The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari is an obvious recommendation. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell will ruin fiction for you, from the classic myth up to modern storytelling.

I recommend reading George Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". This is about comparative mythology, aka comparative story telling. He works out the core elements and common concepts that appear in story telling across cultures and time. It opened my mind to be able to understand all kinds of storys on another level. In school I always hated literature. It was like they tried to make me do something I just didn't understand at all. Literature was just random stories for me and all interpretation and attribution of meaning was fruitless and had I to just guess/fake it. Yea maybe my education was just bad who knows, doesn't matter now. The Hero with a Thousand Faces changed that. Now I was open for all the literature and saw everything in a new light. I could recognize common concepts in stories and human life in general. It also opened my mind for later Alan Watts reads on the interconnected-ness of everything. Someone already recommended "The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts, which I can only approve of! I'd also like to add "The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are", also by Watts.

Influence - Psychology of persuasion Gun Germs and Steel Hero with a thousand faces Starting Strength

1) Hackers and Painters, by Paul Graham—This book had a huge influence on me and is why I left a successful and growing low tech business in Asia to move to California and become a software engineer. 2) Zero to One, by Peter Thiel—Zero to one opened my eyes to several angles of business that I hadn't been thinking about. It made me think much harder about making long-term plans towards a concrete goal, even if changes must be made along the way. It also clarified my thoughts about the nature of competition and non-conformity. Courage is in even shorter supply than genius. 3. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell—While it's not a business book, this book is a deep look at mythology and psychology. I find it helpful both for understanding people and for understanding myself.

The Seven Mysteries of Life I read last November over the span of a month, and this book is probably the one that has most-defined who I am today, even though it's been just a year. The author, Guy Murchie, spent 15 years writing it. From it I learned the most anybody is from me is 50th-cousin. I also learned that there are insects so small they don't feel gravity, and for them flying through the air feels like swimming. Seriously, get this book, it is earth-shattering. I'm also going to recommend another book but I hope not to undermine my first recommendation. It was written by Joseph Campbell and it's called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I read it in January. In it Campbell writes of many mythological stories and then ties their common themes back to the journey the 'hero' must take. And from this journey the hero must take I got insights that were profound. I'm not kidding when I say I hold a deep reverence for this book. I hope you check 'em out. :) Edit: Here are the links to the books on Amazon: The Seven Mysteries of Life:…

* Bouvard & Pécuchet - Flaubert * The hero with thousands faces - Joseph Campbell

"Hero With a Thousand Faces" (by Joseph Campbell). On Amazon.com: http://tr.im/hwatf

1984 The Silmarillion The Hero With A Thousand Faces Dune Walden (about half the chapters anyway)