What is the last book that you read specifically because someone recommended it to you?
By @Royricky09
Robot
robertsnj · 56-60, M
Dial 911 and Die. I am American. It is a book written by a lawyer outining at the state level why the police have no duty to protect you and advocates that personal safetly is more of a personal responsibility in the USA The stories are court public opinions where the victim dialed 911 and the police were inactive or really slow to the call.
The book lists court cases for I think almost every state as examples and talks about the Supreme Court Case of Town of Castle Rock vs Gonzales that probably impacts lower courts opinons.
it is an anti- police book but more of a book pointing out police are not obligated to protect you (if you are American) even if you dial 911.
The book lists court cases for I think almost every state as examples and talks about the Supreme Court Case of Town of Castle Rock vs Gonzales that probably impacts lower courts opinons.
it is an anti- police book but more of a book pointing out police are not obligated to protect you (if you are American) even if you dial 911.
Nobody recommends books to me. I am a hermit, a man who exists outside space and time. I inhabit my own world. It is not a world without traffic or weather or the low-grade irritations of daily life, but a world in which those things arrive already filtered, already subordinated to an inner rhythm that has long since ceased to synchronize with the calendar or the market or whatever book is being praised this week as “urgent.”
When people say, You must read this, they are usually talking to one another, not to me. Recommendation presumes a shared present, a common pulse: the sense that we are all standing in the same moment, looking at the same horizon, worried about the same things. I am not. I am elsewhere—sometimes decades elsewhere—sitting with a sentence that has already survived its own moment and no longer needs witnesses.
Books come to me the way memories do: without announcement, without justification. I do not discover them; they resurface. A line half-remembered suddenly insists on being completed. A voice I have not heard in years clears its throat. I open a book not because it is new but because it has waited. The waiting matters. It means the book has detached itself from fashion and entered a slower orbit, one governed less by relevance than by necessity.
There is a peculiar freedom in this exile. I do not read to keep up, to be conversant, to have opinions ready for deployment. I read to inhabit another consciousness fully, to submit to its tempo, to let it rearrange my internal furniture. The cost, of course, is social. You cannot easily discuss a novel you are rereading for the fourth time when everyone else is busy ranking the ten best books of the year. But that conversation has never tempted me much. It is too vertical, too evaluative, too eager to conclude.
My reading life is horizontal. One book leads sideways to another: an allusion, a shared anxiety, a common cadence of despair or delight. A Russian novel opens onto a French diary; a philosophical aside sends me back to a poem I read at seventeen and misunderstood entirely. Time collapses. Influence becomes conversation. The dead are not dead at all; they are merely quieter than the living, and infinitely more patient.
This is what it means, I think, to exist outside time—not to reject it, but to refuse its pressure. The present is loud. It shouts its claims. It demands attention in the name of urgency. But literature, real literature, does not shout. It murmurs. It waits for the reader who is willing to slow down enough to hear it.
So no one recommends books to me, and I do not miss it. I live among my own recommendations, accumulated over a lifetime, stacked not on shelves but in memory, each one marked by the moment it entered my life and the person I was when it did. I am a hermit, yes—but not a lonely one. My solitude is crowded.
When people say, You must read this, they are usually talking to one another, not to me. Recommendation presumes a shared present, a common pulse: the sense that we are all standing in the same moment, looking at the same horizon, worried about the same things. I am not. I am elsewhere—sometimes decades elsewhere—sitting with a sentence that has already survived its own moment and no longer needs witnesses.
Books come to me the way memories do: without announcement, without justification. I do not discover them; they resurface. A line half-remembered suddenly insists on being completed. A voice I have not heard in years clears its throat. I open a book not because it is new but because it has waited. The waiting matters. It means the book has detached itself from fashion and entered a slower orbit, one governed less by relevance than by necessity.
There is a peculiar freedom in this exile. I do not read to keep up, to be conversant, to have opinions ready for deployment. I read to inhabit another consciousness fully, to submit to its tempo, to let it rearrange my internal furniture. The cost, of course, is social. You cannot easily discuss a novel you are rereading for the fourth time when everyone else is busy ranking the ten best books of the year. But that conversation has never tempted me much. It is too vertical, too evaluative, too eager to conclude.
My reading life is horizontal. One book leads sideways to another: an allusion, a shared anxiety, a common cadence of despair or delight. A Russian novel opens onto a French diary; a philosophical aside sends me back to a poem I read at seventeen and misunderstood entirely. Time collapses. Influence becomes conversation. The dead are not dead at all; they are merely quieter than the living, and infinitely more patient.
