,

Best Books To Frame Thinking

Books from various genres that help shape and contour how to conceive reality in the 21st Century.
1

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3.99 avg rating — 4,075,098 ratings
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3

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4.04 avg rating — 425,612 ratings
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3.99 avg rating — 1,925,867 ratings
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5

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4.37 avg rating — 764,244 ratings
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6

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4.35 avg rating — 1,103,552 ratings
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7

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4.18 avg rating — 526,968 ratings
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8

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4.01 avg rating — 866,774 ratings
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9

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4.19 avg rating — 814,183 ratings
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10

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4.16 avg rating — 183,137 ratings
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11

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4.08 avg rating — 250,302 ratings
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12

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4.07 avg rating — 803,720 ratings
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13

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4.27 avg rating — 953,251 ratings
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14

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4.22 avg rating — 398,386 ratings
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15

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3.84 avg rating — 351,911 ratings
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16

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4.01 avg rating — 117,095 ratings
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17

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3.70 avg rating — 2,997,877 ratings
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18

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3.94 avg rating — 38,116 ratings
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19

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3.65 avg rating — 193,260 ratings
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20

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4.20 avg rating — 263,232 ratings
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21

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4.13 avg rating — 1,638,680 ratings
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22

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4.20 avg rating — 59,308 ratings
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23

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4.37 avg rating — 11,747 ratings
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24

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4.03 avg rating — 1,186,149 ratings
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25

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3.96 avg rating — 2,538,812 ratings
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26

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3.95 avg rating — 348,789 ratings
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27

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4.05 avg rating — 25,742 ratings
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28

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3.86 avg rating — 128,494 ratings
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29

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4.21 avg rating — 23,534 ratings
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30

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4.13 avg rating — 194,816 ratings
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31

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4.44 avg rating — 298,506 ratings
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32

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3.88 avg rating — 1,676,486 ratings
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33

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3.78 avg rating — 194,324 ratings
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34

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4.16 avg rating — 28,747 ratings
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35

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4.29 avg rating — 75,490 ratings
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36

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4.36 avg rating — 431,935 ratings
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37

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4.37 avg rating — 346,207 ratings
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38

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4.12 avg rating — 126,386 ratings
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39

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4.03 avg rating — 28,056 ratings
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40

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4.30 avg rating — 50,361 ratings
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41

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4.18 avg rating — 206,783 ratings
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42

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3.93 avg rating — 72,527 ratings
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43

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4.28 avg rating — 49,426 ratings
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44

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 732,418 ratings
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45

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 132,567 ratings
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46

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3.90 avg rating — 273,145 ratings
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47

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3.75 avg rating — 206,325 ratings
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48

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4.22 avg rating — 59,962 ratings
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49

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4.22 avg rating — 161,578 ratings
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50

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4.16 avg rating — 340,713 ratings
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51

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3.81 avg rating — 72,792 ratings
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52

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3.99 avg rating — 20,630 ratings
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53

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4.11 avg rating — 72,114 ratings
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54

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4.16 avg rating — 767,883 ratings
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55

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4.12 avg rating — 26,729 ratings
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56

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3.84 avg rating — 16,909 ratings
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57

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4.09 avg rating — 40,225 ratings
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58

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4.08 avg rating — 99,564 ratings
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59

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4.16 avg rating — 26,494 ratings
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60

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4.10 avg rating — 53,586 ratings
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61

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 15,058 ratings
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62

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4.18 avg rating — 5,501 ratings
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63

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4.02 avg rating — 21,425 ratings
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64

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4.34 avg rating — 46,297 ratings
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65

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 827,747 ratings
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66

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4.72 avg rating — 7,835 ratings
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67

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4.05 avg rating — 89,742 ratings
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68

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4.30 avg rating — 35,965 ratings
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69

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4.41 avg rating — 9,123 ratings
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70

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3.86 avg rating — 35,342 ratings
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71

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3.84 avg rating — 76,214 ratings
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72

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4.01 avg rating — 124,106 ratings
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73

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3.74 avg rating — 8,231 ratings
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74

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4.17 avg rating — 20,322 ratings
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75

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4.19 avg rating — 6,928 ratings
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76

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4.07 avg rating — 117,455 ratings
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77

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4.08 avg rating — 52,875 ratings
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78

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3.69 avg rating — 102,125 ratings
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79

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3.94 avg rating — 17,805 ratings
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80

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4.09 avg rating — 24,716 ratings
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81

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3.96 avg rating — 108,432 ratings
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82

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4.03 avg rating — 6,990 ratings
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83

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3.92 avg rating — 238,584 ratings
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84

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3.96 avg rating — 603,219 ratings
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85

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4.05 avg rating — 6,007 ratings
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86

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4.13 avg rating — 6,874 ratings
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87

