Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 is a novel relating the story of Guy Montag, a “fireman” in a future America where firemen burn books. This future America is actually rather frightening: as television becomes more prevalent and more interactive, books are seen by general society as being evil, containing critical thoughts that are better off banished. Guy’s journey takes him from being a loyal fireman to questioning his job and the value of literature, eventually leading him to a life on the run with a bandit of misfits.

Fahrenheit 451 was the first book I ever read that left me thinking about my own value structure after I closed the cover. The book awakened me to the possibility that a book could be more than a simple form of entertainment and left me asking fundamental questions about life and freedom that I’ve never adequately answered for myself. In many ways, these questions led me to blogging which for me is a literary expression of self-discovery. Read my full essay on Fahrenheit 451 and its impact on my life.

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged is a novel that is set in an America slowly rotting away due to technological regression and a lack of leadership. The leaders of society and industry are slowly disappearing, and the remaining ones seem to be fighting a losing battle against a slow societal disease. The book focuses primarily on Dagny Taggart, a hard-working railroad executive who tries to fight this malaise but eventually discovers the root of it in a societal meme: Who is John Galt?

Atlas Shrugged really awoke two things in me: a burning desire to understand how politics and society actually worked, and a deep respect and desire to protect the rights of the individual and his/her ability to succeed due to his/her ability. I realized that it was up to me to make a difference in the world – but also that it was my right to have that opportunity to succeed and a healthy, good society should allow an individual that right. Read my full essay on Atlas Shrugged and its impact on my life.

Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis

Mere Christianity is a Christian apology; in other words, it seeks to explain the belief structure of Christianity in a way palatable to both believers and nonbelievers. Thus, it focuses on only those elements of Christianity that have been part of the belief structure in almost all times and all places and avoids the differences between denominations and also issues with Christian history. It uses a logical structure and follow-through that makes it a wonderful book for both Christians and non-Christians alike to really understand the theological underpinings of Christianity without the strong opposition of an atheistic perspective or the blatant fervor of an evangelical.

Mere Christianity really awoke me to the spiritual dimensions of my life. It didn’t lead me down a blind path directly to Christianity, but it did open me up to the idea that there was more to faith and religion that meets the eye, and it started me on a lifelong quest to find out these answers for myself. To my surprise looking back on it, it actually taught me not to accept the dogma of others, but to seek my own path and truth. Read my full essay on Mere Christianity and its impact on my life.

Titan – Ron Chernow

Titan is a biography of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil and the world’s first billionaire, but it is no ordinary biography. The real power of Titan lies in the way that it lays out Rockefeller’s growth from rather ordinary circumstances to the unparalleled levels of success that he found later in life, even down to the specific mechanics he used to organize his life and motivate himself. It’s about work ethic and about taking what you have and making something out of it without anyone else’s help.

Titan impacted me because I came from extremely humble beginnings like he did, except that until I read this book I believed that the dizzying heights that he and others achieved were simply unreachable for a boy from the country like myself. It blew me away because Rockefeller started out in my shoes and managed to climb up on top of the entire world – if he could do this, surely I could find success in my life goals. Chernow’s gift for making Rockefeller seem real to me made me feel less alone in the world; it made me realize that indeed I could play the hand that birth dealt me into whatever I could dream of. Read my full essay on Titan and its impact on my life.

Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

On the surface, Invisible Man is about an individual trying to find his way in the world, moving from being a loner to being part of a social movement back to being a loner again. Peel away that layer and it almost seems to be about race, but if you peel away that layer you’ll find that the book is about humankind, stumbling along trying to figure itself out. There are a lot of books out there that touch upon these issues, but they all seem to want to blame someone. The truth is that there is no truth outside of our own experience, that everyone’s experiences are different, and by spending all of our time being racist or fighting racism, we’re not actually solving a damn thing.

Invisible Man changed me in more dimensions than I can even relate. It taught me that what was true for me wasn’t necessarily true for anyone else. It taught me that racism is just someone buying into a negative stereotype. It taught me how much actions speak louder than words. And the power of Ellison’s words finally convinced me that I should become a writer after a lifetime of prodding in that direction. Read my full essay on Invisible Man and its impact on my life.

Joy of Cooking – Irma Rombauer

Instead of merely being a compendum of recipes like many cookbooks, Joy of Cooking is a mishmash of recipes, tutorials, and short articles on an almost dizzying array of topics. Even more interesting (with the exception of the archaic 1997 edition), the book is largely written in a very conversational tone, rather different than a lot of cookbooks. In other words, it’s a cookbook that you can sit down and read from beginning to end for enjoyment, and the sheer joy of cooking comes across on every page, convincing you to get up and try it, even if it turns out that you create a complete mockery of Hollandaise sauce (not that I’ve ever done that …).

It was a stained, beat-up copy of Joy of Cooking bought for fifty cents at a yard sale that began my journey into cooking, a passion that has grown without abatement for years and makes me almost cry out for a huge kitchen with a little pantry off to the side and a giant spice rack full to the brim with spices. Before I found this book, I couldn’t boil water without scathing my skin and the thought of an hour in the kitchen seemed like torture; now, my obvious love of cooking oozes out even into this blog on personal finance. Read my full essay on Joy of Cooking and its impact on my life.

