Good Books to Read

Im in India at the moment and ive got about a month left here. Theres quite a few good books stalls and shops with cheap prices so i thought ill look out for some good books.

so what are the best books you have read, your absolute favourites?
any life changing or complete perception altering stories?
i enjoy any genre, fiction or non-fiction

any suggestions will be appreciated.
thanx.

  • ceavou -

The Holographic Universe, George Orwell’s 1984, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Life the Universe and Everything, stuff like that.

Holographic Universe is good. This subject comes up every few months and I recommend these books EVERY TIME but I have yet to have anyone go out and get them I think but here goes again…

I totally recommend the book VURT by Jeff Noon… and also by the same author if you can find them: Pollen (sequel to VURT), Automated Alice, Nymphomation… and there was a book of short stories too which I love but can’t recall the title of.

As a sort of short premise for the VURT series… the idea revolves around this futuristic sort of techno-punk world where there are these things called VURT or vurtuality. What VURT is is a feather made out of electromagnetic tape on which a dream has been recorded and edited… you push the feather into your mouth and go into the dream. More than one person can go into the same feather. There are different colors which mean different things: blue=common vurt, black=illegal vurt, pink=porno vurt… you get the idea.

Anyway, the protagonists sister gets lost in a feather and he is trying to find the same type of feather so he can go in and get her back. The story is so good and well written that I find it hard to believe anyone interested in LDing and, to some degree, science fiction would not completely love Jeff Noon’s stories. I think they’re making a movie of VURT which is SUPPOSED to be directed by the guy who did K-Pax. Check out www.jeffnoon.com if you want to check him out. Great author.

I agree, the Holographic Universe changed my whole perspective on life. Also, The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield is a good read. It has a really cool method for explaining ideas, and is also an adventure. The book that started it all for me was Why Christianity Must Change or Die by Bishop John Shelby Spong. It came at a time in my life where I needed answers, needed something purer and greater. Anyway, it is good too.

Four of my favorites,

The Tibetan Book of The Dead,compiled and edited by W.Y. Evens-Wentz.

Magnetism; An Introductory Survey, by E.W.Lee.

The Basic Ideas Of Occult Wisdom, by Jane Kennedy Winner.

The Tao Of Physics, by Fritjof Capra.

I am going to the library tomorrow,and I will put a hold on The Holographic Universe.I am looking forward to reading it!

Tibethan yogas of dream and sleeping-Tenzin Wangyal Rinpocze
The shadow and the sun,my experiment with lucid dreaming- Ken Keltzer
Conversations with God- Neale Walsch
How to heal your life with Sex - Jack(still to come:)

India! What’s it like!? Tell us more.

I too would recommend THU, it certainly does open your mind.

I’ve read this book twice now and I still find it truely amazing: Ultimate Journey by Robert Monroe (btw has anyone else read this book?).

I’ll also include “Waking Up” by Charles Tart but I find it quite complicated and it was written back in 1990 I think; didn’t finish it yet but it brought up so many interesting things I’ve always been wondering about.

Yeah I heard the conversions with God book is very good (recommended by an athiest… go figure)

Malcolm Godwin - The Lucid Dreamer : this book changed my life forever.

Robert Bruce - Astral Dynamics : well-known book about astral projection, obe and the correlation with lucid dreams.

Amaury de Riencourt - The Eye of Shiva : gave me a good understanding about the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western philosophies and how these two entities arose from the ancient magical and shamanic traditions thousands of years ago.

Hmmm… I’ll have to look into Astral Dynamics.
VURT
I have the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep but I have yet to read it.
VURT
I rather liked The Art of Dreaming by Casteneda
VURT

Well, im back from India - it was really good, saw heaps of relatives and all…

I got quite a few books, i tried to look for the ones people reccomended though I only found a few of them:

Deterring Democracy - Noam Chomsky
Island - Aldous Huxley
Greetings Carbon-Based Bipeds - Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood’s End - Arthur C. Clarke
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Valkyries - Paulo Coelho
The Fifth Mountain - Paulo Coelho
Sophie’s World - Jostein Gaarder
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
The Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan
Broca’s Brain - Carl Sagan
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Freedom at Midnight - Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
The man with the golden gun - Ian Fleming
1984 - George Orwell
Illusions - Richard Bach

And some others that are comming in the parcel… :content:

Will keep me busy for a couple of years :grin:

Thank-you for your reccomendations

~ceavou~

A lot of the books one the list are really good… Although I haven’t yet read that particular book by Chomsky I have read others and a number of essays and articles… www.zmag.org is a good place to find recent essays he’s written… But I bet you already knew that. :smile:

I think I read one of his books… it was called something like ‘Valerie decides to die’ … I really liked it cause I had experiences in the past which were quite similar.

Hehe, I think I got to agree to Vurtboy… uhm, Lostboy :alien:

If you like Herman Hesse, you should try “Steppenwolf”

Yeah fabi, I visit that site regularly. :content:

I’ll definetley check Steppenwolf out traumgänger :wink: