,

Best Books To Frame Thinking

Books from various genres that help shape and contour how to conceive reality in the 21st Century.
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3.99 avg rating — 3,879,217 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 410,148 ratings
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3.99 avg rating — 1,853,609 ratings
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5

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4.37 avg rating — 712,508 ratings
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6

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4.36 avg rating — 1,025,990 ratings
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7

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4.18 avg rating — 497,565 ratings
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8

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4.01 avg rating — 850,802 ratings
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9

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4.19 avg rating — 785,389 ratings
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10

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4.15 avg rating — 178,190 ratings
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11

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4.08 avg rating — 243,491 ratings
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12

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4.07 avg rating — 770,492 ratings
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13

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4.21 avg rating — 385,775 ratings
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14

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4.27 avg rating — 902,675 ratings
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15

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4.01 avg rating — 114,492 ratings
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16

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3.84 avg rating — 337,265 ratings
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17

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3.69 avg rating — 2,901,793 ratings
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18

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3.94 avg rating — 37,569 ratings
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19

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3.65 avg rating — 191,345 ratings
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20

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4.21 avg rating — 249,839 ratings
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21

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4.21 avg rating — 56,142 ratings
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22

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4.12 avg rating — 1,532,432 ratings
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23

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4.37 avg rating — 11,604 ratings
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24

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4.02 avg rating — 1,092,160 ratings
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25

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3.97 avg rating — 2,414,254 ratings
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26

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3.96 avg rating — 325,161 ratings
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27

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4.05 avg rating — 24,844 ratings
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28

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4.21 avg rating — 22,036 ratings
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29

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4.13 avg rating — 185,287 ratings
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30

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3.87 avg rating — 1,595,748 ratings
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31

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3.85 avg rating — 75,938 ratings
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32

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4.44 avg rating — 292,335 ratings
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33

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3.78 avg rating — 189,089 ratings
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34

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4.16 avg rating — 28,318 ratings
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35

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4.12 avg rating — 123,793 ratings
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36

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4.29 avg rating — 73,421 ratings
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37

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4.37 avg rating — 331,871 ratings
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38

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4.35 avg rating — 412,141 ratings
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39

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4.29 avg rating — 49,337 ratings
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40

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4.03 avg rating — 27,263 ratings
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41

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4.18 avg rating — 204,058 ratings
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42

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3.93 avg rating — 71,296 ratings
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43

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 131,336 ratings
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44

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4.27 avg rating — 47,699 ratings
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45

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3.90 avg rating — 267,910 ratings
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46

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3.75 avg rating — 205,616 ratings
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47

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 711,565 ratings
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48

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3.81 avg rating — 70,104 ratings
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49

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4.22 avg rating — 154,123 ratings
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50

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4.10 avg rating — 70,527 ratings
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51

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4.16 avg rating — 327,826 ratings
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52

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4.22 avg rating — 57,348 ratings
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53

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3.99 avg rating — 20,417 ratings
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54

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4.16 avg rating — 739,662 ratings
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55

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3.85 avg rating — 16,279 ratings
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56

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4.08 avg rating — 97,838 ratings
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57

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4.11 avg rating — 25,284 ratings
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58

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4.15 avg rating — 25,719 ratings
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59

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4.10 avg rating — 51,401 ratings
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60

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4.09 avg rating — 39,512 ratings
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61

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 14,461 ratings
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62

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4.18 avg rating — 5,332 ratings
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63

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4.03 avg rating — 20,535 ratings
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64

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 813,929 ratings
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65

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4.72 avg rating — 7,475 ratings
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66

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4.05 avg rating — 86,975 ratings
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67

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4.35 avg rating — 41,384 ratings
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68

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4.30 avg rating — 34,457 ratings
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69

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4.42 avg rating — 8,839 ratings
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70

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3.86 avg rating — 34,872 ratings
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71

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3.74 avg rating — 8,064 ratings
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72

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4.17 avg rating — 19,719 ratings
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73

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4.19 avg rating — 6,725 ratings
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74

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4.07 avg rating — 115,945 ratings
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75

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4.08 avg rating — 49,822 ratings
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76

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3.69 avg rating — 101,772 ratings
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77

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3.94 avg rating — 17,042 ratings
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78

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4.09 avg rating — 24,408 ratings
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79

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3.96 avg rating — 106,261 ratings
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80

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4.01 avg rating — 120,590 ratings
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81

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3.84 avg rating — 73,857 ratings
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82

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4.03 avg rating — 6,855 ratings
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83

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3.93 avg rating — 221,908 ratings
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84

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3.96 avg rating — 591,880 ratings
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85

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4.06 avg rating — 5,642 ratings
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86

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4.13 avg rating — 6,742 ratings
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87

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4.16 avg rating — 2,286 ratings
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88

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4.52 avg rating — 107,992 ratings
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89

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4.11 avg rating — 34,263 ratings
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90

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4.22 avg rating — 978,296 ratings
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91

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4.04 avg rating — 1,698 ratings
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92

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3.71 avg rating — 13,768 ratings
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93

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4.06 avg rating — 1,978 ratings
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94

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4.17 avg rating — 41,587 ratings
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94

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3.96 avg rating — 259,226 ratings
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96

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3.88 avg rating — 6,503 ratings
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97

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3.59 avg rating — 3,188 ratings
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98

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4.08 avg rating — 434,885 ratings
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99

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3.88 avg rating — 4,958 ratings
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100

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3.97 avg rating — 50,021 ratings
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1,245 books · 1,470 voters · list created August 14th, 2010 by Charles (votes) .
41 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Charles 25703 books
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Tara 688 books
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Tyler Knowlton 445 books
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Jenny 323 books
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Janet 169 books
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Jacob 1816 books
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Joe 602 books
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Steve 361 books
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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 02:39PM) (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 01:50PM) (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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