The Conscience of a Conservative – Barry Goldwater

The Conscience of a Conservative basically spells out the political beliefs of Barry Goldwater, a Republican Senator from Arizona who ran for President in 1964. He brought to the table a very clear political perspective, one that is basically completely alien to the “conservatives” today. In a nutshell, this philosophy has only one true litmus test: local governments are better suited to solve local issues, because every person and every community are different. The federal government should solve issues of interstate commerce and national defense and that is all. This enables each state to decide their own path on most controversial issues, enabling like-minded people to live in states that respected their beliefs without federal interference.

Before reading this book, I didn’t have what you would call a political ideology of my own. I just followed what others said without really putting together an overall worldview that represented what I thought was right and what I thought was wrong. The Conscience of a Conservative awoke in me a desire to be more aware of politics around me – and also to be involved in the local political process, a transformation that has altered my life in many, many ways. Read my full essay on The Conscience of a Conservative and its impact on my life.

How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

How To Win Friends And Influence People is about how to deal with social situations, nothing more, nothing less. It’s very well written and broken down into small pieces that anyone can follow and accomplish.

So why did it impact my life so strongly? To put it simply, I was not exactly adept at social situations before reading this book. I had a very hard time … well, winning friends or influencing people. As I came into leadership roles, all I had to rely on was pure demonstration of my own abilities to lead, and while that can be a tool for inspiration, it can only carry so much weight – and it certainly doesn’t help when you’re standing up in front of a crowd of people who don’t know you or your record and you have to convince them that what you’re doing is valuable. This book, because it broke down the ability to work through social situations into tiny things that I could practice and learn, made it possible for a complete social train wreck like myself to begin to be able to speak in public venues and relate to other people – which completely changed the rules of how my life worked and what I could do with it. Read my full essay on How To Win Friends And Influence People and its impact on my life.

Getting Things Done – David Allen

Getting Things Done is a book on personal productivity for those who really don’t want to (or have the time to) commit themselves to a sticy, compex system of task management. It has one overall guiding principle: write down the stuff you need to do as you think of it, then process that list when you have open time. If you have ongoing projects, keep a list or a folder for that project and check on it regularly to keep it going. That’s the nutshell of it – the book goes on to show examples of how it works and add some detail for specific situations, but that’s really the key.

I found Getting Things Done just as my life was about to move into hyperspeed: my child was born and I began to really kick my writing into high gear. Given the previous inefficient methods that filled my life, I had no idea how I was going to find time to get these things accomplished, but taking the modular materials in this book and applying them to my life in a sensible fashion, I not only became a father and kicked my writing into gear, I found time to found and develop this blog into something great. Read my full essay on Getting Things Done and its impact on my life.

Your Money or Your Life – Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

Your Money or Your Life is a book about personal finance, but rather than focusing on being rich, the book instead looks deeply at finding the central values in one’s life and realigning your life and money to follow these values. The book is based on the idea that most people’s money problems are actually connected to a lack of fundamental direction in their life: they work just to earn money, not because it’s what they love doing. To do this, the book goes in an unorthodox direction compared to a lot of books on the personal finance shelf, often presenting what initially seem like incredibly contrarian ideas and directions.

After getting so much of my life in order and discovering the joys of being involved, being social, and being organized, I realized how much of a wreck my financial life was. I read mountains of personal finance books, but this one was the one that clicked: it connected my money to my life in an elemental fashion, the first source I’d read that didn’t just tell me that my money didn’t control me, but showed me how to reveal this elemental truth to myself. Read my full essay on Your Money or Your Life and its impact on my life.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life: A Summary appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Right after my financial meltdown (if you haven’t read about the road to my financial armageddon, you should – it’s pretty interesting), I realized that I didn’t know anything at all about personal finance, so I basically went to the bookstore and the library and checked out a pile of books: The Millionaire Next Door, Smart Couples Finish Rich, The Total Money Makeover, and so on.

I kept reading and reading and reading and nothing really clicked. I read about frugality, about investments, about how to reduce and eliminate debt, and so on, but the part that never really clicked for me is how all of these pieces really affected my life. I could see how eliminating debt was helpful and I could see that over a long period of time I could build up some money if I did these things. But what I couldn’t see is this as an element of my life, how my money fit into the big picture of things. I was still seeing money as an opponent rather than as a tool.

This book changed all of that. I read through it three times back to back to back, the third time with a notebook in hand scribbling down notes all over the place. This book actually kick-started the mental transition from someone drowning in debt and a slave to their paycheck into the reasonably frugal person I am today, nearly debt-free, and more importantly free from the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

What’s it about?

I reviewed this book in detail a few months ago. Instead of rehashing what I wrote then, I’ll just quote the summary of the review:

Your Money or Your Life is a bit unusual in terms of personal finance books that you’ll typically find at your local bookstore. For starters, the book has very little concrete information about increasing your wealth. In a section that typically is loaded with books about becoming a millionaire, this is an unusual approach.

So what does Your Money or Your Life offer instead? Rather than focusing on being rich, the book instead looks deeply at finding the central values in one’s life and realigning your life and money to follow these values. The idea here is that most people’s money problems are actually connected to a lack of fundamental direction in their life: they work just to earn money, not because it’s what they love doing.

The book uses a number of rather unorthodox methods for exposing this truth in your life. Much of the book is spent defining values and placing them in real financial perspective, going so far as to often conclude that you should quit your job. In terms of a get rich quick scheme, this is anathema, but it is also quite enlightening.

