3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
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bokki
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3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by bokki »

hi, friends,..
3 books, fiction, non religious, u have read..
books that rocked your world!

ill start,
from nbr 3..
Marques
100 years of solitude
!

so many aurelieanos, a trip,
carrying a ship trough the jungle
wars hallucinations
yellow butterflyes
a 100 years of...LOL
ending with a babys skin carried by ants..


lol, WHAT A BOOK!
and, thats only by my remembrance

thats nbr 3

plz post your favs, 3 ones..
thnx, friends!
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bokki
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by bokki »

well, imo only
such a masterpiece, ohh
GOETHE
FAUST
ohh
worded so gentle, gets so deep and ..ugh, scary
a poodle turns into the lord of hell
the one that made a bet with god,
for the soul of a seeker
lord, oh, lord
love that turns into patricide, a dead brother, and a dead hmmm child
ugh
so sweet the words, so much pain
just an unbelievable
masterpiece

these books iv read just a few times
ill surely read them again

4 me, thats nbr 2,
yes im picky an choosy,
but im talking bout books that
blow my little mind

faust!
"I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”
Mephistopheles, d lying, scheming wreck

would u like to share the books that made ur view???
thnx
passel
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by passel »

Brothers Karamazov
Moby Dick
Borges’ Collected Fiction
"I have made a heap of all that I have met"- Svetonious
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Flow My Tears The Policeman Said - Phillip K. Dick

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino

Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

I could pick lots of other stuff, it's hard to just come up with three.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by Kim O'Hara »

So much depends on just when in your life you encounter a book. For instance, I know that Aldous Huxley's "Island" is a great book but by the time I first read it, I had already read several other good books exploring the same ideas so it got a :smile: and a :heart: not a :twothumbsup: and a :jumping: response.

Bear that in mind as I pick ...
Always Coming Home by Le Guin (although I could equally have picked half a dozen others she wrote) (Does a Taoist slant break your "non-Buddhist" request?)
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (although I could equally have picked half a dozen others he has written)
Menagerie Of False Truths by Greg French. No-one will know this, so here's a link explaining it a bit - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/103 ... lse-truths

:reading:
Kim
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by Natan »

The Magic Mountain
Ulysses
The Metamorphosis
Vajra fangs deliver vajra venom to your Mara body.
amanitamusc
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by amanitamusc »

Green eggs and ham.
Trout fishing in america
Shakespeare's complete works
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Queequeg
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by Queequeg »

"Top" is hard to parse. How about "most impact"?

Autobiography of Malcolm X
Plutarch's Roman Lives
On the Road

As Kim points out, it depends on when you read these books. Malcolm X influenced my late teens, Kerouac my 20's, Plutarch was more recent.

Honorable mention:
Grapes of Wrath
Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn
Electric Koolaid Acid Test
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Slaughterhouse 5
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by amanitamusc »

Queequeg wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:45 am "Top" is hard to parse. How about "most impact"?

Autobiography of Malcolm X
Plutarch's Roman Lives
On the Road

As Kim points out, it depends on when you read these books. Malcolm X influenced my late teens, Kerouac my 20's, Plutarch was more recent.

Honorable mention:
Grapes of Wrath
Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn
Electric Koolaid Acid Test
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Slaughterhouse 5
My 7th grade art teacher gave me S5 and she asked me not to mention where i got it.
After reading i got the rest of KV's work.
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Queequeg
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by Queequeg »

amanitamusc wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:10 pm My 7th grade art teacher gave me S5 and she asked me not to mention where i got it.
After reading i got the rest of KV's work.
Hah. Classic Vonnegut introduction. He writes at like a 5th grade level about grown up ideas. He was awesome.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by amanitamusc »

Queequeg wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:18 pm
amanitamusc wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:10 pm My 7th grade art teacher gave me S5 and she asked me not to mention where i got it.
After reading i got the rest of KV's work.
Hah. Classic Vonnegut introduction. He writes at like a 5th grade level about grown up ideas. He was awesome.
I really enjoyed it!
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bokki
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by bokki »

passel, yes, read a lot of dostoyevsky..man, hes writing is so heavy..unlike the shining figure he was. so, 4 me, idiot was top, unlike the real down of ,say, crime and punishment
a genious

lol, there are so many books that are true masterpieces, and so many gems well worth reading
thats y, in my foolishness, i asked 4 3

