Anything to recommand ? No self-development stuff please. I'm about to order John Kennedy Tool's book, anyone read it ?
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, by Jules Verne. The english translation is under public domain (as most Verne books) in the USA, so you can find it for free on Amazon, Project Gutenberg and other websites.
What kind of literature do you like? If you haven't read some classics by russian writers like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky i would highly recommend that, it may seem boring from a distance, but books like Idiot or Crime and punishment contain a lot of wisdom in them. If you find that boring, anti-utopias are entertaining books that also makes you think about a society(like We, 1984, Brave New World, Farenheit 451..)
I'm reading Oil! by Upton Sinclair at the moment. If you're interested in business and capitalism vs socialism it's a great book. Also The Financier by Theodore Dreiser is awesome if you want to understand social constructs in relation to business better.
Best Tolstoj books came after Anna Karenina (loved by dostoijevski), like Father Sergji, Kreutzer sonata, The Death of Ivan Ilic, in fact the thirth Tolstoj was called Dostoijevskan Tolstoj. With his conversion to the christianity (but hated the church) he denied is own works like War and Peace, and this conversion make him one of the best philosopher of 1800, personal opinion. His books have been always censored in russia and Tolstoj was considered a second zar because Nicola II was scared of him, they couldn't kill him cause of his influence, so they arrested his disciples, he was excomunicated by the Orthodox curch and his diaries, in Italy, writings like "why does people take drugs and other writings" (italian name) for example are too dangerous for the modern day world so you can't find it and will never get printed again, and if you find it used, it's like if you buy om the black market. Also "war and revolution" (italian mame) is not easy to find in library and you had to take it from internet, i can say that these books will let people reason with their own rational consciousness. I love him, he probably is my all time favorite writer and philosopher and yes, people should take a look. @Chevu Chelios you miss modern distopy like The Circle (social network) and The Warehouse (online store)
If you're into history, I highly recommend Sapiens by Yuval Hari. It's about how humans came to dominate the planet and gets to the root of why things are the way they are; that's my short explanation, of course.
No I haven't read him yet, but I do recall hearing about "The road to serfdom" somewhen. I'm trying to stay more on the capitalistic side on those books. Knowing that do you think it would be a good read for me? When I bought Oil!, I wasn't even aware that it is a lot about political ideologies and also not that Sinclair stands more on the socialist side of things. But I do think that one should try to understand both sides. Nevertheless, for me it more confirmed my perspective of things, rather than convinced me of the authors view.