The book’s real purpose is to reframe your relationship with money, not to reframe your management with money. If this seems kind of “New Age-y,” that’s because it is. The book makes no qualms about stating that for many people, working a full workweek is not the best way to live life, and that one should seek the best way to live their own life, not live the life others expect or demand.

The book has lots of anecdotes – but it has a lot of detail, too. This is a fairly long book, as personal finance books go, but it provides a lot of food for thought even if you don’t buy in to the overall plan.

How did Your Money or Your Life shape the person I became?

I stopped believing that money controlled my life. I used to lay awake at night worrying about money. Reading this book didn’t automatically end that, but it showed me that my idea of the money I had available and the money I was making was completely wrong. Once I made that adjustment, suddenly it was as if a cold grip released itself from me.

Even more, I started believing that my life controlled my money. I began to see my life without the weight of debt and the need to chase a paycheck because I actually understood the path to get there. Without this revelation, I would never have started The Simple Dollar and I would have never had the courage to start really chasing my dream of becoming a writer. If that’s not a life changer, I don’t know what is.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #10: Your Money or Your Life appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

During the early stages of my adult life, my time management was truly awful. I would waste time in complete idleness on a daily basis and spend other times simply struggling to know where to start with larger projects. I was fairly strong in a strictly professional sense because I had some natural vision, but in terms of managing my own life, I was abysmal and I knew it.

I tried a number of personal productivity philosophies and nothing worked. I went to some seminars and they just didn’t click. I kept finding myself returning to the same old ruts of doing the same old stuff.

In mid-2005, two things happened almost simultaneously that changed everything. First, my wife and I found out that we were going to have a child. We immediately threw ourselves into education about parenting and it became obvious that I was either going to have to give up the concept of sleep or else I would have to learn how to manage my time better. Second, I stumbled across several personal productivity sites largely focused on the GTD philosophy, mostly due to some feverish searching about time management.

I didn’t know anything about GTD at the time, so I ordered Getting Things Done and read it. And then I read it again. And then I started trying it. It seemed so incredibly simple that I basically didn’t believe that it would work.

It did.

Right now, I have a full time job, I maintain this site, I spend at least three hours a day just with my child, I keep up with several other hobbies, I keep up with my household chores, I’m writing a book, and I’m considering another blog launch. How? I finally got it, and this book opened the door.

What’s it about?

This is the best capsule description of the book that I’ve come across, far better than anything I could have come up with. David Allen, the author of the book, describes Getting Things Done as follows:

Get everything out of your head. Make decisions about actions required on stuff when it shows up — not when it blows up. Organize reminders of your projects and the next actions on them in appropriate categories. Keep your system current, complete, and reviewed sufficiently to trust your intuitive choices about what you’re doing (and not doing) at any time.

Basically, Getting Things Done has one overall guiding principle: write down the stuff you need to do as you think of it, then process that list when you have open time. If you have ongoing projects, keep a list or a folder for that project and check on it regularly to keep it going. That’s the nutshell of it – the book goes on to show examples of how it works and add some detail for specific situations, but that’s really all there is to Getting Things Done.

How did Getting Things Done shape the person I became?

It “tricked” me into being more productive. It seemed so simple that I didn’t actually think it would work until I started doing it. I just started carrying a little notebook in my pocket with the first dozen pages or so for just jotting down anything that came to mind to get done, then individual pages after that for each larger project (which had their own list). This isn’t exactly what the book suggests, but it does express the simplicity of it. It wasn’t long before I began to feel ridiculously productive – I’d get home, whip out the notebook, and just start doing the tasks without burning time thinking about it or wondering what I should do or just shrugging my shoulders and watching television.

It saved my marriage and enabled me to build a relationship with my son. Once I started to eliminate the things I needed to do in my life, it became clear to me which things were important and which ones were not. I began to realize that my wife and later my son were the important pieces, not my job or my hobbies. As time goes on, this begins to feel more and more true.

In terms of my day to day life, this is probably the most influential book I’ve ever read. I can’t recommend it more highly than that.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #9: Getting Things Done appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Even though I spent most of my life filled with anxiety in social situations, I took a position in mid-2002 that was, at least in part, a sales position. One large portion of my position was to sell people on a project and convince people to provide funding for future growth of this project.

Needless to say, I was scared by this daunting task. I had a very difficult time making friends with people easily, and as the time for salesmanship began to creep closer and closer, I began to withdraw more and more into a shell. I spent my time holed up, focusing on tasks I could do alone without interacting with others.

Somehow, anonymously, this book arrived on my desk one morning with a typed note taped to the cover that just said “Read me.” This was about a month before my first major sales pitch. I did what the note said and spent each day practicing one of the points in the book on everyone around me.

I knocked the presentation out of the park. Since then, I’ve given seminars to crowds of hundreds, met and interacted with more people than I could ever count, and discovered that I actually had the ability within me to talk to and relate to others, something I would have never believed before cracking the cover of this book.

What’s it about?

Basically, the entire book is about how to deal with social situations, nothing more, nothing less. The outline of the book largely reveals the meat of the content within:

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

   1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
   2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
   3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six Ways to Make People Like You

   1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
   2. Smile.
   3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
   4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
   5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
   6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Win People to Your Way of Thinking

   1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
   2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
   3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
   4. Begin in a friendly way.
   5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
   6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
   7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
   8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
   9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
   10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
   11. Dramatize your ideas.
   12. Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

   1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
   2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
   3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
   4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
   5. Let the other person save face.
   6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
   7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
   8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
   9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

How did How to Win Friends and Influence People shape the person I became?

