best book ever...

If you had to narrow it down to one book that you’d say what the best book you ever read, (actually read not just read a bunch of stuff about), what book would you choose? What is the best book you’ve ever read? Think about it, and don’t list 4 or 5. Just the best one. Thanks!!
-Scott

Sort of a cop-out, but I’ll go with the Analects (Lun yu). I always notice something new when I read that. Lots of depth, lots of commentaries (if we can add those). Good stuff.

ugh… one book? This question is hardly fair at all. I’ll go with what I am currently reading: The Idiot, Dostoyevsky

the sneetches

-Imp

The Bible. It’s in hotels even.

Honestly…The Giver.

The Duchess of Malfi

Anyone ever read that book “night” by the guy who survived auschwitz? (if that’s even how you spell it) It’s pretty good.

nightthebook.com/

-Imp

“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” by Max Weber is good too. Also, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn, and “After Virtue” by Alasdiar Macintyre.

Aesop’s Fables. Super-concentrated wisdom into bite-size portions of wit.

i remember being engrossed in Orwell´s Down and out in london and paris.

Standard, I’ve not read that one. But I did read an article by Orwell on Ghandi that was very interesting. I think it was just called “On Ghandi”. If you like him you may check it out.

Don Quixote by Cervantes, of course.

If Smears had permitted me to pick two:

Candide by Voltaire.

What can I say, I’m just a Goddamn sucker for classic satires.

ôk cheers smears!

Pav - i like you picks. I´ve read Candide and liked very much, although wished it was longer. I´ve read Don Quixote - it´s one of those masterpieces which just grows and grows on you. I´ve only read the first half though, just in case you were gonna spoil anything!

No spoilers.

All I will say is part II pales in comparison to part I, but compared to any other book, it is still phenomenal.

The problem was, Voltaire didn’t really feel part II, he only wrote it due to popular demand. (And that was only many years later) The reason he did is because people (in general) were unsatisfied with the ending to Part I, and didn’t feel as though Quixote should have hung up the lance just yet.

One of those, “Back by popular demand,” things that could never equal the original, still undoubtedly, a masterpiece.

ALSO

Candide couldn’t have been longer, in this, the best of all possible worlds, Candide is, by necessity, the best of all possible lengths.

I’ve been re-reading the Epics lately. While the Argonautica is a steaming pile of doo-doo, the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid are all outstanding. My present favorite is the Iliad, but the Aeneid is close . . .

But really, any of those could fit the bill quite nicely, IMHO.

…the best of all possible replies! Or so Candide would like to have thought…

Thanks! It’s actually a great philosophy if you can convince yourself to believe it. The only argument one must use is that all is for the best, because, “all,” could not possibly be anything but what it is, and since it is the only way things can be, it must be the best way for them to be.

I find it unarguable, myself, I don’t believe it, but I can’t argue it.

Mm, I suppose if God did exist, it kind of has some strength, as why would God create anything but the best?! But looking around the world as Candide did, it´s pretty difficult to see it as best! So either:

  • his best just isn´t very good (in which he may despise my criticism)
  • he didn´t do his best, or
  • he doesn´t exist.

If God´s notion of best is grossly dissimilar to our own, should we bother calling it as such, as we´re the ones who have to bloody live it?!

Those are some very good points, but the reason I find it unarguable is as follows:

Posit: It is impossible to change the past.

If one cannot change the past, then the past (and all that happened in it) is fixed.

If the past is fixed and cannot be changed, then there must be only one past. (In terms of what actually, in absolute reality, happened.)

If there can be only one past, then, by default, that past is the best past.

Therefore, all things that have happened (in the past) were for the best.

Since all things that happened in the past were for the best, and the past world brought us to the present, then we must be living in the best of all possible worlds.

As Pangloss inquired, “How could things be otherwise?”