The Wannabe Polymath

As it is a bit of a thing right now, I will list the ten books that have stuck with me.

First and foremost: The Bible.  Before I get to the actual list, the Bible is above this list.  It has informed my thinking and defined myself and my world view more than anything.  But that is what religion does.  This list is about books.  But the Bible is not entirely disqualified either, because it is a book, The Book of Books, and I do in fact, read it every day and, literally, study it.  The Bible can, and should be, enjoyed for its literally qualities (if it is the King James Version or any translation of the Textus Receptus or the original) as well as for it’s historical merits.  I study and read it for all of this so it is on the list, but also off, because I want to list ten other books.

My top ten books and authors:

1. Plato  I am a Platonist.  I believe in the Forms and believe that wisdom is understanding of the Forms.  Plato’s theory of the Tripartite Soul is the most comprehensive and sensible of the theories of the soul out there.  Further, he’s able to use it to explain how a person should live his life and form his thinking.
2. Luo Guanzhong The Romance of Three Kingdoms   I learned alot from this book.  To oversimplify, the book is about contrasting loyalties and traditions.  (Who do you choose between family and friends?  Or an old tradition versus practicality?)  Not to mention the constant strategizing that makes up a bulk of the dialogue in the book.  It is a novel that will make you more intelligent.  Further, it was the first thing to get me interested in China.  At the time I had already studied Japanese, but this began my journey to China and Chinese.
3. Journey to the West
   This is a fun adventure story, pure and simple.  A monkey happens to get Daoist powers and become invincible and immortal.  What would an intelligent monkey do with those powers in heaven?  Tear up the place.  What follows is a war between a monkey and Buddhist and Daoist gods.  It’s crazy fun and that is just the beginning.
4. Ernie Pyle  I have read everything of Ernie Pyle’s.  I searched the antiquarian bookstores until I got all of his published books.  His stories of war stuck with me more than anything and influenced me in ways that I cannot describe.  I did wind up joining the Army.  So, he might have something to do with that.  At the same time, it was his writings that helped me come to peace with personal issues as well.
5. John Toland
   John Toland is the author of historical narratives about World War 2.  He wrote during the 1970s.  His books were my first encounter with this brand of writing history: Do extensive research and turn it into a 100% factual novel, right down to the dialogue being actual conversations, word for word.  His book The Rising Sun was a part of my introduction to The East.  Also, he deserves props for proving, in historical narrative, that 12/7 was an inside job.  He wrote Infamy which was the result of his research for The Rising Sun.  Through exhaustive research he found that Pearl Harbor was an act of deliberate negligence on the part of the US.  I got a first edition, my understanding is that later editions were censored and revised.
6. Homer  Homer is just one of those guys I keep going back to.  Namely, as an anchor for myself in Western Identity.
7. Shifra Horn, Shalom, Japan
   This book is the definition of a book that “stuck with me”.  I just keep thinking about it even after all these years.  There was nothing profound about it, but it has stuck with me.  It is the story of a woman who lived in Japan for a couple years.  It is one of those culture shock books, a book about being a stranger in a strange land.  It is another book that said to me, “Go East.”
8. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
   I read this as a kid.  Alot.  Maybe twenty times.  Yeah.
9. Sigmund Freud The Interpretation of Dreams
   I have never woke up a single day without a dream to tell since I read this book.  Freud might be screwed up about alot of things, but he cracked the Dream Code.  I wrote about three college papers on this books.  The very first paper I ever wrote was about The Interpretation of Dreams.
10. Fritz Springmeier, The Illuminati Formula to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Control Slave This book was what brought everything together for me.  When I first discovering that the world is controlled by elite forces I could not understand how they could do it.  This answers it: Mind Control.  Real, legitimate mind control.  Not propaganda, not television, total mind control.  After I read this, I could see it everywhere.  It is the way out of the cave.