Practicing the principles of this book made it possible for me to begin connecting with people outside of my comfort zone (which was – and to a degree still is – very small). Before I read this book, the impression others had of me was of someone very quiet, aloof, and, well, cold.

Following the ideas in the book made me break out of my shell. This is perhaps the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I no longer feel apprehensive about meeting people or about giving speeches. I used to be scared to participate in group conversations; now I can jump right in and lead them. I used to be completely locked up by stage fright if presenting to more than four or five people; now I can talk to hundreds or thousands without breaking a sweat.

In short, this book made it possible for me to escape from my shell and find a place in the real world, in the social world, interacting with others.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #8: How to Win Friends and Influence People appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.- Barry Goldwater

Don’t let your idea of what the word conservative means in modern politics dissuade you here – I almost made that mistake and passed over this book more than once because I thought conservatives stood for the rich getting richer and various other ideas. That’s not what this book is about.

Until I read this book, I was basically disillusioned with American politics. I believed that politics was nothing more than a crook’s game and that no one in Washington stood for anything at all. I did read political books by the pound, but most of those beliefs were either obvious pandering for votes (like, say, The Audacity of Hope, for a modern example) or espoused such a radical perspective that no real government could follow it (like, say, Noam Chomsky).

I already believed pretty strongly in the individual over the group, but what I continually found was that both Republicans and Democrats seemed inclined to lead America down a path where individuals and small communities were bent to the will of the “greater good.” I pay Social Security whether I want to or not, for example, and I have no choice about it while living in the United States.

It’s based on this general idea that all people are basically equal except for their external environments – which always made me wonder how come I can be good at solving math problems while my classmates were not, but I could be terrible at playing baseball while those same classmates excelled at the sport. It’s also built from a belief that all problems can be solved by the government because everyone has everyone else’s best interests at heart – which makes me wonder why robberies or murders happen, or why anyone doesn’t have enough to eat. Clearly, these ideas that the politicians claim in their speeches are complete falsehoods, then – they’re lying through their teeth when they propose enormous government plans – someone’s collecting the cash somewhere.

This book was like a beacon into my life. I finally woke up to the idea that I didn’t have to subscribe to their philosophies, but I did have to respect that they existed. Instead of just withdrawing from politics or believing it didn’t matter, I watched Al Gore and George W. Bush debate the issues, then I looked at all the candidates on the ballot and voted for the one that gave me the most freedom. And I did it again in 2004. I got involved in local politics and I fight all the time for the power of the individual.

What’s it about?

The book is based on the idea that all people are not equal; we’re all different with different beliefs, different ideas, and different abilities, and that a government that takes resources from these individuals in the form of taxes better have an essential reason for doing so (i.e., things far outside the scale of the individual or the local community, like national defense or a highway system). It explains, in very clear terms, why a tiny government is better than a large one. If you believe in socialism, that’s great – America gives you the freedom to start your own socialist community or state within it. But why should I be required to subscribe to this? On the other hand, if you believe that two people of the same gender shouldn’t be married, that’s fine. But why should I be required to subscribe to this?

This is why our founding fathers founded the nation the way they did; they intended it to be a collection of states with different laws and different philosophies governing each area. If we didn’t like the laws in one state, we could go to another, or work from within to change that state, but the federal government should only concern itself with issues that cross the lines of that state. If you wish to live in an area where alcohol and gambling are illegal, find some like-minded people, move to one community, and work to change the laws there.

You see, this goes far beyond a typical generic definition of what a conservative and a liberal are today. Take, for example, this statement on page 35: “it has never been seriously argued … that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to alter the Constitutional scheme with regard to education. … I therefore support all efforts by the States … to preserve their rightful powers over education.” In the 1950s and 1960s, a person believing this would have strongly supported a state’s right to have segregated schools. On the other hand, today a person believing this would strongly support a state’s right to have affirmative action in acceptance to their university. In today’s skewed climate, the first is seen as an ultra-right-wing position, but the second is seen as a strongly left-wing position – but the same basic philosophy underlines both of them.

This book is a challenge to everyone who reads it, because it spells out the most clearly articulated, sensible, applicable, and consistent political philosophy I’ve ever seen. Nearly every other philosophy is grounded in a general sense of right and wrong on a number of issues distinctly; this philosophy has only one true litmus test: local governments are better suited to solve local issues, because every person and every community are different.

How did The Conscience of a Conservative shape the person I became?

It helped me to forge my own political identity – and respect that of others. Quite often, when I hear people claim to be a “conservative” or a “liberal,” I find out that their actual beliefs are much more complex in that. We rush too quickly to slap a label on someone and then use that label to unfairly group people or look upon them with a sneer, like when liberals use the phrase “neocons” or when conservatives say the word “liberal.” It’s ridiculous and it does nothing to benefit anyone other than in a “third graders at recess shouting taunts” sense. If you wish to claim you’re a liberal, that’s great – but what does that really mean? What do you believe? That’s what really matters, not the label you give yourself. I may claim to be a Goldwater conservative, but without meaning, it’s just two words.

It made me realize that I control my own destiny – and I shouldn’t rely on the government to help. It’s up to me and me alone to ensure that I have money when I retire, that I have food on my table, and that I have a house over my head. It is up to me to find gainful employment and to enjoy the fruits of that employment. Uncle Sam takes some money out of my pocket (and I think he takes too much), but only for resources that are too big for me alone to create, like the highway system and so forth. In terms of making my own way, it’s up to me to make it happen.

