Foucault's Pendulum

My field of study (what I really like to think and learn about) isn't my field of work, but I like the question so I'll spill some thoughts. I spend a lot of time thinking about philosophical-ish stuff, so here are some books that have had the strongest residual effects (whether that's changing how I think, changing what I think about, changing my values, or simply getting the thought ball rolling faster): Ishmael (Daniel Quinn) 1984 (George Orwell) Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hofstadter) The Republic [imp. "the allegory of the cave"] (Plato) The Genealogy of Morals (Friedrich Nietzsche) The Social Construction of Reality (Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (L. Wittgenstein) Dissemination [imp. "The Pharmakon"] (Jacques Derrida) The Quest for Reality (Barry Stroud) Languages of Art (Nelson Goodman) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas Kuhn) Concepts (Jerry Fodor) The Web of Life (Fritjof Capra) Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco) Naming and Necessity (Saul Kripke) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)…

The book I've reread the most is The Odyssey. For a long time, I've read it once every year. Another book I've read many times is Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. I've read Asimov's cycle of Foundation many times. Don't know how many, actually. I've also read several times some philosophy classics, particularly Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus, Apology and Republic. Then there are many books that I've read at least twice, almost all considered classics (from 1984 to LoTR, Great expectations to Tom Sawyer, Crime and punishment to Twenty thousand leagues under the sea, etc).

Loved Foucault's Pendulum, but I think Name of the Rose is a better novel. The characters are more convincing, the narrative momentum more propulsive, and the intellectual pyrotechnics just as satisfying. The film, with Sean Connery, is pretty good too...

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace The Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

Foucault's Pendulum.

Upon completion of the book I was left with the feeling that there was no book in the universe too complex or erudite that I couldn't tackle. It also gave everyone who read it a valid excuse not to read anything by Dan Brown.

Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco.

Also by Umberto Eco check out Foucault's Pendulum