Here's my list of inspirational books to keep your knowledge up. There are some good reads here...Enjoy!
A NEW EARTH - Eckhart Tolle
This book is amazing. It really opens your eyes to spirituality and the nature of the human ego in everything we do. Tolle teaches that to live a fulfilling life we need to achieve awareness. We need to stop defining ourselves by worldly views, money, possessions, and putting finite constraints on our infinite soul/energy. Once we can break free of our egoic mindstate, we can truly live happily and have inner peace. Ya that may sound fluffy and non-christian but it is life-changing if you can allow yourself to step beyond your self-placed boundaries and accept new perspective into your life every once in awhile. Tolle does compare modern beliefs in concordance with what Jesus spoke, and what Buddah taught. He speaks of them as just ordinary men who were enlightened and people flocked to them because they loved the perspective they had on existence. He places thought into your path that makes you really look hard within yourself and the way you function every day.
Great inspirational book, if you're not spiritual...this will make you think about it and its in no way "churchy" or "christian." Its purely spiritual and not religious.
HYPERSPACE - Michio Kaku
First of all for those of you who do not know who Michio Kaku is, he is a Theoretical Physicist who's life research has been dedicated to finding a single "Theory For Everything" (which seeks to unify the four fundamental forces of the universe: the strong force, the weak force, gravity and electromagnetism) that he can fit into a one inch equation. He has done countless research on the string theory, black holes, worm holes, parallel dimensions, and the universe as a whole. He's a very smart man, and he speaks about Theoretical Physics in a way that you can understand.
I definitely recommend this book if you are into learning about other dimensions, black holes, hyperspace, the size of our universe, quantum theory, etc. Here's a quick video with him talking about parallel dimensions:
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS -Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan is one of the brightest thinkers of our time. This book talks about everything that has been going on in our environmental and scientific culture at the turn of the century. It briefly talks about philosophy and even touches on reasons and protective measures for global warming. Lots of ingenious ideas in here, definitely a great read.
INTO THE WILD - Jon Krakauer
I have to admit, I did see the movie before reading this book. I know...that's like "scoffy, nose-in-the-air, critic-cultured taboo" in some circles, but I came across the movie first so cry about it. This book is quite amazing, and it did change my opinion of the story slightly. Its a different perspective about things from the guy that actually researched Christopher Johnson McCandless's journey and followed it. It is well written, although it does seem a little bias if only because of the Author's interjections into his own life in comparison within the pages of the story. Still, this story is life-changing and I'm all about things that are life-changing. =)
Watch the movie too!
NEMESIS - Chalmers Johnson
This book made me realize just how messed up the US foreign policy is getting to be. Chalmers Johnson's research on the American and how we treat the rest of the world is stunning. There are some great points in this book, and it is chalked full of real facts and citations to back up all of his research.
If you're concerned with America's foreign policy and the things we do to the people in this world you'll love this book.
FREAKONOMICS - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
