Leonardo Salvatore
Aeterna Libri
Schopenhauer once wrote that "the person who reads a great deal [...] gradually loses the ability to think for himself."
I prefer Walt Disney's approach: "there is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island."
Below is a list of treasures; great books that have pushed me to wrestle with uncomfortable truths, exercise my imagination, and strive to become a better human.
I hope they will do the same for you.
If you think a title deserves a spot, don't hesitate to reach out!
I participate in Amazon's Associates Program. If you'd like to support my work, click on the book that interests you, purchase it, and enjoy reading!
Classic Literature
The Double – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1846)
Notes from Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1864)
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (1865)
Kokoro – Natsume Sōseki (1914)
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse (1922)
The Stranger – Albert Camus (1942)
No Longer Human – Osamu Dazai (1948)
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway (1952)
Contemporary Literature
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison (1970)
The Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison (1977)
Beloved – Toni Morrison (1987)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami (1995)
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami (2003)
Parable of the Sower – Olivia Butler (1993)
The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller (2011)
Circe – Madeline Miller (2018)
Ancient Philosophy (ca. 450 BCE - 1499 CE)
Symposium – Plato (ca. 385 - 370 BCE)
Zhuangzi (369 - 298 BCE)
Letter to Menoeceus – Epicurus
Vatican Sayings – Epicurus
The Analects – Confucius
Letters from a Stoic – Seneca (ca. 65 CE)
Meditations – Marcus Aurelius (161 - 180 CE)
Confessions – Saint Augustine (397 - 400 CE)
The Consolation of Philosophy – Boethius (524 CE)
Modern Philosophy (ca. 1500 CE - 1900 CE)
Meditations on First Philosophy – Descartes (1647)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding – David Hume (1748)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra – Friedrich Nietzsche (1883)
Contemporary Philosophy / Psychoanalysis (ca. 1901 CE - present)
The Conditions of Philosophy – Mortimer Adler (1965)
Meaning in Life and Why It Matters – Susan Wolf (2010)
Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis – John Vervaeke et al. (2017)
The Master and his Emissary – Ian McGilchrist (2019)
The Matter with Things – Ian McGilchrist (2021)
Imagining the End – Jonathan Lear (2022)
Social Theory
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism – Max Weber (1905)
Color and Democracy – W. E. B. Du Bois (1945)
The Righteous Mind – Jonathan Haidt (2012)
Religious Studies / History of Religion / Philosophy of Religion
The Will to Believe – William James (1896)
The Varieties of Religious Experience – William James (1902)
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life – Émile Durkheim (1912)
I and Thou – Martin Buber (1923)
Dynamics of Faith – Paul Tillich (1956)