4 ex, i read a lot of Huxley, point counter point, after many a summer, brave new world, island
but my memory is failing me slowly
4 ex, Durrell, alexandria quartet, lol, i cant remember much,except it was really good..
now, u friends have mentioned books iv not read, too.. thats a present 4 me
4 ex moby dick...i know so much about it, the whole plot, but yet to read it..
or iv read the great Gatsby, hmm
iv read smaller and lesser books that outshine gatsby

4 ex, Hesse. i was hooked on him, Siddhartha, play of glass beads, stepenwolf, demian, and narcissus and goldmund , a lot
hmm, me memory failing me..

id love to read the , to me, new names and their books, that u mention here

4 ex borges, read a lot, umberto eco, read a few, ma, u just opened a library 4 me 2 read

kim, 4 ex, its the first time i hear those names

on the road, Kerouac? yes, and read some ken kesey, one flew.. and a road trip of early days,..cant remember well..greatfull dead there too

yes, trops of cancer, read a lot of henry miller..i could mention bukowski here as well
or even burroughs, a trip
why, we could mention hemingway, too, yes

many, many geniuses, and top works of art, books one should read..

that is y, i tried to ask 4 top 3, although, yes, that is a bit funny

well thnx, all, please write some more books u deem top, and lol
i have yet to post my nbr 1 fav, but i want to write bout it in more detail

thnx, friends
b
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bokki
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by bokki »

just to add, judging by any standard, im quite illiterate
so your advice is really appreciated
thnx
b
passel
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by passel »

Moby Dick is worth a year of your life
"I have made a heap of all that I have met"- Svetonious
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bokki
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by bokki »

ok passel, i understand
lets make a devils deal,u an me
ill read moby dick from a to z,(thats the only way i know, i read every word printed in a book, its a sickness)
and u read the nbr 1 fav of mine...and comment
tho, u just may have read it already..
then , well, ill just read moby, i thought i should have already
would a small bet like that please u, it is a win win situation, if we are into books>?
luckily, i have a library a 100 m from my entrance, can pick up moby tmrrw, and start slowly
Ahab an the white sperm whale, men at sea, chasing a kill, ohh, ok, ill read it, tutto
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by Ayu »

I can't judge which one I liked most and there are some more.

The Mistress of Spices - by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

To Kill a Mockingbird - by Harper Lee

Huckleberry Finn - by Mark Twain


And I love every book from Amy Tan, Erich Käster and Hans Bemmann.
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by Tenma »

After much thought, I have decided:

-My Name is Red
-Count of Monte Cristo
-Don Quixote

It was tricky to decide, and I struggled in whether to put in Paradise Lost, Demian, Edgar Allan Poe's gothic novels, and so on(almost got fooled into putting Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse when I realized the title).
passel
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by passel »

Russel Banks’ Rule of the Bone really made an impact on me when I read it. About a trailer park boy who runs away and meets this shamanic Rastafarian. Some images I won’t forget
"I have made a heap of all that I have met"- Svetonious
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by PeterC »

Stefan Heym - The King David Report
Ernesto Sabato - El Tunel
Mishima - Kinkaku-ji

But choosing the top 3 is a completely impossible task.

Edit. I think the more interesting question, rather than just to list the three, would be - why those three? So: The King David Report is about very unpleasant themes - truth, power, loyalty, destiny - but still extremely entertaining. El Tunel is quite possibly the greatest existential novel ever written (at least Camus said he thought so), and Kinkaku-ji encapsulates a lot of the core ideas of a remarkable writer about beauty and life. Both El Tunel and Kinkaku-ji bring you into the viewpoint of people who experience extreme suffering and commit terrible acts, and they force you to understand and sympathize with them.
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Re: 3 top NON Bhuddhist, Fiction Books you have read..in your LIFE

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

I remember reading The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski as a teen...blew my mind...

Steppenwolf/Hesse
Sidhartha/ Hesse

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a novel....
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