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Ask Slashdot: What Are Some Books You Wish You Had Read Earlier?

Posted by msmash on from the let's-get-this-rolling dept.

Reader joshtops writes: Hey, community. Could you folks please name some books that you wish you had read earlier -- especially because these books presumbably had an impact on your life. The books could be from any genre or year.

5 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dune by WDot · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dune is really a series that you can start and end whenever you want. Ending after book 1 is fine, or after book 2. If you find it rewarding, you can keep going though it's quite understandable why you wouldn't.

  2. Re:Dune by clone73 · · Score: 1, Informative

    I really wish someone had made a Matrix sequel or two. It was such a great film that really would have benefited from an expanded story.

  3. Re:Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Executive summary:
    0. The usual stuff about why all other self-help books are crap but this one isn't.
    1. Be proactive
    blablabla
    2. Begin with the end in mind
    goal-oriented blablabla
    3. Put things first
    prioritize blabla
    4. Think win-win
    the others are your partners pretty easy, eh?
    skip two virtues, something about communicating in emphatic ways, etc. not really important, fuck it
    7. Sharpen the saw
    take a break and never stop learning, etc. blabla

    $$$ SUCCESS
      easy-peasy

  4. Re:Dune by mentil · · Score: 4, Informative

    whatever you call a book that comes between two sequential and previously published books in a series

    An interquel

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  5. Re:The Bible by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let me suck some of the humor out of this moment with a fact check: chickens weren't part of the Jewish sacrificial system during Biblical times.

    As far as animals were concerned, sheep, goats, oxen, and bulls were regularly sacrificed, with different ones being used for different types of sacrifices. Doves were an acceptable sacrifice in some cases, though I believe they were only used when the person offering the sacrifice couldn't afford the appropriate animal.

    Also, if memory serves, touching a woman during menstruation merely made you ritually unclean until evening, at which point you'd take a bath and then be back to ritually clean again. I don't recall it requiring a sacrifice, though I've only read the Bible cover-to-cover maybe a dozen times so far, so I could be mistaken.