It made me get involved in politics at the local level. Once I got past the bitterness of ideology and began to realize that only by working around partisan rhetoric can anything actually get done, I began to get involved politically at the local level where partisanship isn’t nearly as bitter and I could actually make a difference in the community. Someday, I may become more involved, but right now I can see the impact of my local political awareness and the application of my beliefs. They say that all politics is local – and I completely agree.

What I wouldn’t give to have a man like Goldwater in mainstream American politics today.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #7: The Conscience of a Conservative appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Given my earlier advice that both How to Cook Everything and The New Best Recipe are more essential cookbooks than Joy of Cooking, some of you may be surprised to see this book pop up here.

But it was a stained, beat-up copy of Joy of Cooking bought for fifty cents at a yard sale that began my journey into cooking, a passion that has grown without abatement for years and makes me almost cry out for a huge kitchen with a little pantry off to the side and a giant spice rack full to the brim with spices.

At the time I picked it up, I knew next to nothing about cooking. The most complex thing I could assemble was mac and cheese out of a box, but I wanted to be able to actually make something in the kitchen. I tried to follow a few recipes my grandmother gave me, but I had no idea what I was doing and I wound up with some “burritos” that were very hard and a very disturbingly dark brown.

For the first month, I didn’t even try cooking a thing. I just read the book straight through from beginning to end – and I was hooked. Even though I believe other books are better for teaching cooking, I have never read a cookbook as readable as Joy of Cooking. I would curl up with it on the couch in the evenings and learn about braising and how to churn your own butter, and I would actually go to sleep with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.

Interestingly, my first copy of this book was accidentally thrown out by an overzealous friend during a kitchen clean-up. I left it out on the kitchen counter near some things I intended to toss, and the disheveled appearance of the book led my friend to believe that it was rubbish, too, so out it went. It was replaced with another copy quite quickly, which has itself started to grow worn and stained.

What’s it about?

Joy of Cooking is an enormous cookbook that has been steadily in print since 1936. Instead of merely being a compendum of recipes like many cookbooks, it is a mishmash of recipes, tutorials, and short articles on an almost dizzying array of topics. Even more interesting (with the exception of the archaic 1997 edition), the book is largely written in a very conversational tone, rather different than a lot of cookbooks.

In other words, it’s a cookbook that you can actually just sit down and read for enjoyment beyond using it as a tool in the kitchen. It is this readability that made me fall in love with it – and it has made lots of others fall in love with it, too. The only reason I hesitate to suggest it to a beginning chef is that most of the recipes are the equivalent of being tossed head first into the deep end of the swimming pool – if you’re not already familiar in the kitchen, a lot of this stuff will simply fly over your head or else result in something foul like those dark brown “burritos.”

How did Joy of Cooking shape the person I became?

It made me fall in love with cooking. The passion for cooking is deeply evident in every page of this book, and that passion is what made me go into the kitchen for the first time and try some things, and now I find myself in love with it, too.

It made me less afraid to try complicated new things. Before I read Joy of Cooking, I was somewhat timid to try things that seemed over my head. I would just shake my head and find something else more comfortable to do, like read a book or play a game or something. After reading this book, I became a lot less timid, and thus I’ve discovered a lot of things about myself in the ensuing seven years.

It built up my self-confidence. With only one other exception (which will come later on this list), this book built up my self-confidence, at least in terms of believing that I could do anything I wanted. In fact, it was this self-confidence that basically led me to starting this website.

It got me into better shape (nutritionally, at least). I used to live on macaroni and cheese and hot dogs and freezer meals and the like. Now they taste terrible to me. I discovered vegetables and meats and spices and all sorts of amazing things. Now I’ll eat all sorts of things that may or may not be the most perfectly healthy choices (hollandaise sauce is not healthy, but I can make it – and I do make it), but I do eat a much more balanced diet, rich in fruits and vegetables.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #6: Joy of Cooking appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

When I was a little boy, laying flat on my back on the hallway outside of my bedroom as a child, reading obsessively, I dreamed of being a writer. I dreamed of writing a novel that would actually be able to touch someone and completely make them rethink their entire world, even though our life experiences may be nothing alike. I wanted to write something incredibly beautiful as well, with linguistic phrases that would stick in a person’s mind; twists of letters and words that were so perfect as to bring someone to tears.

That boy grew up, went off to college, and instead spent his studies investigating the hard sciences. I let the coals of my writing dream grow ever dimmer, but I never gave up that passion for reading. I would literally read two or three books a day for my entire collegiate period, always seeking some sort of new idea or new way of looking at things. I read some incredibly powerful books, some of which twisted my mind in profound directions and others which showed me the incredible beauty of words.

But nothing else I read during my six years as a college student blew me away quite like Invisible Man. It is a mix of beautiful language and powerful thought on a level I’ve never really absorbed before or since. In fact, it was so powerful to me that it reawakened my desire to become a writer, and without that reawakening, this blog wouldn’t exist (for starters).

I am an invisible man. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination–indeed, everything and anything except me.

What’s it about?