This is what it means, I think, to exist outside time—not to reject it, but to refuse its pressure. The present is loud. It shouts its claims. It demands attention in the name of urgency. But literature, real literature, does not shout. It murmurs. It waits for the reader who is willing to slow down enough to hear it.
So no one recommends books to me, and I do not miss it. I live among my own recommendations, accumulated over a lifetime, stacked not on shelves but in memory, each one marked by the moment it entered my life and the person I was when it did. I am a hermit, yes—but not a lonely one. My solitude is crowded.
swirlie · 31-35
@FrogManSometimesLooksBothWays
In that case, I will take the liberty to act on behalf of the OP of this thread to place a black check-mark in the 'no' box of this question beside your name.
...and you are welcome in advance.
In that case, I will take the liberty to act on behalf of the OP of this thread to place a black check-mark in the 'no' box of this question beside your name.
...and you are welcome in advance.
LavidaRaq · F
I am currently reading The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. I’m not finished yet, however it’s such a different kind of read. I don’t want it to end. I’m sure it will be a favorite that I will reread.
It was a recommendation on ticktock of something different than the norm and rarely brought up. Which it is.
It was a recommendation on ticktock of something different than the norm and rarely brought up. Which it is.
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DearAmbellina2113 · 41-45, F
GerOttman · 70-79, M
Dr. Mary's Monkeys - Edward T. Haslam
Recommend by my dad. Very interesting and compelling story!
Recommend by my dad. Very interesting and compelling story!
Not sure it'd be considered a book, but the program plan which was recommended by my boss.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
Never.
My taste in literature is too esoteric.
Why I don't even listen to movie critics. It's a waste of time.
Before I will buy anything I do read the summaries. That usually will determine if it's worth it or not.
My taste in literature is too esoteric.
Why I don't even listen to movie critics. It's a waste of time.
Before I will buy anything I do read the summaries. That usually will determine if it's worth it or not.
Starchild1983 · 41-45, F
ChipmunkErnie · 70-79, M
Ooo, no idea. I just buy/read what I like.
IPmyPants · 41-45, M
BIBLE
Iwillwait · M
The Bible
swirlie · 31-35
swirlie · 31-35
@Iwillwait
Okay, but let me point something out to you...
The question of this thread asked "What is the last book that you read specifically because someone recommended it to you?".
You replied "The Bible".
My question to you was, 'why was the person who recommended that you read the Bible, thinking that you were specifically in need of reading the Bible?
Obviously that person must have thought you specifically needed to read the Bible, so what had you done that had led them to believe that you should read the Bible?
How did they know that you had NOT read the Bible up to that point in your life?
Okay, but let me point something out to you...
The question of this thread asked "What is the last book that you read specifically because someone recommended it to you?".
You replied "The Bible".
My question to you was, 'why was the person who recommended that you read the Bible, thinking that you were specifically in need of reading the Bible?
Obviously that person must have thought you specifically needed to read the Bible, so what had you done that had led them to believe that you should read the Bible?
How did they know that you had NOT read the Bible up to that point in your life?
Boeing · 36-40
The summer I read to Kill a Mocking Bird, a friend gave it to me...
Boeing · 36-40
@JohnnySpot is there a movie? I have not seen it
OriginalNedKelly · M
A guide to a successful marriage - written by some feminist hating males
Never read the book and still married after 45 years and 5 months
Never read the book and still married after 45 years and 5 months
swirlie · 31-35
Anyone who recommends a specific book for you to read, is like someone who pulls a package of breath mints out of his pocket, pops one in his mouth, then offers you one as well.
The question is, why did he offer you a breath mint and why is he recommending a specific book for you to read?
The question is, why did he offer you a breath mint and why is he recommending a specific book for you to read?
Boeing · 36-40
@swirlie perhaps yes and again, the choice is mine will I take it or not.
3 and a half years ago in my birthdays my boyfriend had gifted me one of these commercial books, I got angry and told him he didn't even take the time to choose something for me but rather he just got what was sold.
3 years ago I left that book in Nepal, on my way to the airport, without having read it.
I forgot about it.
1 year ago last Christmas I enter a crowded bookstore and I see the same book. I bought it.
and I read it and it was a blatant book. But in a page, it was talking about how purple and yellow flowers were appearing in a field when death was nearing.
I was living up the mountain and I begun to observe the colors by which the flowers were appearing, in the end of winter, in the beginning of the spring, in the end of summer. I observed a sequence. As a painter, working with colors, I saw things, I made realizations.
I connect things.
So I trust the ways of life more and more.
3 and a half years ago in my birthdays my boyfriend had gifted me one of these commercial books, I got angry and told him he didn't even take the time to choose something for me but rather he just got what was sold.
3 years ago I left that book in Nepal, on my way to the airport, without having read it.
I forgot about it.
