What books have made you think and given you new food for thought?

Freakonomics. Lots of weird information in that one has given me a new perspective on many topics- especially teacher cheating and baby names.

I agree Anna, I looked at a lot of things differently after reading Freakanomics. Alice Waters and Chez Panisse The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution made me look at food production much more differently but in a good way.

Atul Gawande's Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance which looks at health in a different way and contains a 20+ page essay on hand-washing that was fascinating (hard to believe, but true). Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's Civilizations : Culture Ambition and the Transformation of Nature which is history from the point of view of geography. For a third one, Story of O an utterly dirty dirty-book which showed me what fun adults could have and it most no more serious than kids playing and reading cowboys and indians books.

Petra X wrote: "Atul Gawande's Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance which looks at health in a different way and contains a 20+ page essay on hand-washing that was fascinating (hard to believe, but true..."

WOW

Cradle to Cradle Remaking the Way We Make Things it's an environmental book that makes you think about why we don't make products so that we can reuse them rather then throwing them away. Like books for example which is why the book is made out of plastic with soy ink that can be removed and reprinted as another book.

The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

I also found Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare fairly thought-provoking.

Left to Tell Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.

This story was amazing, and even if you're not religious person, it's awe-inspiring how she learns to forgive her perpetrators simply through her faith.

This is a very interesting topic...will be back to add more later ;)

I think all politicians and world leaders should read Three Cups of Tea One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time. He presents an alternative to war and conflict.

Fiction:
Invitation to a Beheading
The Giver
Life of Pi
Hard to Be a God

Non Fiction:
Freakonomics Rev Ed A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Reading Lolita in Tehran A Memoir in Books
The Logic of Collective Action Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Second printing with new preface and appendix

Just a couple off the top of my head:

Fiction:
1984
The Poisonwood Bible
Those Who Save Us

Nonfiction:
If I Am Missing or Dead A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
What Is the What

One that made me think about the difference one person can make (and I am going back a couple of decades for this one is: Is That It? by Bob Geldof (now Sir Bob) there are probably newer biographies and maybe even a newer autobiography but this is the one I read back in the day.

The one that comes to mind immediately is Time's Arrow by Martin Amis. Not an easy read.

Renata wrote: "The one that comes to mind immediately is Time's Arrow by Martin Amis. Not an easy read."

This is the only audio book I have ever listened to. I enjoyed it (but not the audio, listening to someone else's emphases was hearing their interpretation of the book, left little room for my own).

Petra, I can't imagine listening to the audio version. I really had to take my time with it.

The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve. The ending is... well, I don't want to include spoilers, but the ending made me think about all that had come before. On one level I liked the ending, on another I wasn't crazy about it. But it was good food for thought, either way.

Another book that made me think: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. This is an amazing book, rich and deep and finely wrought. By the end, I was a sobbing mess, and I thought about the story and its characters for weeks. Heck, it's still with me. :)

Renata wrote: "The one that comes to mind immediately is Time's Arrow by Martin Amis. Not an easy read."

I agree with this. What a wonderful book.

Off the top of my head:

Fiction

Monster
Animal Farm
1984
Invisible Monsters

Non-Fiction

Animals in Translation Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior
Genome The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

The Poisonwood Bible
The Handmaid's Tale
Sybil The true and extraordinary story of a woman possessed by sixteen separate personalities

I've gone back and reread the Brothers Karamazov a couple of times because I always find something new to think about

Anything and everything by Phillip K. Dick. Mindblowing.

I've just finished R.K. Narayan's The Dark Room and it was a pretty simple story of a wife finally standing up for herself against her mildly bullying, unfaithful husband. I felt for her. I thought her actions extreme, but I remembered the state I was in when I found out my husband was having an affair, and made allowances for the fact that she came from another culture, India, and therefore would act differently from me in some ways. What I hadn't thought of was the way religion can, under guise of the correct path, actually be a malign influence that influences not just the way she acted but the way she thought. A betrayed woman is a betrayed woman wherever and whenever, but a Brahmin Hindu woman is enormously different from one raised in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. That was the real difference between her and me. I was absolutely knocked out.

Magick on the Edge Adventures in Experimental Magick was one of the most thought provoking books I've read lately. I've looked at magick a lot differently since then.

