That thing nobody understands about you. That book that explains it. Match me up.
Gustave Doré- Illustrations for the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Read the Divine Comedy at like 12, and loved it. What I liked the most were the illustrations, they made a profound impact in me; and are probably the first artistic work I came to by myself that truly shaped me as a person.
https://archive.org/details/the-dore-illustrations-for-dantes-divine-comedy-pdfdrive
Not as much a book, but the documentary Dominion. If someone can watch that and not understand reasons for going vegan if not choosing to do so themselves, I seriously question their moral compass.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR)
Killed by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall.
Realm of the elderlings, I mess my own life up through anxiety and overthinking, reading about fitz doing it makes me feel better about myself
Gentleman bastards, spurts of false confidence carry me through my days lol
“Crime and Punishment”. Doing something amoral only to find out I have morals.
DSM-V
💀
Codex Seraphinianus.
Some pages may take two-three reads before understanding fully.
Anything by Douglas Adams, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, music history textbooks, Samurai Jack slash fiction, public restroom graffiti, HVAC technical manuals, and the comment sections on porn sites.
Iceberg Slim [aka Robert Beck] was widely read in the Black community and almost completely unknown outside of it. He inspired many Black artists, and both Ice-T and Ice Cube named themselves in his honor.
Such a wonderful inspiration to his community - gotta keep them hoes in line!
At least he wasn’t a slave owner like Washington and Jefferson.
I would personally suggest using none of the three as role models
I got a huge laugh out of the idea of you actually having the nerve to say that you Ice-T or Ice Cube, or saying anything bad about Washington to one of the people who worship him.
Actually imagining you outside, touching grass was pretty funny.
You do you pimp guy
And you keep on amusing me by pretending to be an adult.
“They’re not rocks Marie!!”
…ok, maybe some of them are, but they’re really cool!
Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle might not explain it, but could add valuable context.
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series and the John Dies at the End series
both 10/10s mixing gut wrenching existentialism and laugh out loud comedy
tbh I probably wouldn’t say I’m into comedy writing in general but those two and Terry Pratchett are the only writers to ever make me bust out laughing in response to words on a page
I’ve lost count of the number of times and number of formats in which i’ve consumed The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and i’ve loved it every time.
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camut. Absurdism/it philosophically examines whether one should commit suicide.
I started reading The Myth of Sisyphus because I’m interested in absurdism but haven’t read much other philosophy apart from some of the classic Stoic books. I found it very dense and hard to get through the first parts with references to philosophers I hadn’t read, does it get easier to read?
It does. Would recommend just skimming the first section as far as when you hit a reference to a philosopher you don’t care about. Once past that it’s a beautiful book.
Not OP but yes, if you can get through the dialogue with Kierkegaard the rest is pretty digestible. That said, you might get more out of it if you’ve got a basic foundation in existentialism and nihilism first. A lot of what makes absurdism interesting and important is its contrasts with other philosophies.