In a straightforward way, this book follows the life of a black college student in the south in the early 1950s who is expelled for showing a white trustee of the college the actual living experience of a black person in the South at the time. This could have easily turned into a generic condemnation of racism right here, but that would make this book boring and no different than any other book about race – Ralph Ellison is too much of a genius to take that easy road. Instead, the student shows the trustee that in fact the disturbing stereotypes are often true. The liberal trustee, fueled by white liberal guilt, immediately withdraws support from the school, and thus the student is expelled.

He wanders for a bit, winding up in New York City, then eventually seems to find acceptance in a group called “The Brotherhood” who on the surface preaches a message of equality, but in actuality are just as blind as the trustee. By the end of the book, I felt such a mortal tie with this central invisible man that I nearly wept when that last powerful line crossed the page.

On the surface, Invisible Man is about an individual trying to find his way in the world, moving from being a loner to being part of a social movement back to being a loner again. Peel away that layer and it almost seems to be about race, but if you peel away that layer you’ll find that the book is about humankind, stumbling along trying to figure itself out.

There are a lot of books out there that touch upon these issues, but they all seem to want to blame someone. The truth is that there is no truth outside of our own experience, that everyone’s experiences are different, and by spending all of our time being racist or fighting racism, we’re not actually solving a damn thing.

How did Invisible Man shape the person I became?

It reawakened my desire to be a writer. If I could claim credit for any written document I’ve ever read, it would be this book. It is beautiful in every way that the written word can be beautiful, from the ideas to the characters right down to the word choices and the literary aspects. I dream of being able to write something even a tenth as amazing as this book.

It reminded me quite clearly that actions speak louder than words. Does this seem to contradict the idea that I want to be a writer? Ideas are the basis for actions, and words are a way to communicate ideas. Thus, in a way, actions are an amplification of words, but in order to stir up action, the words must be powerful and beautiful and persuasive. The things I choose to do are based on ideas in my head, but many of those ideas were transferred there by words, and words can sometimes reach very far, like a skipping rock across the smooth surface of a pond. I could let this dissolve into a rant against political correctness (my opposition to it basically came from this book), but this is neither the time nor the place for it.

It made me rethink my views on the world in general. Basically, I realized that what is true for me isn’t necessarily true for anyone else, and the best thing an argument can do is help me build up a greater understanding of what I find to be true about the world. I used to argue to win; now I debate to understand.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #5: Invisible Man appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

During my first semester in college, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Even worse, I felt completely as if I didn’t belong there. I grew up rather poor, no one in my family had ever attended college beyond a semester at a local community college, and I was only there due to a scholarship that I didn’t feel as though I’d earned. Basically, I felt like I didn’t belong there and as though I didn’t belong there.

The problem was that I had no real role model, no one tangible with a background like mine that I could clearly understand how they went from nothing to something. I had a sense that I had something greater inside of me, something more than just going to college and then going back home and becoming a park ranger (which is what I was planning on doing at that point), but I couldn’t see how that transition happened.

I never had a problem seeing a long term goal with my life, but before I read Titan, I felt aimless, almost like I was waiting for something to happen, that someone or something had to rescue me from who I was.

Then I read Titan, and for the first time in my life I felt like I had some sort of purpose.

What’s it about?

Titan is a biography of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil. Wikipedia covers the highlights of Rockefeller’s life quite well and these events are covered in detail in the book.

If Titan were just an ordinary biography, however, it wouldn’t have stood out in my mind like a beacon. The real power of Titan lies in the way that it lays out Rockefeller’s growth from rather ordinary circumstances to the unparalleled levels of success that he found later in life, even down to the specific mechanics he used to organize his life and motivate himself. Although I had avidly read countless biographies before this, almost all of them related the person’s childhood in very broad strokes and didn’t connect their early lives to their later successes (there are some, but I hadn’t read them yet).

This is a book about work ethic, about taking what you have and making something out of it without anyone else’s help. It made me realize that I was just sitting around feeling sorry for myself and it changed my life’s path forever.

How did Titan shape the person I became?

It made me realize I wasn’t alone in starting off with nothing. I was surrounded by people who grew up never wanting for anything. Many of them had attended private schools and they had everything they could possibly want or need to help them to succeed. I was literally the only resident in my dormitory without a personal computer, for example, because I came from a background that couldn’t afford one, so I had to do much of my work in the public labs on the far side of campus. I felt like I was the only person in the world who came from a poor background – this book made me not feel alone.

It made me see I already had all the tools I needed to succeed. Everything I needed I already had: a work ethic, a desire to learn, and a sharp mind. I didn’t really need anything else.

It made me broaden my horizons. Before I read this book, I wanted to be a park ranger. It was something familiar, something safe. I grew up near a state park where the ranger was quite old and I visualized replacing him. It wasn’t long after I closed the book that I realized that it was up to me to define my own destiny, and that destiny could be pretty much anything I wanted.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #4: Titan appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

It’s probably safe to assume that some readers will simply shut the door on this blog right now because I dare to mention the “C” word, especially on a personal finance site. After all, given the political climate in America for the past twenty years, anyone who dares call themselves a Christian should be tossed in a dungeon with Pat Robertson and locked up for good for the safety of us all, right?

To address this, I’m going to make two statements. First, I’m a Christian, but in today’s political landscape, I would be hesitant to ever call myself a conservative, because I don’t agree with a whole lot of what conservative politics in America stand for today. Second, I have no interest in converting anyone to Christianity via this blog, and this is probably the only time there will be a significant discussion of a single religion on this site.

