A reading list for the heart and the mind

Here is a list of some the more memorable books that I have read in the last few years. If you have not read any of these, I would heartily recommend them based on their insight, aesthetic value or what I would describe as "transformative potential". I have tried to rank these in the approximate order of their impact (most important first), but of course, this is rather subjective and others could come up with a very different ordering.

1.Demons by F.A. Dostoyevsky. I read this in the original, but here is an English translation that I would recommend to the American/English readers. Dostoyevsky's insights expressed in this book are almost too eerily prophetic for our times, providing an in-depth social and psychological portrait of a society that stands on the edge of uprooting its cultural and religious mores.

2.Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature by Erich Auerbach. An excellent and engaging overview of literary styles, their evolution through time and how style and meaning are connected - all with examples of seminal Western literary works.

Available on Amazon here.

3.Poetic Diction by Owen Barfield. A book that is sure to make you ponder and gain new appreciation for poetry and myth, but even more importantly, to look at poetic imagination as a source of inspiration and truth. In literary circles this book has almost a cult-like following, and deservedly so.

I think there are some free electronic versions floating around, but I actually bought on on Amazon here.

4.Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. An oldie, but a goodie - an excellent antidote to the pervading de-mythologization of the world and profanation of the sacred. I especially enjoyed chapter 4, "The Ethics of Elfland", which contains the following gem (to whet your appetite):

"Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales—because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost prenatal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water."

Available on Amazon and also there are free audio recordings on archive.org and YouTube.

5.Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri. A beautiful autobiographical love diary of one of the most amazing figures of the Rennaisance Europe. A kind of Augustinian "Confessions" but focused on the nature and workings of earthly love.

For myself, I had printed out this translation as I like to glance at the original Italian as I read the translation, but it is also available as a book on Amazon.

6.Poems by William Blake. Particularly, Songs of Innocence, but also Songs of Experience. There is no one like Blake for re-kindling imagination and a sense of wonder at the world around us, a spirit of gentleness that seems all but vanished in the crudities and vulgarity of modern life.

There are plenty of old editions on archive.org, all free to download. This is where I'd recommend getting this.

7.Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Taleb. A really innovative approach to uncertainty and what was more salient to me personally - the "rational wisdom". I do not like everything about Taleb, I think he comes across as a boor at times, but maybe it's a trick to sell more books. In any case, I do appreciate his insights.

Here is the book on Amazon.

8.The One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse. An unbelievably potent exposition of the erosion of the self that has been concomitant and correlated with the Industrial Revolution. The author does not tell you what to do, but he does describe the forces and trends that are perniciously deforming our sense of humanity (and reminding us what it means to be human in the first place). One of those books that you may not fully agree with but still glad you read it for wonderful new perspectives that it offers .

Lots of new and used copies on Amazon.

9.A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis . A delightful and quite readable assessment of Milton's great work, which I found highly engaging and thought-provoking, in short, - Lewis at his best. Did Milton paint Satan as heroic or as an ass? Did the author imagine angels as corporeal? How did Milton view hierarchies? All of that and more in this very readable book.

I found an electronic copy somewhere (possibly on Scribd?) but there are hard copies on Amazon as well.

10.Paradise Lost by John Milton. What's the point of reading a preface if you are not going to read the actual book? Actually, I have been reading Paradise Lost for some time now - savoring and enjoying every bit of it, a paragraph at a time. What a great, timeless work!

There are plenty of free electronic versions on archive.org and of course, Amazon will be happy to take your money.

11.The Wall Paintings of Thera by Christos Doumas. An amazingly well-illustrated book detailing the joyous and vibrant art of the peak of the Minoan art flourishing in Thera (modern day Santorini) - an island in the Aegean. Somehow looking at this art is like being immersed into the innocent joys of childhood. If you have not yet discovered Minoan art - you owe it to yourself to do so. So very uplifting!

This is unfortunately quite pricey on Amazon, I recommend checking at a local library (if you have access to a university library they are likely to have it).

12.Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman. A great book-vaccine for our technology-crazed society. This is probably not going to sit well with most steemians, but trust me - you want to be able to understand the hidden costs of innovation, not to prevent it, but to be able to counteract its undesirable effects. There is never a free lunch, and technological innovation always involves a trade-off. Postman helps you to understand the dynamics of how this plays out and what to do about it.

Available on... you guessed it - Amazon.

13.Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell. A good and hard look at the snobbery and outright delusion of the academic intelligentsia. If you want to know why there is a culture of "anti-rationalism" in the American heartland, this will give you some hints. Some of the thoughts from this book overlap with Taleb's notion of having "skin in the game". Well, I won't give away anything more :), read it for yourself!

Amazon link here.

14.The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development by Lewis Mumford. If you like anthropology, sociology or just plain curious about the interplay of human nature and technology (and who isn't?) - this is a great book by a great man. Incidentally, Mumford was not one of those pseudo intellectuals who shunned interaction with the practicalities of daily existence. The city of Portland, OR owes much of its charm to Mumford's genius and philosophy of urban planning - city as a community, city as a garden. Anyway, read the book, and you might get hooked!

I think there are some free electronic copies floating around on archive.org, and then there is Amazon.

15.In a New Light: Giovanni Bellini's "St. Francis in the Desert" by Susannah Rutherglen and Charlotte Hale. This is not necessarily "a classic" like most of the other books on this list, but it is a great read nonetheless - a compendium of the latest scholarship on this amazing artwork by Bellini (it is part of the permanent exhibit at the Frick Collection in New York City). As you learn about this particular artwork, you also get a revealing picture of medieval art and life in general. Beautifully illustrated with high-res photos of the main work and related art works.

As always, you can find it on Amazon.

16.The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. If you loved reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, you will probably enjoy this! A prequel to Tolkien's celebrated epic which describes the origin of the Middle Earth and the stories preceding the fateful discovery of the Ring.

Available at Barnes and Noble, suck on this, Amazon!