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Aeriq
Social climber
Location: It's a MisterE
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Agreed that there is a lot of fluff in the list.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is the biggest oversight, IMO.
Also:
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Narcissus and Goldman by Herman Hesse
Unseen Rain by Rumi
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Also, Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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“People buy books thinking they will have time to read them”
Warren Zevon.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Crap list. Some great stuff in there, and all probably worth reading, but the one hundred YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE?! Crap.
Unless I missed it, here's one:
Cadillac Desert by Mark Reisner. Ten years of research, beautifully written. A screamin' classic. And you learn shiz, too.
I'm also a huge fan of Lopez's Arctic Dreams.
Fiction? I'm with a poster up stream: Crime and Punishment for sure should be on that list but ain't.
To have such a list but then put in multiples of pop fiction from Rowling is ridiculous. Yeah, just a crap marketing ploy.
BAd
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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So if I don't read these books I will not die?
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Mike Honcho
Trad climber
Glenwood Springs, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2018 - 07:40am PT
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I think that SuperTopo is the wrong forum for this topic.
This is actually perfect for me, and exactly the response I was hoping for. I'm a massive reader and I thought this was a rather sh#t list as most here think. I just stumbled across it and was wondering what the Taco Headz thought.
Caylor
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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de gustibus non est disputandum.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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I would include Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawrence and Gravities' Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Some that I would prioritize on my list:
All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch by Solzhenitsyn
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
Journey Into Love by Kani Comstock
Positive Discipline by Jane Nelsen
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Nic
Trad climber
Cornwall
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Find "The Way of the Transgressor" by Negley Farson if you can. That chap lived one hell of a life.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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I've been thinking about this more, and I'm a bit disturbed by the lack of a premise: books to read before dying, but to what end?
Books for mindless distraction? Books for erudition? Books for building compassion and empathy and deeper understanding of humanity? If we don't know where we are going, any road will take us there. And as a corollary, by defining a list of books to read in one's life, one is implicitly defining a purpose for life and what one values.
While I may enjoy a lot of mindless reading, even some stuff from Tom Clancy, it wouldn't make the list that I see as shaping my values and the meaning I have decided to derive from my own or our collective existence. I think that is why I bristle a bit at some of the titles on that list like the Harry Potter series.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
Book of Five Rings - Miyamoto Musashi
Narrow Road to the Interior - Matsumoto Basho
On The Loose - Renny and Terry Russell
The Essential Rumi - Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī
The Gift - Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāz
In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World's First Prophet - Paul Kriwaczek
Journey to Ixtlan - Carlos Castaneda
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Oh, come on. Give me a list of your top 100 anything, and I'll be able to find all kinds of fault in it. Just as you would find in my top-hundred list.
Top hundred books? Hundred best finger cracks? Best restaurants in the US? One hundred reasons why offwidths suck? Best movies of all time? The world's best guitarists?
Of course the list is wrong -- because I didn't write it. But wait... if I wrote it, _you_ would find it wrong.
But the discussion that can grow out of lists like this can be interesting. And useful.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Well, including Camus rather than Proust is debatable but Harry Bleeding Potter at #5 rather than either of those guys? 😳
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Ha! That’s why I wouldn’t include my current book by Benoit Mandelbrot.
It’s edificious and entertaining, but only to a select few crankloons.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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7 habits? Really NutAgain? Guess it goes to your question about 'to what end'...
I'm somewhat partial to A Climber's Guide to the Sonora Pass Highway, Young/Dawson.
But even that takes second fiddle to Yosemite Climbs; Free Climbs, by Reid.
However, I just read climbing guides for the articles. ;)
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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A book that does both learning and entertainment at a high level is a worthwhile read
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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What a weird, flawed list both in it’s inclusions and exclusions.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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No Germans except Hesse
?
Kafka (Czechoslovakia)
Mann
Hitler (Austria)
Grass (Poland)
Gotta read
The Art of War, Sun Tzu
and
The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz
BTW Trump couldn't read the first, he fell asleep, and didn't write the second.
A Clockwork Orange
The Tin Drum
The Stranger
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Frankenstein
Sometimes a Great Notion
Tarantula
The Grapes of Wrath
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1984
The Metamorphosis
On the Road
Cat's Cradle
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Lonesome Dove
Fundamental Algorithms
Naked Lunch
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