Top 5 Books that have changed your life.

Changed my life is a bit hyperbolic(for me), but here are 5 books that had a profound impact on me.

1. The Grapes Of Wrath
2. All the Light We Cannot See
3. The Orphan Master's Son
4. Ghost Soldiers
5. To Kill a Mockingbird

Philosophy: Who Needs It by Ayn Rand
The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox
Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet and Stephen R. Covey

Awareness Anthony De Mello
Mere Christianity CS Lewis
Alcoholics Anonymous
The old man and the boy Robert Ruark
Huck Finn Mark Twain

Same caveats about not being truly life-altering, but impactful

- Winds of War/War and Remembrance - Has spawned years of WWII and Holocaust reading for me. I love all of the storylines. But for example, the saga of Aaron Jastrow, built up over nearly 2000 pages and concluded in more or less a paragraph, has stayed with me for a long time.

- New York and Paris by Edward Rutherford - Sweeping historical fiction covering hundreds of years. Every time I'm in either city both books are in the back of my mind all the time. When I think of parts of the cities I think of parts of the books.

- Jawbreaker (Gary Berntsen) Ghost Wars (Steve Coll) - More or less combined to set me off on a decade obsession with counterterrorism for me had some impacts on some of my early career moves.

- All Too Human by George Stephanopoulos - High school me loved this book and led me down a lot of political paths. Probably started a path that took me to DC and doing some campaign stuff. Of course, now I loathe George and the idea of modern political campaigns, but there was objectively more appeal to it in those days, I think.

1. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
2. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castenada
3. The Golden Spiders by Rex Stout
4. The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo
5. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

quote:

---

If so it’s hard to conceive how far afield we are from that point in time politically. Growing up with DNC higher ups from that era I still don’t understand how that generation of politicians gave us the modern progressive.

Went from hunting and fishing with moderate Democrats to 50 genders, socialism and gun control in one generation.

---

That generation of Democrats abandoned the ideals of the Democratic Party of FDR, JFK, and RFK. They sold out the working class to rub elbows with the wealthy elites. Yes, I know the Kennedy's were a wealthy family, but they were also sympathetic to the working class. Shortly before he was assassinated, Robert Kennedy was meeting with Cesar Chavez to help migrant farmers organize in California for better working conditions.

And for all intents and purposes, Joe Biden isn't very far away from Bill Clinton ideologically. There's always been an underbelly of social issue fighters within the democratic party, but they've definitely gotten more vocal and more prevalent in recent years.

Excluding the obvious (Bible)

1. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
2. A Soldier of the Great War - Mark Helprin
3. Who Says Elephants Can't Dance - Lou Gerstner
4. The 5 Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz
5. The Goal - Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Just wanted to tag this to remember this.

Some good suggestions.

Tagging to remember also