Time for another book thread! I’ve got a little bit of an ulterior motive for this one. I’m looking for examples of your favorite or least favorite cult books — either fiction or non-fiction.
I’m not necessarily looking for books that have a small but devoted following (though those are fine) but also for those books that seemed to be everywhere at some point in time — the kind of books that friends pressed upon you, insisting you read them, telling you they had “changed their life.”
In one discussion of cult books over on Metafilter, a commenter described his list of suggestions as “what any self-respecting 80s stoner would have had on his bookshelf.” Replace 80s with any decade you’d prefer, and “stoner” with “nerd” or “punk” or whatever suits you better, and you get the idea.
Some examples of the sort of books I’m looking for:
- Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse
- The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, by Carlos Castaneda
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig
- The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
Feel free to post examples that are far more obscure and/or recent. Or examples of books that “everybody read” at one point that have become obscure, or that people mainly remember as an embarrassment.
These can be books that you personally love, or books that you can’t understand why anyone loves.
@Scildfreja
That’s unfortunate. There is a review I like that probably summerizes that, and satisfies some of your concerns.
I agree. The level I tend to try to interact with is where experience and psychology meet cells/anatomy function. The genes are involved in development or function of anatomy and a level below that.
So I guess I need to read up on symbols independent of (but including) text and speech and what/how meaning is related.
@alan
I was looking for the Orson Welles version but it doesn’t seem to be on any streaming sites, I’m surprised actually given its age, I might have to buy it.
I’ve just acquired the DVD of the 1993 version with Kyle McLaughlin as K, as a Twin Peaks fan I hope it’s ‘damn fine’.
Does American Gods by Neil Gaiman count as a cult classic? Because if so than its my favorite. My least Favorite would be The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks I still liked it.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is pretty much the bible for self serving libertarian capitalists, but is not rated highly by any self respecting economist. I think Rand lived in La La Land, but it’s easy to see how these ideas have permeated neo liberal free trade ideals on both sides of the Atlantic.
Popular cult fiction?
The Old Testament
The New Testament
The Koran
Book of Mormon
Dianetics
Every decade or so I make myself try to read the Bible or some significant part of it. (Helps to understand all sorts of literary and historical references) I made it thru the 4 gospels without to much trouble. Revelations was pretty wild with enough booze and pot.
I usually skip thru all the ‘be-gots’ in genesis.
Last time I got all the way to the fifth chapter in Leviticus when I realized I had just read 4 chapters of barbecue instructions with no mention of what kind of sauce was pleasing to the Lord – sweet, hot, vinegar, mustard? Plain old ketchup? One of the mysteries I guess.
When I read the title of the post I immediately thought of Jonathan L Seagull, and Stranger in a strange land, good to see I wasn’t the only sucker.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo is an interesting one, I was actually given it when my dad died by a very progressive college chaplain. I’m not sure about Coehlo’s religion (or how his surname is pronounced) he seems to use ideas from catholic mysticism and paganism as well. I always wonder why this hasn’t been made into a movie, like The Little Prince (another favourite) but that film was a mess and deviated from the original story.
@Buttercup
Oh god, VC Andrews. Another favorite of many of my high school/jr. high peers. I used to read my friend’s VC Andrews and other books while zoning out in biology class. She had the best books-they were all dirty. At least by 14 year old standards.
So long as we all understand that this does not constitute and endorsement and is only an acknowledgement of a book that is legitimately “cult” in nature, I’m going to throw four words out there:
“Chariots of the Gods?”
Exploring the idea that aliens may have landed on Earth trillions of years ago (and left behind just scads of evidence) this book is nonfiction only in the sense that not a single word of it has any mooring in reality. But don’t tell that to author Erich von Daniken, who sincerely believes every word he inscribed is infused with Divine truth.
If I had to write an elevator pitch for this book, I’d probably sum it up as what happens when space-addled racists decide to neg entire cultures. “I don’t normally see to many primitive cultures with wheels and metal poles. You must be real special if the aliens decided to visit you!”
Had to do it. I’m all meme addled at the moment.
The Celestine Prophecy.
@ enjolra
Hmm, well I certainly suspect he agreed with every word on the royalties cheques.
My favourite ‘proof’ in Chariots is that the ancients must have had x-ray machines because they were able to accurately depict skeletons.
(I’d still welcome a non alien explanation for the Dogon Sirius B thing though)
I still kind of love V.C. Andrews. One of my favorite guilty pleasures. My Sweet Audrina is my personal favorite. I haven’t read most of the ghost written ones though. They aren’t as good.
Scildfreja:
Ooh! Have you read Consciousness Explained? I bet you have! I’d love to hear what you thought of it!
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is certainly a good choice for this list. When I was at college, everyone had a dog-eared copy (I still have mine). It was compulsory. But actually finishing the book? Not so much…
It’s strange how a book can be so ubiquitous for a while, and then fade from view later. I hardly ever hear about Zen these days. I guess people still read it, but it’s no longer touted as life-changing.
Dion Fortune’s ‘Psychic Self-Defence’ has been a regularly revisited favourite for 25 years.
Someone I only knew over the net, but considered a good friend regardless, gave me ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’ when I had my son. I credit it with not letting me go full PPP and still read it – the stories even more often than the rest.
@Alan
It’s staggeringly simple: Griaule and Dieterlen made it up.
Scildfreja:
I’m gonna be dorky and chastise you here for downplaying it by omitting the second half of the title: an Eternal Golden Braid. (GEB: EGB). Loved it, but it’s a big doorstep of a book, and one for dipping into rather than powering through.
@ dalillama
Oh, that’s a bit anti-climactic. So definitely not aliens then? Not even a bit?
Lord of light by roger zelazny.
Axecalibur:
Well, if you like footnotes:
Back in 1988, everyone was reading and raving about The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker. I recommend it: it’s a little jewel, focussing in great detail on utterly inconsequential things like why one shoelace wears faster than the other. And it has footnotes, some of them spanning more than one page, and some of the footnotes have footnotes.
@Alan
Nope. Just plain old academic misfeasance.
eli:
I do think Illuminatus was overrated, but, on the other hand, without it we wouldn’t have had this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxkBEJ-ZrdA
And that would be a tragedy.
@ gijoel
Is that the one that became “Argo” in the Canadian Caper?
@ dalillama
Aww, I liked that one.
“Foucault’s Pendulum” by Umberto Eco is a good book if you liked some aspects of “Illuminatus” but think maybe people who didn’t write for Playboy might do a better job of it.
It’s also a preemptive deconstruction of “The Da Vinci Code”.
For sci-fi cult series, I always advocate for Sabriel (followed by Lirael, which I never finished and Abhorsen, which I never started)
Often compared to His Dark Materials series, but it’s about a freakin necromancer! So it wins in my book
For non-fiction, I have a completely amateurish interest in Psychology so I’m currently reading That’s Disgusting by Rachael Herz (Brown University Psychology Professor), which discusses the causes of the emotion of Disgust, how it’s an emotion designed to protect us from outside influences and how it’s almost entirely culturally-dependent (Fermented foods typically considered delicious delicacies by the natives but completely gross to people who didn’t grow up in that culture. British cleaning products often use mint, so the English typically don’t go for mint-flavored foods).
Oh and for people who want kink erotica that isn’t complete garbage like 50 shades of grey, I always feel compelled to recommend Sunstone. It’s a graphic novel so I’m kind of cheating, but I wish it was as popular as 50 shades because the relationship between the two main characters is a LOT healthier.