Books that have made a difference to me

Last modified: Tue Nov 26 11:51:05 1996

I have really gotten into this list...pretty crazy. It tells you a whole lot about myself. The books whose names are first in each paragraph are the ones that are most important, and the ones that are mentioned within the descriptions are important but not the most important. It's hard to know whether they seem "important" because of who I was or what the book was, and I can't claim to really know. Remember, though, that lists of great books are about the one writing them, not the books. If it ain't right for you, none of these books would do you any good! Only in context of your life, and only if they fit! This list is about my life. It's not an objective thing, neither are books.

Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacker. I read this my freshman year in high-school. Can't remember what was in it (a common problem for me) but I kind of remember thinking "oh, duhh!", so it was one of those times when a book said some things that were on the tip of my tongue. Actually, now that I think of it, that's the case for every book on this list, and that's why they were important for me. Back in the day (Junior High? High School?) I thought the same about Gibran'sThe Prophet but now when I read it gosh, it seems nice but so simple -- feels uselessly simple although at one time it was so important. So maybe I won't say that about the rest of the books, but I'm sure it always applies and that's probably why they're here.Guide for the Perplexed was also a great book by E.F. A great framework.
Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich (also others by him) Gives the idea of an institutional spectrum, of which the "school" is perhaps the most vile because not only does it act to make everyone dependent on itself (the right on the spectrum) but also makes everyone dependent on all the other institutions, too. I think I read this at the end of high-school.
Summerhill by A. S. Neill (also read commentaries on it by Neill + others) is a book I read after my sophomore year in high-school, the perfect time for me. It talked about Neill's school in England, where students did not have to go to school. It introduced me to the need to let people be who they are, and only by encouraging them to be that will they grow from there... You can't change anybody, period, and if you try all you'll accomplish is to make them more rooted. Also, in general to the idea that real radical ideas aren't necesarily doomed to "too idealistic" for some bizarre reason. Finally, how important childraising is to people, and how responsible my ability to think now is based on my childhood. (some things are irreperable, some are partially reparable with lots of effort and love and luck)
Human Scale, Kirkpatrick Sale (haven't read his more recent book, Bioregional Vision but it might be a better choice?) From my sophomore year. I don't think I finished it (has anyone?) but it gave me some more ideas in the same direction as Schumacker's, that we weren't going to solve our problems unless we downsize.
Dumbing Us Down, John Taylor Gatto, esp the last chapter about having a diversity of approaches rather than mandating the right one. (Mandating the right thing sounds like it'd be perfect, but as he explains it doesn't work, whereas just living with those others works -- slowly.
Culture and Commitment, by Margaret Meade. The generation gap. Gives a framework within which to view the way the generations must treat each other. Her framkework can be tested on education (try it) and the results won't make you smile. Unless you are testing it on the Johnston Center.
The Adjusted American, Snell and Gail Putney. This introduced me to some of psychology, summer of 94. It helped me to see the reality that the only people who can really function are insane in various ways. Sanity drives you to real "insanity" -- being a wierdo! What to do though? I try to be myself when possible and when I have to be "adjusted" to be conscious of it.
Instead of Education, John Holt. This presents a bunch of ideas on how we could learn if we didn't waste our time in schools. For instance, everyone who wanted could wear a button that said they'd help you learn to read, and if you wanted to learn how to read a particular word or sentence you could ask these people for help.
If You Meet the Buddha on the Road,Kill Him I haven't read this book yet, but that doesn't matter, because I know from my mom's description that it's on the tip of my tongue! The idea is that no discipline reflects reality. You need lots of disciplines and frameworks, and after seeing things from many perspectives you have an improved (though not accurate) way to look at reality. But it comes from you, and from interacting with the world, not from those other perspectives as such (though they are part of what you're interacting with naturally) (Nov 27 95) -- I read it, and I was right in that description. Actually, I had no idea how much a relief this book would be. What it did for me was to be a companion as I integrated everything that is important to me and that I'm thinking about now -- psychology, education, spirituality, relationship, literature, community, homsteading, science. Perhaps most importantly, it helped me to realize how my life is spiritual, is connected, how what I am now learning and doing is not as pointless as I thougt. (but at the same time, acknowledging that everything is totally pointless -- get it?)
Living the Good Life Of course, Helen and Scott Nearing's book must be on this list. Just them having lived was enough to make me say "Oh, of course... just do it!" whereas previously I'd thought there must be some reason that prevented us from doing "it" (in this particular case, homesteading). Amazing to note, also, is that Scott was previously a big-time socialist who was kicked out of university posts; that we don't know his name for that is a testimony to the effectiveness of who chooses what is advertised/read-when-it's-chosen-for-us.
