16 books aware

(updated)

When i left the home of my youth, a single shelf for my books would have extended seventy feet. The author who made me a reader was edgar rice burroughs - my first taste made it imperative i read everything he wrote. Twain, shaw, seuss, vonnegut, dawkins, zinn, and coates have triggered the same desire. Here are the books that every human ought read. The final version of this list will likely have entries on desensitization, humyn nature (which may take decades more research), touch deprivation (a primer for which is chapters 4-8 of morris' "Intimate Behavior"), perhaps something on mythology/archetypes, plus others i can't even begin to imagine. These books will put you back on the path of humynity.

Pardon the occasional american flavor of this list...but since culture is the only export in which America leads the world (by far), it's justified.

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THE CARTOON HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE, by larry gonick
Precisely as it claims. Gonick is a Harvard cartoonist who injects huge helpings of humor and science into his books (which should be required school reading). He's only trying to save the world.
THE NAKED APE/THE HUMAN ZOO, by desmond morris
Blind spots? Almost certainly. But the hardest thing for any thinker to do is step outside oneself. No books ever achieved that so brilliantly, in terms of our species, as these two.
THE SECOND SEX, by simone de beauvoir
As lucretia mott said, "The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of woman, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source". Jean-paul and albert may have had richer imaginations, but neither wrote anything so towering.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X, as told to alex haley
The understanding of racism starts here.

WE WERE EIGHT YEARS IN POWER, by ta-nehisi coates

The understanding of institutional racism's pervasiveness starts here.
AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, by neil postman
A meditation on how the television revolution has degraded the nature of social discourse. It's not sitcoms that are sucking our brains out, it's the news and commercials and Sesame Street (no...yes!) and televangelists and...Jeopardy. When everything becomes entertainment, we abrogate our capacity for subtlety or complexity.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2018/08/amusing-ourselves-to-death.html
THE MORAL ARC, by michael shermer
(How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom)
Isn't it lovely how a good subtitle obviates the need to summarize? This book compares fascinatingly with pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature", which makes the same conclusion but offers a more hobbesian explanation.
https://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-moral-arc.html
A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, by howard zinn
The history of a superpower, told not from the standpoint of rich white men, but that of wimyn/natives/poor white men/blacks/chicanos. Zinn challenges you to wonder what might happen if the U.S.A. became the world's first humanitarian superpower.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-peoples-history-of-united-states.html
ANIMAL RIGHTS, HUMAN RIGHTS, by david nibert
If a child could have only two books, take this and the previous entry. This one tackles how our species has gone so incomprehensibly astray since the advent of agriculture, which led to the birth of private property and death of empathy. See http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2013/10/animal-rights-human-rights.html and the follow-up (http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2016/06/animal-oppression-human-violence.html), which fleshes out the apocalyptic nature of corporate capitalism.

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, by naomi klein

(Capitalism vs the Climate)

Speaking of the apocalyptic nature of corporate capitalism...

https://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2023/02/this-changes-everything.html
THE WATCHMAN'S RATTLE, by rebecca d. costa
An investigation into why all "civilizations" collapse, and where we are on that path. Costa deconstructs the five supermemes killing this world. She shows how we're the first civilization capable of avoiding that fate.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-watchmans-rattle.html
gOD IS NOT GREAT: HOW RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING, by christopher hitchens
This book makes me cry...that i didn't write it first.
THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN, by marilyn french
A deconstruction of the establishment's reaction to second-wave feminism. Less sweeping than simone, more precise.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2012/03/the-war-against-women.html
EATING ANIMALS, by jonathan saffran foer
One of the more compelling arguments against eating other animals, written by a meat-eater facing parenthood. There's little on health risks or historical perspective, but the cruelty that makes the Holocaust look like Club Med, plus the ecological apocalypse of factory farms, are well-covered.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2014/08/eating-animals.html
HARMFUL TO MINORS: THE PERILS OF PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM SEX, by judith levine
Stunningly brilliant, and nearly-suppressed.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2008/09/harmful-to-minors.html
AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS IF YOU DO: THE ABSURDITY OF CONSENSUAL CRIMES IN OUR FREE COUNTRY, by peter mcwilliams
A towering achievement, and perhaps the most laterally-researched book you'll find.
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Also considered: WALDEN, STIFFED, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME, BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED, THE MISMEASURE OF WOMAN, THE LORAX