When I first read this book, I was a pretty strong atheist. I believed that the default position for comprehending the world was that there was no God at all, and I couldn’t see any sort of logical argument that would lead me to believing in a God of any kind. It was an issue that I basically thought was settled until one lazy afternoon in a college dormitory, where I was asked about my beliefs, and an astute young man named Ben asked me if I had ever read an actual solid Christian apologist. When I confessed I had not, he loaned me his copy of Mere Christianity.

At this point, my exposure to Christians had been almost wholly negative. My parents were nominally Christian, but spent a great deal of time criticizing churches and pointing out their hypocrisies. In my school days, most of the Christian children stuck together closely in their own social group that I was aware of and friendly with, but I made it clear to them I wasn’t interested in their religious views, particularly towards a few of them who were quite open and loud about their beliefs. I had also witnessed the blathering evangelists on television, most of which were preaching a Gospel that an intelligent twelve year old could punch holes through.

Anyway, I took the copy of Mere Christianity and read the whole thing in a single Saturday afternoon. I remember thinking before I started reading it that I fully expected it to be tripe. When I closed the back cover, though, I was deeply shaken, and it sent me on a long journey of figuring out who I was and what I believed. Today, I would \describe myself as a Christian, but I wouldn’t say that I was converted by this book alone (there were many factors). I would merely say that it provided the first serious exposure I had to a well thought out and intelligently described discussion of Christianity from the perspective of a follower of the faith, and to see the religion laid out in such a sensible fashion really shook my belief structures to the core.

What’s it about?

Mere Christianity is a Christian apology; in other words, it seeks to explain the belief structure of Christianity in a way palatable to both believers and nonbelievers. Thus, he focuses on only those elements of Christianity that have been part of the belief structure in almost all times and all places, and thus avoids the differences between denominations and also issues with Christian history. This book is about the foundations of Christianity, not the details.

Rather than starting off by reiterating Christian doctrine (which would cause a nonbeliever to shut the book), Lewis begins with morals and ethics. From the Wikipedia entry:

Lewis bases his case for Christian belief on the existence of a Moral Law, a “Rule about Right and Wrong” commonly known to all human beings. This “law” is like mathematical laws in being real, not just a matter of convention, contrived by humans. But it is unlike mathematically expressed laws of nature in that it can be broken or ignored by humans, who possess free will.

Using this as an underpinning, Lewis goes on to lay out the basic tenets of Christianity, including the role of Jesus and the reasons behind atonement for sins. The entire book moves in a rather logical fashion, which is often unexpected to people who have not been exposed to a strong, intelligent discussion of Christian beliefs.

How did Mere Christianity shape the person I became?

It made me respect the beliefs and belief structures of others. This book was the first one that ever thoroughly destroyed a strongly-held belief structure of mine. I basically believed that all Christians were deluded fools, and to see a rational, well-constructed argument in favor of Christianity, even if I didn’t agree with it, altered my perspective on Christians as a whole.

It sent me on my own spiritual journey. In the ten years since I first read this book, I’ve read countless books on countless religions. I’ve spent hours upon hours considering difficult questions about my own beliefs and my own place in the universe. I wound up reading a lot of works from theological schools and other sources, including a few that really altered my viewpoint on various things, but none were capable of making that fundamental shift like Mere Christianity did.

It taught me that I didn’t have to simply accept the dogma of others. After reading this book and thinking about things for a while, I began to realize that a big part of my atheistic perspective wasn’t from my own thought process. I merely bought into what everyone else was saying around me without really thinking about it too much. Many people might expect that a book that would lead me to Christianity would cause me to think less; the truth is that Mere Christianity made me think about my beliefs and ideas more. In fact, that’s a big reason why this site exists: so many people in my generation accept that money works in a certain way, when the truth of the matter is that it works entirely differently.

It started me down a path of redefining my own moral rights and wrongs. I had some seriously skewed views during my college years about what constituted right and wrong, but as time went on, I found myself listening more and more to the little voice inside me. Eventually, I began to completely trust that voice, and it hasn’t led me wrong in a very long time.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #3: Mere Christianity appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

I spent my high school years reading approximately two books a day, many of them quite lengthy. I eschewed having a lot of friends then because, well, I simply had no interest at all in most of the high school social games. I generally kept completely to myself, but made a point to be friendly and social enough to enough people so that I was generally left alone to follow my own path.

This left me with a lot of time to think and to try to figure out how the world worked – or at least figure out how I believed that the world worked. To be honest, I felt very lost at the time, even to the point that I was despondent that the world made little sense to me.

Then I read Atlas Shrugged and, with that one book, I began to assemble an overall understanding of the world around me.

What’s it about?

The book tells the tale of an America slowly rotting away due to technological regression and a lack of leadership. The leaders of society and industry are slowly disappearing, and the remaining ones seem to be fighting a losing battle against a slow malaise.

The central story focuses on Dagny Taggart, a hard-working railroad executive who fights diligently to protect her railroad from the growing malaise. Yet her actions seem to be one step forward, two steps back, and society itself is becoming an irritant to her. The phrase “Who is John Galt?” in particular aggravates her, as it is a social meme that basically means “Don’t ask questions because there are no answers.”

Eventually, Dagny discovers that John Galt is not a meme, but an actual person, one who has convinced the most productive members of society to go on strike, leaving the rest of the world to fall apart.

For a different perspective, the Wikipedia entry for Atlas Shrugged is detailed and well written.

How did Atlas Shrugged affect the person I became?