The Bible.

but seriously, here are some other books that made me think:
Writing Spaces Discourses of Architecture, Urbanism and the Built Environment, 1960-2000 (just kidding)

anything by Ayn Rand but especially The Virtue of Selfishness, Chomsky has something provocative to offer as well, and definitely The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer

Reefer Madness: Sex Drugs, And Cheap Labor In The American Black Market by Eric Schlosser is one I found fascinating as well as disturbing. Schlosser covers issues that touch us all, whether we realize it or not. He discusses the truth behind our marijuana laws, good and bad, and whether they work. He uses examples of actual cases and people involved in the growing, distributing, and use of marijuana. Schlosser also covers our immigration issue, specifically regarding strawberry growers in California. After reading that section, you may look at your strawberries quite differently. Another section covers the rise of the porn industry, why and how it happened.

Schlosser's writing is easy to understand. This is not one of those books that requires a degree in economics and total silence to read.

Another one that I can't believe I forgot is A Piece of My Heart The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam by Keith Walker. I picked it up at Goodwill for a quick lunchtime read but it totally blew me away.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque.
Nine Parts of Desire: the hidden world of Islamic women by Geraldine Brooks.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - I don't think I've been quite the same ever since finishing this book.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
and The Shack both made me think...

Thomma wrote:

"Another book that made me think: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. This is an amazing book, rich and deep and finely wrought. By the end, I was a sobbing mess, and I thought about the story and its characters for weeks. Heck, it's still with me."

Boy, Thomma, I couldn't agree more.

I read that this past winter--5 star book for me. But the issues that the author deals with are so hard to take. She looks at life squarely in the face. I, also, still think about that book, almost daily.

What a masterpiece!

All Quiet on the Western Front wow, thats a deep book. and one of my favorites.


The Giver very strange, such a plain world. another favorite.


The State vs. Nelson Mandela The Trial That Changed South Africa what happened during that trial is appalling! and how little it is talked about in school is pathetic. and its sad that the only thing that is said is that nelson mandela is a great man. but, why is he great? this book explains, at least in part, why.

Lolita and The Handmaid's Tale

I read them too close to each other as well. Had a very strange effect on me.

Yes, definitely The Handmaid's Tale.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is the last book I read and definitely left me thinking.

I and Thou

A Theory of Everything

The Supreme Court and the American Elite, 1789-2008

The Shakespeare Wars Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups

The Handmaid's Tale

Native Tongue

The Left Hand of Darkness

The Help by Stockett (5 stars)

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. I know it seems like a strange one to add but it always gets me thinking about how far women have come but how far we still have left to go. It also has the unfortunate side-effect of making you a wee bit suspicious of your spouse for a few days afterwards.

Grace wrote: "The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin... It also has the unfortunate side-effect of making you a wee bit suspicious of your spouse for a few days afterwards. ..."

Haven't read the book, but both of the movies are good. The first was better than the re-make, and realllllly creepy!

The Reader, it was full of ethical questions.

Earth Abides made me think. Its all about a group of people who survived an apocalyptic event and how they reconnect, and refine society.

Something I would have been useless at.

Others along the same line (books that made me realise how limited my knowledge and survival skills are):

Blindness
The Road
The Mysterious Island
Lord of the Flies
On the Beach

A Thousand Splendid Suns was simply amazing...i had to just sit there for about an hour after i finished it. another one is The Road

Hayes wrote: "Grace wrote: "The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin... It also has the unfortunate side-effect of making you a wee bit suspicious of your spouse for a few days afterwards. ......"

Oh, definitely!

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance An Inquiry Into Values and The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Novel both had me in a contemplative frame of mind when I read them.

The most recent book that made me think was The Giver by Lois Lowry. Although she apparently wrote the book around her mother's onset of Alzheimers, the lack of utopia in a Utopian society was very thought provoking and spurred many discussions between my husband and I.

This is going to sound weird...But The Sisters of the Moon series made me think long and hard about whether or not I should continue reading fluff. And why when one author writes a book that gets really popular a bunch of others jump on the theme bandwagon.

Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle really made me think. I loved it!

This past winter I readThe Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. And I continue to be effected by it.

I have never been able to get "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin De Becker out of my head and I read that book decades ago.

More recently I just finished "The Help" and can't stop thinking about it.

I learned a lot and was amazed by "The Flamboya Tree" and the "Guernsey" book.

I just finished Siddartha by Hermann Hess. I won't say it was life changing, but it was an ephiphamy as to the way I think about my life journey.

God, where to start........

The first book that ever made me really think was 'Is anybody listening?' by Larry O'Loughlin. I read it when I was 11, it was like being kicked in the stomach.

What else..Media Control The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by Noam Chomsky turned me off voting. Anything by Chomsky makes me think.

Heidi did too. Read it when I was 7, it had a big effect on me. It's one of my all-time favourite books.

Theres so many....Evasion is also fantastic and made me think a lot.

Also...The Cosmic Code Quantum Physics As the Language of Nature by Heinz R. Pagels made me think a lot, its mind- blowing!