reaction is To Kill a Mockingbird...the Manifesto would be the "wisest" political book I've ever read.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

The wisest book I have ever read? It is a very tough question. I thought The Trial was particularly wise I suppose.

[Sean]

Watchmen by Alan Moore
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

it's a constant battle between those two for the #1 spot :bored:.
#1 doesnt count, it has pretty pictures. But yeah I enjoyed that.

I'm going to be dull and just say
Orientalism by Edward Said taught me about how ridiculously contrived our impressions of non white culture are.

A toss up between Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions from Chomsky. I believe both books should be read by everyone as primers for leftism, even before getting into anything marxish or revolutionary. I've never read anything that exposes the crap western societies wade through in such a plain, well sourced and non conspiratorial way. As for MarxScharx's choice of War & Peace, I found it an enjoyable panorama but never got anything from it. I'm certainly not knocking the book - its one of the best I've ever read - but I didn't see a lot of wisdom in it.

[bcbm]

how to be idle by tom hodgkinson

[MarxSchmarx]

War & Peace, I found it an enjoyable panorama but never got anything from it. I'm certainly not knocking the book - its one of the best I've ever read - but I didn't see a lot of wisdom in it.It depends on what stage of one's political development one is in. If you take "the great man" theory of history seriously, the book exposes just how really powerless the likes of Napoleon were. Tolstoy goes to great lengths to explore this idea in the epilogue.

[Post-Something]

"Notes from Underground" By Dostoyevsky

[ChrisK]

Comic Style: Shamo by Akio Tanaka and Izo Hashimoto

Fiction Book: Hamlet (though it might be upsured by The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky when I finish it)

Non-fiction Book: Das Kapital

[ZeroNowhere]

Timon of Athens.

[MarxSchmarx]

Timon of Athens.

It persistently amazes me how some of Shakespeare's more provocative works (like this one) are also his least appreciated.

I've never read the book but have seen the play. What do you think was wise about it?

[kalu]

I read a lot of "theory," so I don't have much to say by way of fiction. But I think the wisest book I've read would have to be Refashioning Futures. The author, David Scott, is extremely critical, yet humble enough to be able to acknowledge the debt he has to scholars he has since superseded. Additionally, his work is a serious attempt to deal with the epistemological categories and core concepts of modernity, rather than surface trends and "politics." A wise "theory" book, in my opinion, defines the terms of debate and shifts the basic conceptual structure of our approaches.

[un_person]

My opinion of the wisest book I've read is always changing but at this moment I would say it's between the classic Howard Zinn's Peoples History of the U.S. or Our Word Is Our Weapon by Subcommandante Marcos

[Comrade Gwydion]

Funny enough, I am going to have to revert back to my childhood:
Kinderen van Moeder Aarde (Children of Mother Earth) by Thea Beckman is a trilogy about an utopia versus a dystopia.
Basicly, we had a nuclear war, which killed 99% of population, changed climate, and forced us to start again. In Greenland (which has now a good climate, with fertile soil) there is a relative utopia. I dreamed about this place, and only years later realized that this utopia was a matriarchical, pacifist, eco-communist nation. The dystopia, based in a dry and desert-turned Europe, is basicly a combination between capitalism and fuedalism.

When I realised this a few years ago, I suddently realised how I became socialist. And this book is fucking high respected by main-stream audience!
http://img.literatuurplein.nl/blobs/ORIGB/81041/1/1.jpg

[heylelshalem]

for me it was Alan watts-way of zen.
Or it was karl marx-the communist manifesto...that was an interesting read for me.

[Koffie-Kommie]

I definitely gotta say, "The Little Prince," by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Highly recommended for people of all ages!

[Belisarius]

crime and punishment - dostoevsky (it made me depressed for weeks, huge impact)
being and time - heidegger (his analyses are very enlightening)
on ideology - althusser (he opened my eyes for communism)

[smellincoffee]

Sharon Lebell's interpretation of Epictetus in The Art of Living.