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4.16 avg rating — 2,319 ratings
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88

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4.52 avg rating — 111,309 ratings
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89

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4.22 avg rating — 1,039,346 ratings
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90

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4.11 avg rating — 36,287 ratings
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91

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4.04 avg rating — 1,711 ratings
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92

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4.08 avg rating — 449,829 ratings
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93

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3.71 avg rating — 13,841 ratings
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94

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4.06 avg rating — 2,046 ratings
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95

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4.17 avg rating — 43,565 ratings
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95

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3.96 avg rating — 267,023 ratings
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97

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3.88 avg rating — 6,728 ratings
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98

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3.60 avg rating — 3,311 ratings
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99

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3.88 avg rating — 5,122 ratings
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100

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3.89 avg rating — 31,865 ratings
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1,250 books · 1,471 voters · list created August 14th, 2010 by Charles (votes) .
60 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Charles 25816 books
3681 friends
Tara 701 books
63 friends
Tyler Knowlton 432 books
107 friends
Jenny 321 books
69 friends
Janet 182 books
62 friends
Jacob 1869 books
41 friends
Joe 623 books
260 friends
Steve 383 books
216 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-18 of 18 (18 new)

dateDown arrow    newest »

message 1: by Charles (new)

Charles Thanks to everybody who has added on to this!

~Charles


message 2: by Leo (new)

Leo Walsh Excellent. I've read all of the top twenty five save the exact Chomsky titles (though I've read plenty of his work, and his key points tend to be stable), "Green Illusions," and "Hot Flat and Crowded" -- though I confess that I started the book, but never finished. Not sure why...


message 3: by Lacewing (new)

Lacewing Great list! Thank you, Charles, for starting it and everyone else for building it up. I'm tempted to put every one of 'em on my to-read list, except for the mere half dozen or so I've read.


message 4: by Charles (new)

Charles Leo wrote: "Excellent. I've read all of the top twenty five save the exact Chomsky titles (though I've read plenty of his work, and his key points tend to be stable), "Green Illusions," and "Hot Flat and Crowd..."

So what would it look like for these top titles to actually shape the thinking of leaders?


message 5: by Charles (new)

Charles Lacewing wrote: "Great list! Thank you, Charles, for starting it and everyone else for building it up. I'm tempted to put every one of 'em on my to-read list, except for the mere half dozen or so I've read."

You are welcome! How are you coming on the reading?


message 6: by Aurora (new)

Aurora Maybe add Nassim Taleb's Black Swan as a complement to the Structure of Scientific Revolutions?


message 7: by Maria (new)

Maria Fantastic list. I've added a few of these to my To Read list.


message 8: by Alisha (new)

Alisha Awesome list!! Thanks for creating it. Definitely reading some of these for my 2016 reading challenge :)


message 9: by Vincent (new)

Vincent Noel Too much Pinker, but this is a f*ing good list


message 10: by Sid (new)

Sid S Great list! I think I'll contribute a few books to this list too.


message 11: by Victor (new)

Victor Gotta say, this is the best list I've ever seen on the goodreads. Thank you


message 12: by Parker (new)

Parker commenting so I can remember where this list is


message 13: by Doodle (new)

Doodle Fascinating List. Thank you


message 14: by Alex (new)

Alex Great list!


message 15: by Anish (new)

Anish Sinha Such a great list!


message 16: by Valerie (new)

Valerie Brett This is like, ALL white men


message 17: by Yinzadi (last edited Jul 18, 2018 06:39AM) (new)

Yinzadi Valerie wrote: "This is like, ALL white men"

If for some reason you don't want to read European authors, just in the top 100: Jared Diamond, Naomi Klein, Viktor Frankl, Howard Zinn, Daniel Kahneman, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Sigmund Freud, Christopher Hitchens, Saul Alinsky, Yuval Noah Harari, Franz Kafka, Douglas Hofstadter, Carl Sagan, Thomas Kuhn, Jared Diamond, M. Scott Peck, Dan Ariely, David Graeber, Charles Murray, William Deresiewicz, Steven Levitt, Thomas Friedman, Jonathan Haidt, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Jonathan Safran Foer are Jewish (plus the Bible, obviously), Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Daron Acemoğlu, and Edward Said are also Near Eastern but not Jewish, Malcolm Gladwell, Paulo Freire, and Gustavo Gutierrez are Hispanic, Mohandas Gandhi is Indian, and Martin Luther King, Jr. is African.

It seems like much more of a Judeocentric than a Eurocentric list to me, but I agree that it's totally androcentric.


message 18: by hami (last edited Nov 19, 2018 05:50AM) (new)

hami It is still mostly white men.
and one Nazi person (Martin Heidegger)

The list is so race-blind that I am guessing the author probably thought Gandhi and Martin Luther King ,Jr are also white.


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