We all have those days where we just want to crawl into bed and not move, and I've been having a string of them. So I wanted to ask if anyone could share their inspiring reads regardless of genre? I guess, I'll start with a birthday gift a friend once bought me: Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"
If you are talking about reads to inspire you to crawl back out of bed and accomplish something, then I would suggest: Roots - Alex Haley Have a Little Faith - Mitch Albom The Old Man and the Sea - Earnest Hemingway (you knew I would) Inherit the Wind - Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee 33 Variations - Moises Kaufman The Open Man - Dave DeBusschere To Serve Them All My Days - R.F. Delderfield
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. It's about a maintenance man at a seaside amusement park who dies trying to save a little girl from a ride accident. Then, as you might guess, he meets five people that reveal why things happened in his life as they did. Some good lessons about how we are all connected and our choices impact others, the value of self-sacrifice, forgiveness, lost love is still love, and every life has value. It's not a long book, abut 50,000 words and well worth the read.
A couple I like to read every now and then are, "The Little Prince" and "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". Short but sweet.
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck is at least uplifting and funny (it was inspiring to me, for what it's worth).
The Trial & Death Of Socrates - Plato The Memorable Thoughts Of Socrates - Xenophon The Women Of Troy - Seneca God & Human Beings - Voltaire Zadig - Voltaire
Haha. I wasn't at all inspired by this. All I learned is that if you go against the government in any way, you die (or get exiled). It was actually a depressing read for me.
I found the part about Socrates letting himself die inspiring, when he talks about how he hopes to carry on his discussions and ideas with other great thinkers in the afterlife. That inspired me quite a lot.
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch Inspirational writing from a professor dying of cancer. writes about making your dreams come true. very good so far
I'm wondering whether reading an electronic version of this book would ruin it. Thoughts? Oh and I'd recommend The Hunger Games trilogy, Perfume by Patrick Suskind, I Am Legend (don't remember the author though), anything by Brandon Sanderson is usually enjoyable (I read Elantris, his debut, and The Rithmatist).
Reading it electronically would definitely ruin the experience, though my opinion is somewhat biased since I'm an advocate for physical text rather than e-books. There's just something about having an actual copy as opposed to owning it on a screen!
Lol, yeah I get the sentiment. I like ebooks because I travel a lot, so it's good to just have a kindle. It's light and you can read it one-handed. But as for House of Leaves, it sounds like the formatting is part of the reading experience (what with colours and spiralling texts and reading things upside down, or so I've heard from people's reviews), and this stuff would certainly lose its impact in the e-version. One review said you even ask whether the book you're reading exists - now if I were holding a Kindle, such a question would never occur to me because it'd be obvious. You get me?
