Non-fiction book that's had the biggest impact on you
 

There's been a few threads about this kind of thing in terms of novels but none, as far as I know, on non-fiction. I'm just curious.

Books on UFOs mostly.

Easy. Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi.

It's a true story written after an Egyptian psychologist (Saadawi) visited a prison to examine the mental health of a former prostitute who is about to be put to death for the murder of her former pimp. Despite being granted parole, she chooses to be put to death by the state as a final act of resistance. Just before her execution she breaks her silence and tells Saadawi her life story in its entirety.

Some real powerful shit. I would recommended this book to anybody interesting. It's a quick read and incredibly life changing.

this is a good question, and it's going to take me ages to think of the answer.

the beauty myth by naomi wolf.

Good question. Off the top of my head I'd say:
Memories, Dreams, and Reflections-Jung
Sister Outsider-Lorde
Whatever stuff introduced me to Marxist theory.
Life Inc-Rushkoff

I can't wait for woman at point zero to be back in print again. I've been waiting for that one.

I've read a lot of non-fiction that has influenced me but it's hard to say which has most. Speaking independently of what I think of it now, I believe Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason had the most impact.

It's also one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy, though, so it's not all that novel.

tropic of capricorn

Everything written by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Cervetto literally shaped the way I think. Not in a dogmatic way, and not necessarily in terms of politics.

I was reading about him recently and ended up looking for some of his articles but none seem to have been translated. Italian Marxism is definitely one the most interesting, I think. They need to make more of it available.

This is a great thread idea. I read mostly non-fiction work

I would say personally, the ones that most affected me is

What Do You Care What Other People Think? - Richard P Feynman



Fates Worse Than Death - Kurt Vonnegut



and

Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science & Technology - Isaac Asimov

I'll check if the Marxist Centre of Studies in Cambridge have translated any of his texts in English. I imagine he's been translated by them since they have the monopoly of all Marxist translations in several languages.

This is one of the most specular pieces of work I have ever read. I cannot even begin to describe how transformational it has been in my life. So many of my philosophies on life have been borrowed from this.

Re-reading Lorde's ideas about righteous anger for a class last semester was what made me decide to publish a zine.


You can still get it here - http://www.amazon.com/Woman-at-Point...8500485&sr=8-1 :D




Oh, and another favorite read would have to be R.D. Laing's Politics of Experience. Anybody familiar with Laing's work?

Thanks. I just checked and it does seem as though a few of his articles have been translated into English. It doesn't say by who though. The only person widely translated it seems is Antonio Negri, who's a different thing entirely.


Yeah, I'm really interested in Laing, and the whole Anti-Psychiatry movement in general. Have you read The Divided Self? Another really interesting one.

Demonrail - I actually initially majored in psychology because my goal was to somehow work in the anti-psychiatry field. I wanted to do human rights law or community organizing. The college I went to had a strong humanistic psychology program and even offered a Laing seminar. I am somewhat involved with the Icarus Project - some stuff I did is being sold this weekend at their fundraiser in NYC. Are you familiar with the Icarus Project? They are less political and more discussion/outreach based.

I've never read The Divided Self specifically but my gf/many of my other friends have. My gf did some very intensive independent work on his material. I never got as involved because the professor who was an expert on his work started hating me after she found out that I was reading Foucualt. She was hyper-critical about anything remotely post-modern and distributed by Foucault's proposal of our notions of the soul being something that is construction. I'm pretty sure that she read his work as claiming that there is no such thing as a soul which is inaccurate. Laing apparently tried to approach Foucault because he felt their work was similar (analysises of madness and such) but Foucault claimed that they were nothing alike.

Anywho, if I go back to grad school for something academic, I want to study the intersections between science, normalization, micropolitics and gender. How pretentious is that?

I just looked up the Icarus Project and it does seem really interesting.

I think there were definitely similarities between Foucault's and Laing's positions. In many ways I think they were French and British equivalents of one another - at least with regards issues of mental illness. Guattari is the other really fascinating one, I think. He tends to get a bit sidelined by some people, who seem to see him as little more than Robin to Deleuze's Batman, but the stuff he wrote by himself on the anti-psychiatry movement is quite brilliant.

reading nietzsche was the best mental laxative ever-- beyond good and evil in particular. he's got my eternal gratitude (no, that's not some obscure pun).

Beautiful.


Oh wait, you said NON-fiction?

still beautiful, nonetheless

i hate her moron llama face

moronic, possibly. can't say i'm getting the llama thing though.

bitch has a kinda snout. it's subtle, but it's there, and it comes into focus when you are aware of the stupidity of her little brain.

as a child:

Show Me!: A Picture Bok of Sex for Children and Parents





as an adult:

The End of Architecture?: Documents and Manifestos : Vienna Architecture Conference

moronic realism, maybe?

honestly, though... as adult it's still mostly that first book...

as I don't read much non-fiction, I had to spend a long time thinking about this.

10 years ago, I read this:


10 years later, I fear my constant rantings about it on the internet may have caused a backlash.

I'm sorry people, all of the seats are taken.

i only hope you're careful where you read it

I'm required to read "An Inconvenient Truth" over my Thanksgiving break. It's sure to be a winner!

I'm going to admit my shallowness and say Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain.

i love legs' book about the porno industry, "the other hollywood"

9/10 books I read are non-fiction. So I have no fucking idea.

for the record: if anyone here claims "the bible" as a non-fiction book, they'll get a slap from me for the crime of functional illiteracy.

yeah. that might not be THE one for me, but it's definitely up there.

The Perfect Victim by christine mcguire
The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion by richard dawkins

I hesitate posting here because I figure I should be able to come up with expressions on how they impacted me to be able to properly say they impacted me at all rather than just limply list names, but I cant really find the words right now, all I know is that they did.

Yes, there are certainly many similarities. A major difference is the way in which they conduct their research - Foucault, of course, is all about histories, discovering how systems came to be a transform, how power is created etc. whereas Laing focuses primarily on lived in experiences. In some ways, I think that they both really complement each other.

I have never read Guattari. Which of his works would you recommended?

Oh, here's another one - Theater and It's Double

happily suprised to see laing mentioned. bought the divided self in a charity shop on a whim and started reading it on the way home on the train. had a moment of terrifying epiphany. when i was an inpatient i was disappointed that none of the staff had read him. it was my impression that he has been basically ignored by the contemporary mental health service so it's encouraging to see some people are still studying him. there is a channel 4 documentary on him in his later years, i had a torrent of it once, he demonstrates a few techniques that didn't impress me and made me wonder how much fidelity he still held to his 60's ideals at that point. there is also the film asylum which is a documentary filmed in one of his experimental communes were the doctors and patients lived amongst each other. anyway since the divided self and politics of experience have already been mentioned i'll choose sanity madness and the family. its essential laing. one of the most unsettling and disturbing books i've ever read. there are about 10 families who each get a chapter comprised of interviews and historys of the child that has been having the problems. what you are basically reading are accounts of families mystifying thier kids into pyschosis. The kid is being manipulated into having to deny thier own perceptions of reality as false. the parents seem only to dimly realise what they are doing. If you haven't already read it you should definitly pick it up demonrail.

The Bible.

If it wasn't incredibly apparent. It bleeds through into most of my posts.