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By request from @hyperstitional, this is a reading list of books that have influenced me. To be honest it makes me self-conscious, because I know that many of you have read more and more deeply than I have. Anyway, here are some texts that changed me, in the order I read them.
There are, as they say, many paths up the mountain. You might arrive at a very similar place to me through a very different route. Once you have certain insights, many writers who might have seemed profound will be mundane. For this reason I rarely recommend books to anyone.
Iâm not that well-read, I just have a hyperactive internal monologue that never shuts up about the kind of shit I write.
I think if you were to add up all the words I have read in my life, I have consumed more blogs and other informal online texts than published books.
Here goes
I think if you were to add up all the words I have read in my life, I have consumed more blogs and other informal online texts than published books.
Here goes
CS Lewis, that hideous strength. I didnât understand this at first so I read it several times. Itâs not really for 13 year olds. I read it much later and it was profound. A beautiful image of romantic love. Shows that the devil always breaks his tools.
Collected Short Stories of Isaac Asimov. The imagination blooms. There are very few ideas in contemporary Sci Fi that he didnât have first.
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace. I strongly identified with Hal Incandenza. I know thatâs wankery. An exploration of the toxicity of entertainment.
Gravityâs rainbow. Scrambled my brain. At once bawdy and paranoid and deeply poetic. Every writer of fiction must contend with Pynchon if they wish to have a meaningful voice in our modern era.
Illuminatus!, Robert Anton Wilson. Deeper into chaos. Sophomoric, donât read it if you are over 22 or so. Helps you to unlearn the habit of seeing patterns where none exist.
The Collected Fictions of Borges. The most beautiful thing I have ever read. Meditations on infinity, mirrors, labyrinths, tigers, identity, mythology, libraries, magic, dreams recursion.
The Selfish Gene, Dawkins. Understand the inexorable self interest at the last teleological core of all living organisms. Ignore the part at the end about game theory and tit for two tats. Lame tautological attempt at bootstrapping leftist morality.
The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom. This was a real inflection point for me. This book will teach you to be a more sophisticated thinker. It will help you understand the western canon and your place in relation to it.
Human, all too Human. Because of Allan bloom, I read Nietzsche, who is the single greatest influence on my thinking. His clarity, his coldness, his passion, his power.
The lesswrong sequences on words. I canât get on board with Eliezerâs politics, and I am sure there are better places to learn these ideas, but this is where I found them. https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Machine_in_the_Ghost#N._A_Human.27s_Guide_to_Words
Beyond Good and Evil. Grapple with the death of God. Hard to appreciate if you grew up without religion, or if you still have it. Nietzscheâs most important book in my opinion, though Zarathustra is more enjoyable.
Basically every word of unqualified reservations. Lots of half-formed ideas here and also a penetrating insight into the pathologies of the modern liberal state. http://moldbuggery.blogspot.com/2009/03/collected-writings-of-mencius-moldbug.html
The presentation of self in every day life. Irving Goffman. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1025738636250116097
The blog Xenosystems, Nick Land. Acceleration, horrorism, Hell-baked. The gradient of modernity into the technocapital singularity. The comment section is also critical, though asinine as often as brilliant. Dormant now. Why not start at the beginning? http://www.xenosystems.net
The writings of hp lovecraft. His work is nothing like the popular conception of it. Deeply alien, deeply alienating. A vision of a nightmare, outside humanity, against life and against the world.
