what book has actually improved your life?

Unironically Infinite Jest

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I understood everything is a sign for me.

>>10010570
How so? I decided it was too long to read for the memes

>>10010566
>books
>improve people's lives

Whar are you? a contraxian!?

Letters To a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.
I reread it whenever I enter deep depression (which is often), it brings me so much comfort.

>>10010570
This. I'm sure I could've got the same knowledge through other sources, but IJ taught me about addiction, and as a result I quit smoking almost a year ago. I learned also that no one single moment is unendurable, that it leads into the next, which can be better.

>>10010566

Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy

>>10010574
That's called psychosis.

Tony Robins books (well, talks really). Taught me I have to love myself before I can become successful. Really makes you think.

on the road by Kerouac gave me the reading bug.

I read it in the mid 90's when i was 14.
I've since withdrawn from the world and lived my life out vicariously through fiction.

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>>10010566
All day, every day

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>>10010614
For you, my friend. I am emerging from the mists of time

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>>10010566
Casual, crass Day'Quuan came from the stairhead, bearing a copy of Ulysses on which a pile of cannabis and a blunt lay crossed

Siddhartha and Candide were pretty eye-opening for me. They were the books that got me into reading seriously.

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And other related Stoic source material (see Marcus Aurelius' Meditations)

>>10010677
thought of that as soon as I saw this thread, and saw your post in the same second

A stop sign is fucking amazing. Without them, we would awkwardly weasel around intersections, and there would be many crashes per day

on that note, cars are amazing, and I am glad to have one

If I didn't have a car, I am glad to have air conditioned shelter over my head at least

negative visualization really puts things in perspective

>>10010685
Nice. We all need life philosophies. Too bad most people aren't even aware they don't have one.

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>>10010566
get woke boyim

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>>10010714
most people do have some ideological framework, they just aren't really consciously aware of it and take it for granted.

>>10010566
Infinite Jest
Godel, Escher, Bach
Invisible Cities
Accelerando
The Bible

>>10010733
Those frameworks tend to be wishy-washy at best, non-holistic, and illogical. I mean, what more can you expect from philosophies that are not consciously thought about?

While I'm not religious, I can respect those that are and who know what doctrines they follow and why they do so in relation to how they live their lives. Stocism seems to be a more secular version of this.

>>10010781
>Those frameworks tend to be wishy-washy at best, non-holistic, and illogical. I mean, what more can you expect from philosophies that are not consciously thought about?
Agreed desu.

>While I'm not religious, I can respect those that are and who know what doctrines they follow and why they do so in relation to how they live their lives. Stocism seems to be a more secular version of this.
I don't think Stoicism is very secular. The whole thing is based on adhering to a concept of nature that is pretty religious.

>>10010796

>I don't think Stoicism is very secular. The whole thing is based on adhering to a concept of nature that is pretty religious.

Yeah, I used the wrong word. Let's say non-religious instead because Stoicism is definitely spiritual. I think a cool part of Stoicism is the fact that there are so many interpretations of it. The Greeks' version of it differs from the Romans', and even the Roman versions have differences.

Irvine's book, at one point, discusses Stoicism from an evolutionary standpoint, neglecting the gods.

For myself, when I first read about "living in accordance with nature" I interpreted it pantheistically. We accept nature as it is and that we are intrinsically a part of it.

>>10010745
>Godel, Escher, Bach
how so?

>>10010725
Seconding.

>>10010745
G.E.B. (unchecked logorrhea the book)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

The rest make sense, but OP used the singular word "book" not books.

>>10010566
The Rebel by Camus
I feel that it puts history in an easy to digest and comfortable narrative. It's general takeaways have also been helpful for me.

>>10010566
>>10010600
Very few do. They give you transient feelings of wisdom and nice feelings. The only to feel comfortable is with your will bend the nature of your soul by Catholicism or even better Buddhism.

They are is no solace in art, only by strangling the monkey mind it allows you to appreciate art even more and get far more enjoyment from it.

>>10010725
lol what happens if he slips and falls down that cliff

>>10011111
>The only to feel comfortable is with your will bend the nature
>They are is no solace in art, only by strangling the monkey mind

nigga maybe try reading a book once in a while because this shit's retarded

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>>10011207
when he lands he has a surprise lol

>>10010857
The thing about this that always got me is that for instance Marcus Aurelius and Seneca were always talking about how life isn't worth living without the gods, and that's it's really a staple or foundation of their stoicism. How do people reconcile being secular when arguably the primary authors of stoicism explicitly mentioned it as an essential part of their beliefs?

>>10010566
Genuinely Ulysses, finally got the whole "Everything-is-connected-and-all-forces-point-to-something-better" transcendent/ idealistic outlook.
Helped that I read it one sunny summer in Dublin when I started succeeding in college, work,and life, met my best friends, dated the most beautiful woman I'd been with, and became a writer.
There's a piece in the Hugh Lane gallery about decoding Ulysses, trying to explain how it's about the hope + joy which runs through everything, great art.
Doubled down on this outlook when I read Derrida and started doing ecstasy (1 and 2 years later respectively)

Matthew 6:26

>>10010570
Infinite Jest unironically became my sponsor when I was kicking meth and heroin. It's so fucking accurate. There are legitimate criticisms of that novel, sure, it's not perfect. It came at the perfect time for me, though. It's not the greatest novel I've ever read, but it's probably my favorite still.