1 year ago last Christmas I enter a crowded bookstore and I see the same book. I bought it.
and I read it and it was a blatant book. But in a page, it was talking about how purple and yellow flowers were appearing in a field when death was nearing.
I was living up the mountain and I begun to observe the colors by which the flowers were appearing, in the end of winter, in the beginning of the spring, in the end of summer. I observed a sequence. As a painter, working with colors, I saw things, I made realizations.
I connect things.
So I trust the ways of life more and more.
swirlie · 31-35
@Boeing
I think you've missed the point of my own post. When someone offers you a breath mint, they are not offering you a candy. A breath mint has a specific purpose for it's creation in the first place. A breath mint is a breath sanitizer in candy-form.
My question was, why would a person offer you a breath mint unless of course you had bad breath that you weren't aware of?
If YOU never thought that you had bad breath, but they offered you a breath mint as if they were offering you a simple candy, their actions of offering you a breath sanitizer that was marketed as such but presented in candy-form, would actually be considered an insult, or at least it should be, rather than just telling you straight-up that your breath is strong.
That is why one should never offer anyone and unsolicited breath mint because to make that offering without being asked, they are telling you that you are unknowingly IN NEED of a breath sanitizer.
When someone offers you a breath mint, they are making a statement to you; they are NOT being hospitable just because they take one from the package for themselves, which they themselves are using as a breath sanitizer to control their own breath.
When it comes to books, my question then went on to say the same thing. When someone suggests that you specifically should read a certain book, WHY are they suggesting that YOU need to read that specific book?
For example, if someone were to suggest that you specifically, should read a certain self-help book from the Psychology section of a book store, that would suggest that THEY think that YOU are in need of learning something about yourself that you clearly haven't learned yet.
Rather than just telling you what that deficiency is in their view, they instead offer unsolicited advice by suggesting you read a specific book where hopefully, you will learn of your apparent deficiency without someone having to tell them, particularly them.
To my point then, when someone specifically suggests a certain book that you should read, you should first question them as to 'why' they are making that unsolicited suggestion to you in the first place.
I think you've missed the point of my own post. When someone offers you a breath mint, they are not offering you a candy. A breath mint has a specific purpose for it's creation in the first place. A breath mint is a breath sanitizer in candy-form.
My question was, why would a person offer you a breath mint unless of course you had bad breath that you weren't aware of?
If YOU never thought that you had bad breath, but they offered you a breath mint as if they were offering you a simple candy, their actions of offering you a breath sanitizer that was marketed as such but presented in candy-form, would actually be considered an insult, or at least it should be, rather than just telling you straight-up that your breath is strong.
That is why one should never offer anyone and unsolicited breath mint because to make that offering without being asked, they are telling you that you are unknowingly IN NEED of a breath sanitizer.
When someone offers you a breath mint, they are making a statement to you; they are NOT being hospitable just because they take one from the package for themselves, which they themselves are using as a breath sanitizer to control their own breath.
When it comes to books, my question then went on to say the same thing. When someone suggests that you specifically should read a certain book, WHY are they suggesting that YOU need to read that specific book?
For example, if someone were to suggest that you specifically, should read a certain self-help book from the Psychology section of a book store, that would suggest that THEY think that YOU are in need of learning something about yourself that you clearly haven't learned yet.
Rather than just telling you what that deficiency is in their view, they instead offer unsolicited advice by suggesting you read a specific book where hopefully, you will learn of your apparent deficiency without someone having to tell them, particularly them.
To my point then, when someone specifically suggests a certain book that you should read, you should first question them as to 'why' they are making that unsolicited suggestion to you in the first place.
Boeing · 36-40
@swirlie all this thinking implies that we are taking things personally, and when I say to work with Spirit, that means that you are trusting that beyond the surface reasoning, lies something else..a deeper reasoning.
I brought my story as an example, my own learning experience. I also took it personally against my boyfriend back then, following a similar way of thinking that you are portraying here. But years later I found that book myself and bought it.
You know what, I think I will suggest this book to you.
That book my ex gave me few years ago and I didn't want it because I was thinking what were his reasons for getting me this gift, and I was so strongly opinionated that I almost missed the gift. Almost, I didn't.
The Traveling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa
Now I must go and sleep 🪻
I brought my story as an example, my own learning experience. I also took it personally against my boyfriend back then, following a similar way of thinking that you are portraying here. But years later I found that book myself and bought it.
You know what, I think I will suggest this book to you.
That book my ex gave me few years ago and I didn't want it because I was thinking what were his reasons for getting me this gift, and I was so strongly opinionated that I almost missed the gift. Almost, I didn't.
The Traveling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa
Now I must go and sleep 🪻