I started to question the fundamental structure of society, government, and economics. Prior to reading the book, I generally accepted that society in the United States was the way things should be; after the book, I began to dive into economic, social, and political theory an an effort to understand why things were the way they were. I jumped wildly from theory to theory, shifting my worldview wildly from week to week before finally beginning to build a structure that made sense to me, but it was Atlas Shrugged that made me begin to question how things worked.

I began to appreciate the power of the individual. One of the primary themes of this book is that intelligent, hard-working people are the ones that make the world work, and these people deserve the rewards of their intellect and effort. Even today, the people that impress me most are the ones whose actions have a genuine positive effect on the lives of people.

I began to be disillusioned by celebrity. Why should I respect anyone who represents values that I don’t agree with? Why should I look up to people who don’t contribute to a greater society? To me, Norman Borlaug is a hero, not William Hung, and I consider it an indictment of society when more people are familiar with Hung than Borlaug.

I realized that it was up to me and me alone to make a success out of my life. This is perhaps the biggest lesson that this book taught me. Before I read this book, I had this belief that just because I was intelligent, the world owed me something. After reading this, I began to wonder what value I really had to offer to the world. I might be intelligent, but if I spent all my time in the corner ranting about how the world owed me something, I would be wasting my life. I needed to use my intelligence for my own benefit, to get off my lazy behind and do something with it, or else it would just fester and rot.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #2: Atlas Shrugged appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

In January 1991, I started keeping a journal, one that I’ve kept persistently ever since. Each day, I would write down some of the big events that happened during the day, what the weather was like, and so forth. I also kept detailed notes on the books I read and the music I listened to and my reflections on them. I had already had some epiphanies about the power of music, but I still mostly thought of books as forms of entertainment.

Then Guy Montag entered my life and everything changed.

Fahrenheit 451 was the first book I ever read that left me thinking about my own value structure thereafter. It awakened me to the possibility that a book was more than a simple form of entertainment and left me asking fundamental questions about life and freedom that I’ve never adequately answered. In many ways, these questions led me to blogging which for me is a literary expression of self-discovery.

What’s it about?

Without revealing too much, the book tells the story of Guy Montag, a “fireman” in a future America where firemen burn books. This future America is actually rather frightening: as television becomes more prevalent and more interactive, books are seen by general society as being evil, containing critical thoughts that are better off banished.

Montag is quite happy burning books until he meets Clarisee McClellan, a teenage girl who lives in his neighborhood. She doesn’t convince him to read books, per se, but she simply points out that there are more things to life than television and work. It is her disappearance that makes Guy start to question things, but it is the burning of the home of an elderly woman with a large book collection that really makes him question whether society is healthy or not. He pockets one of the woman’s books and then begins hoarding books for himself.

Before long, he finds himself targeted by the firemen and is given the order to burn down his own home. He refuses and is forced to run for his own life.

The purpose of the whole story is to relate the growth of Guy Montag as an individual over a backdrop of a society rejecting free thought, much like 1984 except with a different conclusion. Montag starts off as a follower, then becomes a questioner, then a learner, then eventually a leader, and this growth is based on realizing that intellectual acceptance without question is a very flawed path.

If you’d like another perspective on the contents of the book, the Wikipedia entry for Fahrenheit 451 is quite detailed and well-written.

How did Fahrenheit 451 affect the person I became?

It taught me to define my own values – and to regret when I let others define my values. This is literally what The Simple Dollar is all about. For too long, I let the values of others – materialism and consumerism – override my own values, and it is something that fills me with regret on a daily basis. My finances were one of the last areas where I let others have so much influence over me; I kept letting the lifestyle of my peer group pull me along for far too long. Every time I have evaluated a portion of my life and put effort into aligning them with my core values, I’ve grown as an individual – and it all began with Fahrenheit 451.

It taught me to question everything. Reading this book was much like a light switch flipping on in my head. I realized that there were many, many things in life that I just took for granted, particularly in terms of how society and day-to-day life worked. Here’s an example: after reading this book, we were in the middle of a section at school where we studied World War II. I spent so much time questioning why the Germans simply accepted this that my teacher, out of frustration, called a professor at the local university to discuss this matter with me. I never stopped questioning things.

It taught me that obsession with popular culture puts blinders on your perspective on the world. It’s fine to be entertained by something, but when I finished reading this book, I looked at television in a much different light. I wound up spending about two years abstaining from television and even now I watch television rarely, and when I do it’s usually in sidelong glances while doing something else. I discovered that popular culture is like the shiniest trinket in an antique shop: it will attract most of the eyes, but the really interesting things are usually elsewhere.

It taught me to value books – in a certain way. Prior to reading Fahrenheit 451, I would read all sorts of things, most of them junk. After I read it, I got a lot more picky. I still enjoyed being entertained by books, but now I felt as though I had wasted my time if they weren’t enlightening. I spent a year reading a lot of classic literature after reading this book; most of them made me think quite a lot, but it was Fahrenheit 451 that provided the original spark.

It first brought about a desire in me to become a writer. Guy Montag was the first literary character that sprang out of the pages and came alive to me, and it seemed like a magic trick. It still does; it’s a trick that I keep working on mastering. Whenever I feel lost as a writer, Ray Bradbury is still one of the first authors that I turn to for inspiration.

The post Ten Books That Changed My Life #1: Fahrenheit 451 appeared first on The Simple Dollar.