I figure I’m going to have around 1500 hours of free-time in the coming year that can only be spent reading, watching tv, or searching ILP. In an attempt to catalyze myself into doing something somewhat meaningful, I’m trying to think of authors and books that will keep my interest. This is more easily said than done, and after racking my brain all I’ve come up with are the usual suspects i.e. Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, ect… As such any recomendations of philosophy Authors and/or books that you really enjoyed and are willing to say that you enjoyed would be appreciated.
Ancient Greeks always give me pleasure, but it helps to be something of an anthropologist too. Seneca was enjoyed last month too… lots of hidden Romans about the place.
Maybe subscribe to a few more modern journals… keep yourself “up to date”.
The problem is, the “fun to read” philosophy is hardly EVER the “useful to read” philosophy. Sort of like, the harder it is, the more it is worth it.
The Henry Root Letters 
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. 
Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes (he’s funny)…
not directly philosophy but definitely helpful in understanding the Greeks and Nietzsche…
-Imp
That depends entirely on what one is trying to achieve. The more fun philosophers are a great stimulus to inventing jokes or writing short stories, whereas the more starchy, difficult philosophy are a great stimulus to science and the ongoing play of rationality.
Personally, I couldn’t do without either. I re-read Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and sections of Kant just as I re-read Nietzsche or Camus. Oscar Wilde is, rationally speaking, an idiot, but he’s got more imagination and linguistic ability than 90% of philosophers that I’ve read.
Nihilistic - any or all of the following:
The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart - an American existentialist satire about a guy who starts making all his life decisions on the roll of a die. Has a lot of references to Nietzsche in it.
Thinks - David Lodge - a campus-based satire about cognitive science and infidelity. Very funny, very broad in its range of styles. Lots of references to thought experiments.
Whatever - Michel Houellebecq - France-based satire about working for the civil service, individualism taken to an atomising extreme, lust for sex and murder. Lots of references to French existentialism (mainly pejorative).
Sunset Song - Lewis Grassic Gibbon - Scotland-based socialist propaganda novel, and possibly the best book I’ve read all year. Has the broadest range of emotions that I’ve ever come across in a single book, and is written in the most beautiful mixture of English and Scots. Truly exceptional aesthetically and theoretically (Gibbon’s socialism is a long way from Marxism, as was Orwell’s for that matter).
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - probably the most widely respected young British novelist’s third book, and a spectacular one. It covers 6 intertwining stories told over 2 centuries (including going into the future), each belonging to a different literary genre and each written in a different style. He’s reinventing high modernism nearly a century after it happened. A sort of ‘high postmodernism’ if you like…
Two books that I’ve been looking over again that you might enjoy are Mythologies by Roland Barthes and Local Knowledge by Clifford Geertz. I also recommend Postmodernism or the Logic of Late Capitalism by Frederic Jameson, if you’re interested in such things.
Yes absolutely. I am too snobbish to link “meaningful” to “stories and jokes” but as I just said, that’s simply snobbish.
Don’t read.
(It hasn’t helped me. All I have is a large vocabulay and a head full of ideas. Do something practical with your time instead…try to take over the world.)
Obw
The Greeks will always find a friend in me, but I think my interests lie elsewhere for now.
Aye, did I mention I have access to aderall and all his comrades.
Thanks for the recommendations everyone, I’ll get back to you after a research a few of the more intruiging suggestions.
I have a reading suggestion:
do so in a well lit room to avoid eye strain.
Oh yeah, and for Grecco-Roman you should include some Metamorphasis by Ovid. Excellent, funny stuff. Also the old english tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight should be read by everyone, translated by Maria Boroff. Plus during my Alexander the Great class I was partial to Justin’s exerpts from Macedonian history.
Lastly, Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.
For light entertainment reading yet still steeped in religious, philisophical and political thoughts and debates, Terry Goodkind’s writings are excellent. They are stories but, very thought provoking and hard to put down.
I need to find some of that adderall stuff. Been searching Bangkok for it all day. Any idea how to fake Adult ADD? Twitch alot and forget what you were talking about?
In the states you have to get tested by a psychiatrist, although I’m convinced anyone and everyone has it, so that seems a little pointless, and they give it out like candy anyway.
Faking it is rather intuitive, to fine tune your methods I suggest taking tests online to figure out what kinds of behavior they’ll be looking for…Inpatience, jumbled thoughts, fidgety, pretty much any behavior an undisplined child exhibits.
Google “Adult ADD” adding quiz/test as desired
ADDOBW will be visiting hospital tomorrow - I’ll let you know if I succeed or end up in prison. Actually, assume the latter if no post. Doubt the “Bangkok Hilton” has broadband.
EDIT: Mission failed, the A train does not visit Thailand. Ritalin closest, but no thanks!
I’m a big Walter Kaufmann fan.
Critique of Religion and Philosophy
Faith of A Heretic
From Shakespeare to Existentialism
Life at the Limits
The Future of the Humanities
I’ve decided to start off by reading Kaufmann’s book on Nietzsche, followed by the electric kool-aid acid test, followed by a book I have yet to select from the suggestions above.
(hopefully I don’t feel the urge to re-read the complete works of Nietzsche after Kaufmann destroys my interpretation N.)
Thanks, SIATD. You’ve provided me with the requisite motivation on deciding which book to purchase next. 
The Dice Man sounds interesting. I like the concept. I’m curious to read his references to Nietzsche within the context of his story.
I’d like to read a book about existentialism. Well, one that is more of an overview of all the philosophers involved in the movement.
I’ve heard that William Barrett’s Irrational Man provides the best introduction. Is this the case, or is there a better title available?
Dulcet,
It’s a cracker of a book - very funny, full of graphic sex, sharp satire of psychology and psychiatry, some sincere religious moments, some not so sincere religious moments (such as when the protagonist impersonates a priest in order to seduce a young female).
Well, it’s a highly original concept and in all fairness he delivers on it well, exploring the impact of his life-revolution in all sorts of different contexts, and really pushing it to extremes. Not for the weak of stomach.
Never read it, so I wouldn’t know. I started with Kaufmann’s Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, which is a collection of extracts from key existentialist writers.
The best series of introductions that I know of are these, of which there are dozens. I don’t read introductions much, and in all fairness I’m not particularly interested in existentialism apart from the phenomenological aspects. The literature is much more interesting than the philosophy in that movement, or so I find.
Once again, thanks for the suggestion, SIATD. 
The book sounds very interesting. I usually read non-fiction. I’d like to read more fiction, but the quality of popularity leaves much to be desired.
More recently, I found myself absorbed in Chekhov. I’m also reading some short stories by American writer Kate Chopin.
Another book I picked up (a couple of months ago) is Joris-Karls Huysmans Against Nature. I read some reviews that peaked my interest. I’d like to finish it off. Has anyone here read the book? What is your opinion of the novel?
I loved that book, in particular chapter three; although Barrett doesn’t understand Nietzsche, fyi.