MY TEN MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS

There is a move afoot for various people to put forward ten books that influenced their development. Below are mine although the first is actually a group of books which I can no longer separate, if I ever could:

1. "Frank In The Woods" by Harry Castlemon (pen name of Charles Austin Fosdick) and possibly "The Riflemen Of The Ohio" by Joseph A. Altsheler. As a boy I was very interested in the opening of the "West" of the day, and I devoured books of pioneers in the woods. This led to an interest in camping of which I did a bit but nothing serious but my interest included a lot of reading of camping magazines.

2. "Microbe Hunters" by Paul de Kruif which helped fan my interest in science.

3. "Totem And Taboo" by Sigmund Freud. I played "The Rite Of Spring" by Stravinsky over and over while reading this and in fact they do go together well in their stories.

4. "Nineteen Eighty Four" by George Orwell. I listened to Bolero over and over as I read this book. I have often felt that Orwell unfortunately got the future right but that it is just more slowly developing than he thought it would be. Rather recent developments like the Patriot Act and holding prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without trials seem right out of the 1984 play book. And if I had to sum up my life in one word it would be war. I have lived though WW-II, the Korean war, Vietnam, Granada (sic), Panama, Kosovo, and the low level wars against Saddam and al Qaeda, Iraq (possibly winding down in its 8th year), and Afghanistan (which is escalating going on into its 10th year).

5. "Down And Out In Paris And London" by George Orwell in which I learn why beggars may not thank you for your aid. I also experienced this with the "Grate People" in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s.

6. "Caesar and Cleopatra" by George Bernard Shaw. This may not be Caesar the way he was, but it probably is the Caesar the way he wished he was. I memorized a good deal of Caesar’s parts. Beautiful language.

7. "The Revolt Of The Masses" by Jose Ortega Y Gassett. One phrase has always stuck with me. "When the masses are hungry, they go in search of bread, and the methods they usually employ wreck the bakeries." (A quote from memory) This phrase seems so true and many different words could be substituted for "bread" and "bakeries."

8. "The Territorial Imperative" by Robert Ardrey in which I learned why human beings war and probably will not stop. It is interesting why we would badly treat another human being setting up camp in our yards but will welcome birds making nests.

9. "In Search of Paul" by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Read. This is a fairly recent addition to my list which I have read and reread in my old age. It is a great redemption story of one who used to persecute Christians but who lived to be the founder of Christianity. Certain aspects of Paul remind one of the old saying that there is no sinner like a converted sinner.

10a. "The Monks of Tibhirine" by John W. Kiser. A study of a small Roman Catholic group of vegetarian, prayerful monks in Algeria who shared with the local Arabs and gave them medical treatment but who, nonetheless, fell prey to Arab fanatics. It took 30 years after the Algerians kicked out the French to find a kind of peace. Because Algeria had none of the ethnic and religious complexities of Iraq, yet had  several decades of unrest, that it may be a long time for peace to settle on Iraq once the U.S. leaves.

10b. "Blood Brothers" by Elias Chacour, an account of a Palestinian Roman Catholic’s experiences with the rise of the Jewish state of Israel, another read in my old age. It is hard to read this book without developing sympathy for the Palestinians as they were pushed about.