People have been posting lists of the 10 books that have been most influential on their lives all over the Interwebs and on social media. I’ve listed mine below, with the reminder that these are the books I deem most influential – on my thought, on my life – and not necessarily my favorite books or the books I would deem the best. In particular, I’m a huge fan of contemporary literary fiction, and my list includes none of that. For better or worse, these are the books that (I think) have shaped my outlook:
- “Metamorphosis,” Frank Kafka
- “Notes from Underground,” Dostoevsky
- “The Stranger,” Albert Camus
- “Heart of Darkness,” Joseph Conrad
- “Civilization and Its Discontents,” Sigmund Freud
- Torah
- “Existentialism and Human Emotions,” Jean-Paul Sartre
- “Eating Animals,” Jonathan Safran Foer
- “Zuckerman Unbound” Philip Roth
- “Herzog,” Saul Bellow