The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf, helped me to understand the totally psycho ways that so many women are kept from being themselves, and my role in it if I embarassingly may admit it.
A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn. When I took AP US History in High School (with Rick Lussen my junior year at NMH) this was one of our texts. It provided me with some painful realities about our society, our "free country". For a short and sweet read (50 pages ?) read Gore Vidal's Decline and Fall of the American Empire instead -- slightly different in that it's primarily about the future and the present rather than the past, and it's someone else's version, but the whole learning experience is about realizing who our fellow humans are, what they have become, and what they are willing to do to their brothers. Or Jack London'sWar of the Classes, also short and incredibly insightful about the class struggle. (actually though most people don't know it, Jack London was more a socialist than a novelist and wrote novels, stories, etc. to eat) These books are helpful tools if you ever open your eyes (or have), because they confirm that what you see is really there. It's not a dream. In a way, Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol also fits in this category. This book is about the incredibly insane way that racism happens in America, through looking at our schools. It's not just about racism, but more about people who are just misinformed about reality... people who might make ok janitors, but it's a mystery to me how they becamse the ones who decide what's right and what's wrong... Also Amazing Grace which is Kozol's latest book, about the children in Mott Haven, in the South Bronx. I haven't read it yet but will soon.
Bury My Heart at Wonded Knee, an Indian history of the American West, ie how it was lost not won, by Dee Brown -- deserves a line of its own. This is only one part of a country, but it makes me uniquely aware of how I am living on stolen land, makes me understand that the reason I can live so comfortably now is probably in large part because I turn my head to atrocities committed by my brothers against others of my brothers today. You can read the chapters, and they aren't very different. But just knowing one story isn't the same. Reading story after story, the same stories again and again, this is what makes it scare me and chill me to the bone.
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. I think this is the only book I've read in a class that is on this list. It is about faith, about the inherent contradictions in life... I don't necessarily think Dostoevsky had any answers (and certainly had a wrong answer in his notes from under the sewer) but it's interesting to feel him tear to bits your idea of one solid reality with liberty and justice for all...
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence by Robert Pirsig... a GREAT book, especially for my junior year in high school. I suspect it's be a little bit basic now, but it was just what I needed then. I even based a paper on education on this book (one of my first real documents on education). This paper can be found somewhere off my personal-part of the home-page (called "form" I think).
A Coney Island of the Mind, by fellow NMH didn't-finish (he got kicked out, I dropped out) Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was one of those early poetry books that somehow got through my fear of my own failure at poetry to say something to me, where I really felt something (and became a poet more or less soon afterward...) The other book was by Gary Snyder, The Outback I think. In the same period, I first read something by "Jack Carawak", On the Road, which helped me realize (and I've had to realize it again and again) that culture in the US is not homogenous, that I can live differently than my parents, that people really have said "whoa there is something ****** UP here!!!" Just reading one wasn't enough though... reading more of his books really made it feel real, as opposed to just a story. I didn't and don't have the same need for rebellion that a lot of me peers had, and so the books were different for me than them. In a way, I was building myself from a base of who I used to be rather than having to bust apart the old idea of who I was (I think). OF course, this did mean some of what I'd previoulsy thought was incomplete or god forbid not entirely accurate. Also, Off the Road which I read the summer after my first year at Hampshire, in the CU library in Boulder (couldn't check books out so I just read it there, went every morning!!). This brought the "stories" back down to real life in a more realistic way (where the shit wasn't ignored -- really, life rather than literature based on life).
Jealousy by Nancy Friday. What a whopper! This book was non-fiction but told as a combination of interviews, analyses, stories of Nancy F as she wondered about Jealousy (and related emotions). It gave me so many neat ideas about how to view past and present emotions (mine, but especially other folks) and started me thinking about my own psychological history in a deeper way, making me more aware of the incredible variety and complexity of feeling/experience that I'm always engaged in.
Carl Rogers anything by the man. He is the man. I've read Alternatives to Marriage, some of A Way of Being, some of Freedom to Learn for the 80s, some of Carl Rogers on Encounter Groups

Some books I intend to read

I came out of the Eighteenth Century by John Andrew Rice
The Education of the Individual by Alfred Adler
The Bible