Posted on 05/01/2018 3:18:41 PM PDT by Simon Green
Here's one that definitely influenced me: "Red Planet" by Robert A. Heinlein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Planet_(novel)
It's the first novel I can recall reading, around age 8 or so. It was the start of a lifelong love of speculative fiction, and Heinlein's Libertarian(ish) philosophy certainly put its imprint on me.
(The main chsracter's father discusses getting a pistol permit for his daughter. The grandfather chimes in:)
"That a free citizen should have to go before a committee, hat in hand, and pray for permission to bear arms - fantastic! Arm your daughter, sir, and pay no attention to petty bureaucrats."
Richard’s Topical Encyclopedia: a fifteen volume set from the 1950’s that grouped subjects together instead of alphabetically. It formed the basis for all my learning until I was an adult.
Northwest Passage: began my lifelong love affair with early American history, particularly the French & Indian War.
Arundel: made me realize that my emotions about the girls were as timeless as they are universal.
The Fountainhead: creativity comes from hard work.
Many books have influenced me over the years, but one of the first I recall which had an impact on me was “Prayer Can Change Your Life: Experiments and Techniques in Prayer Therapy” written in 1957. I still have it, too.
How To Win Friends and Influence People
I taught that book to high school juniors for 20 years. Would you care to share more of how it impacted you?
The Roy Clark Big Note Songbook.
Actually the Bible and Atlas Shrugged, and a book on Compass (the assembly language of Control Data mainframes).
ping
You’re welcome.
Robert Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”
The story is interesting enough but the two chapters titled “Intermission, Excerpts From The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” are collections of pithy sayings that are priceless.
The aggregate of the thousands of books I have read over my lifetime have had some serious accumulative impacts though....
Franz Kafka, The Trial.
That’s the one.
The Bible, Atlas Shrugged, and The Structure of Scientific Revolution
Bkmk
Bible and 2 anchor verses Joshua 1:9 and Isiah 41:10.
As long as it showed me how to fix my ride so I could get to college/work/the bar, etc. I played no favorites. As for the Glock/1911 thing,I’ve owned both, and it’s apples and oranges. (Ducking)
CC
My current acupuncturist, who not only cured me of severe physical pain (sciatica--herniated intervertebral disc) in a matter of days but helped me reach more profound levels of spiritual evolvement, which is the true purpose of acupuncture, is a disciple of Yogananda. He is also profoundly Christian.
I debated answering FORTRAN for Humans versus the DEC10 BASIC manual, but I think FORTRAN was a better tool for starting. It made programming economics curves and simulations simpler than the spaghetti code of BASIC and handled variables and subroutines in the proper way. I still have that book and McCraken in a box somewhere.
“Camp of the Saints”.
It put it all into perspective, the war of annihilation being silently waged against my Nation and culture.
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