100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library
*************** PLEASE DO NOT ADD BOOKS TO THIS LIST! ***************
The intent of this list is to replicate a list compiled by The Art of Manliness (PDF). However, feel free to vote on your favorites that already appear on the list!
The original author's description:
"There are the books you read, and then there are the books that change your life. We can all look back on the books that have shaped our perspective on politics, religion, money, and love. Some will even become a source of inspiration for the rest of your life. From a seemingly infinite list of books of anecdotal or literal merit, we have narrowed down the top 100 books that have shaped the lives of individual men while also helping define broader cultural ideas of what it means to be a man.
Whether it be a book on adventure, war, or manners, there is so much to learn about life's great questions from these gems. Let us know in the comments which of these you loved, hated, and the books that meant a lot to you and should have made the list (you can even get really indignant about your favorite book). And without further ado, this is our list."
William
283 books
116 friends
116 friends
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads
3289 books
871 friends
871 friends
Ben
1079 books
71 friends
71 friends
Adam
1093 books
36 friends
36 friends
Kate
54 books
6 friends
6 friends
David
858 books
1927 friends
1927 friends
Thom
6023 books
301 friends
301 friends
Michael
5402 books
408 friends
408 friends
More voters…
Comments Showing 1-23 of 23 (23 new)
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message 1:
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Colin
(new)
Oct 23, 2011 07:16AM

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PLEASE DO NOT ADD ANY OTHER BOOKS.

But some people will add books anyway.





I find it quite normative- go on, fight your battle, keep centre, come back to your own and take care of them. Apparently noble, but very judgemental.
Let's grant, for a second, that works of female authorship have no place in a list about "Manliness" (though a list about Manliness without S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders"...). Still, where's Hunter S. Thompson? Where's William S. Burroughs? Where's Ralph Ellison? Capote exploring the depths of distorted man-ego "In Cold Blood"? Ken Kesey? How does Winston Churchill get an entry? The Boy Scouts Handbook??? Where are all the latin-american boom writers denouncing colonialism in style? Where is Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart", talking precisely and on-point about "Manliness" and its folly across time and distance? Is it not absurd to have "The Wealth of Nations" up there, but not "Das Kapital"?
Surely there's some arbitrary line drawn over time and geography that explains how coincidentally all these books are written by white dudes, how anything still mildly subversive just didn't make the cut.
Manliness, as defined by what this collection of classics and weird ideological hanger-ons, is stuck in the past.


After all, that's how I got most of my education.

Mostly, The Outsiders.
Stay gold, Ponyboy.

10 Secrets of the New Rich: How To Join The World's New Breed Of Millionaires
by Kevin J. Donaldson
Complicity (The CCCCC Conspirators Code #1)

10 Secrets of the New Rich: How To Join The World's New Breed Of Millionaires
by Kevin J. Donaldson
Complicity (The CCCCC Conspirators Code #1)"
Seconded.

I will never read Slaughterhouse - Five, Catch-22, A Brave New World, A catcher in the Rye, or Atlas Shrugged. They just don't appeal to me and I don't think I'd finish any of them.
I will never read another Dostoyevsky or Steinbeck novel; once each was painful enough for me.
I had to read excerpts of Walden in high school and all I could think of Thoreau was he certainly could whine.

It's being released Oct 3, 2018, but I read an advanced copy. It is the foremost discussion of modern masculinity.
You need to read it and add it to your list.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...