10 books that will teach you to think big

Books are like drugs, only legal and safe. Books expand consciousness, help to look at the world differently, give answers to the most complex, sacred, philosophical questions.

Finding the right book at the right time is worth a lot. Books can change the worldview, break the shackles of old stereotypes, remove rose-colored glasses, books help to cope with depression, suggest new thoughts and ideas, inspire, delight us every day.

And some authors are especially talented in their ability to change human consciousness with the power of words. Be sure to read these 10 books – and start thinking bigger!

10 Goethe. Faust

Dr. Faust brought a lot of good to the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, but his soul is tormented by doubts whether he did enough, whether he learned enough knowledge over the long years of his life … In a fit of despair, he, ready to poison himself, almost commits suicide – but faith in the Lord God takes away him from sin. But Mephistopheles, the insidious messenger of heaven, is sure that Faust will not be able to save his soul. He comes to his house in the form of a dog, and then, turning himself, invites the hero to try all the delights of earthly and heavenly life.

9. Aristotle. Politics

What is a state? And what role does the family play in its formation – the first and main cell, the unit of any society? Why do we need war and housekeeping? What forms of power exist, how are they good and why are they bad? Who is more important – artisans and peasants or the military? Officials or merchants? Who is to make laws, who is to carry them out, and who is to judge for wrongdoing? And what is patriotism, and justice, and freedom? How should youth be educated? And what is happiness? Why is it the highest good, without which everything else simply does not matter?

8. Tal Ben Shahar. be happier

All people are divided into three types. There are participants in the rat race among us: study, work, home, business, career, family, to do everything, not to be late anywhere, not to fall into the mud face, to be taller, stronger, faster … but does it bring pleasure? There are hardened hedonists: clubs, discos, dancing until you drop, delicious food, alcoholic cocktails, good sex, long sleep … but does it bring pleasure? There are nihilists: disappointment in life, amorphousness, indifference, depression, chronic fatigue, sucking communication, life from weekends to weekends … but does it bring pleasure? Tal Ben-Shahar knows exactly what happiness is, how to find balance in life and comprehend harmony within oneself. It is not in vain that his author’s course at Harvard University is visited by three thousand people a year …

7. Taoist book of parables. Chuang Tzu

The teaching of Taoism is one of the oldest religious and philosophical practices, the main essence of which is to renounce the mortal world, vanity and passions, and become part of a vast universe, calm and proud in its grandeur. The parables of the Tao teachings are self-knowledge, the search for harmony outside and inside oneself, peace and enjoyment of higher matters.

6. Alexander Belyaev. air seller

Georgy Klimenko is a young meteorologist, but his youth does not prevent him from going to the coldest regions of the planet, to Yakutia, to study natural air anomalies. At first, observations and experiments do not bring tangible benefits, but then a strange thing happens to him: strong winds throw him into the crater of an extinct volcano, and there, miraculously surviving, he, along with his partner, discovers a secret laboratory in which air is removed from the atmosphere and sorted it in special capsules …

5. Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland

This sunny day should have been just one of many in a series of sunny days, if not for one “but”: the agile and eared White Rabbit, hurrying about his important business, did not fit into the picture of the world around him. Confused, fascinated, full of curiosity, Alice immediately followed the fairy-tale hero and … now she is already flying into the tunnel, and amazing things begin to happen around: she grows and shrinks in size, swims in a sea of ​​her own tears, meets the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat, meets The Queen of Hearts, plays croquet, and finally – is sentenced to death …

4. Viktor Pelevin. Chapaev and emptiness

Emptiness is not only a complex concept denoting the absence of everything, but also just a surname. Peter Pustota has a talent for poetic decadence, a ward in a psychiatric hospital of a gloomy Soviet post-perestroika, a sense of existence in two time periods and an existential crisis. But there is also a good thing: he is familiar with Vasily Chapaev – or so it seems to him. In the civil war, they fight mortal battles hand in hand, and in the psychiatric hospital, Void fights with their neighbors in the ward: the almost suicidal Serdyuk, Just Maria, who is in love with Schwarzenegger, and the gangster.

3. Carlos Castaneda. Don Juan’s teachings

1960 Hot Arizona. Bus stop. It is here, in the outskirts, that two main characters meet: Carlos, the author of the book and a student at the University of California, and Don Juan, an Indian with special knowledge and belonging to an ancient tribe. After talking, both men are imbued with sympathy and trust in each other, and Don Juan invites Carlos to become his student. Carlos agrees – and soon learns that the only way to know the wisdom of being and become part of the universe is to use hallucinogens and enter a special trance …

2. Brothers Strugatsky. It’s hard to be a god

Arkanar is a state on another planet. The race of humanoids living there is outwardly indistinguishable from humans, and in terms of their level of development they are approximately in the terrestrial late Middle Ages. That is why it is so easy for earthlings to observe the natives. Infiltrating society, they study alien inhabitants, not even suspecting what kind of thunderstorm will break out very soon…

1. Chuck Palahniuk. Fight club

The narrator suffers from insomnia, goes to support groups for people with various diseases, hates the consumer society, hates himself. Tyler Durden prides himself on his nihilism, knows how to make explosives, makes soap from human fat, works odd jobs. Marla Singer lies about her illnesses, is afraid that she has breast cancer, smokes nervously and steals other people’s things. Interesting company, isn’t it? And all together they solve such questions of being and the universe that ordinary people never dreamed of.