>>10011310
Read Irvine's book and you'll find out. Basically, he explains that just because they thought that their "duty to other members of our rational race" came from god, doesn't mean that our duty has to come from god.

Almost all of the tenets of Stoicism don't require god. Even the one (duty) that does can simply be replaced by a sense of altruism.

So really, the fact that some early practitioners of Stocism believed in some sort of god, doesn't exclude us from practicing the values it teaches as secularists.

Furthermore, I believe Irvine mentions that "nature" is a vague term, and that we don't know for sure if they meant "god" by it, or actual natural phenomena. After reading Meditations, I think the context "living in accordance with nature" is meant to be taken with the latter meaning. Aurelius even uses hypotheticals to question whether there is a deity that exists.

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Culture of Narcissism made me see my entire surroundings in a new light. We've all been infected by the plague of self-consciousness and entitlement.

>>10011498
Sounds interesting. 1979. Is it still relevant today?

>>10010566
Abolishing Freedom by Frank Ruda

>>10010725
>>10011060
fuck off pseuds

Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Intro chapter starts off a bit cheesy when the author is describing his own "awakening" but the book is life changing.

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Everything this guy wrote.

Thank you, based Nietzsche.

that pic is so me haha
i love joyce (ulysses is my favorite book), i read a good amount of joyce crit, and i smoke weed everyday haha
>>10010602
>I learned also that no one single moment is unendurable
(not true btw)
>>10010625
>Tony Robins
>>10010629
>on the road by Kerouac gave me the reading bug.
it was wilde for me

Taleb's Fooled by Randomness

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Baby's first philosophy read. Made me realise how much of what we do is arbitrary and pointless. Also made me examine how much of my life was essentially pointless

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>>10010566

>>10011111
C..checked desu

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Pretty much anything by him.

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As a hoarder, the advice for how to let usable objects go by thanking them for their service/teaching me something really helped me get rid of stuff I'd held onto for years.

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>>10010566
>no one condemns the nigger in OP's picture for being a degenerate

If you're not letting books affect you, you're not reading them properly. You should be able to gain insight from everything that you read. Absorb it like nutrients.

On second thought, fuck off. I hate kids like you that think that books are going to change your pitiful life and make you suddenly happy.

>>10011973
This. Marie Kondo is a legit genius.

>>10011984
kys dumbass

>>10011973
Lol. I do this. I say thanks, give it a thankful rub and I somehow get closure from doing so.

>>10010570
I honestly felt at my worst when I read this. I don't know, maybe most of it just went over my head.

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>>10012005
>you have to submit to my low moral standards or else you're a dumbass

>>10012020
https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search2&search_filename=dw%20shiggy.jpg
yeah ur a dumbass lol

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The great American novel

>>10010608
explain pls

>>10010591
his prose is magnificent. he writes in long, grand sentences that are neither bombastic nor verbose; they are meaningful, and they meander playfully through complex thoughts like an adroit jazz soloist navigating a modal jam

aside from the technical aspects of his writing, he is a fastidious storyteller. there are about a dozen different storylines that are ever so slowly woven together throughout the plot until they meet in a glorious crescendo of resolution

and if youre a jackass, you can always ask people if they've read the book, and then if they reply that they havent you can give the ever-so-satisfying snide remark: "oh you should, it's worth the read :^)"

>>10010781
/sci/ faggot take ur logic and shove it up ur ass

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>>10010648

>>10010570
this as well.
there's no way i would be reading any of the books ive been reading if i hadnt of been memed into reading it after seeing it all over /lit/ on a road trip. believe it or not infinite jest was my gateway drug to literature and as a result ive been reading nonstop since i picked up infinite jest. if i hadnt i would probably be watching tv or playing video games nonstop.

>>10010745
How the fuck did you get into Accelerando? Shit gave me a headache few pages in. What did you pick up from it? Let me get that basic gestalt.

>>10010566
Finnegan's wake

>>10010566
The Bible

>>10011988
>happiness
>not eudaimonia

pleb alert

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The Divine Comedy.

>be atheist for few years through middle and high school
>even atheist, always enjoyed studying religions of all kinds, and at that time I loved movies like da vinci code (aka topics such as christianity history, "conspiracy", etc)
>last year of highschool start perceiving how ridiculous atheism and atheists are
>start lurking /lit/
>few weeks later, buy divine comedy
>read it, didn't even know who odyssey or virgil was
>enjoyed a lot nonetheless
>Dante basically forced me to read literature, philosophy, history and theology
>become christian
>re-read the divine comedy after reading all greeks (except plato and aristotle, for now), the old testament and literature in general
>can pretty much measure how much I've improved since the first time I`ve read

Its a very nice feeling being able to literally see how much I`ve improved, all the refereces I now get. I haven`t read plato and aristotle yet, nor the romans or the old testament, but I intent to focus on it next year, and leave fiction in second plan (which was in first plan this year).

I intend to re-read it again once finishing Plato and Aristotle, then once finishing the whole bible and romans, and once again once I finish reading augustine and aquinas (will read the concise summa, not the whole thing)