{"id":364,"date":"2008-06-22T13:46:07","date_gmt":"2008-06-22T17:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/364"},"modified":"2008-06-22T13:46:07","modified_gmt":"2008-06-22T17:46:07","slug":"life-changing-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/364","title":{"rendered":"Life-changing books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m going to take up <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kk.org\/cooltools\/archives\/002879.php\">Kevin Kelly&#8217;s challenge<\/a> and list some things I read that changed my life. The list is short &#8211; my feeling is that if the book does not immediately come to mind, it&#8217;s probably disqualified (I do reserve the right to add, though &#8211; &#8220;a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of petty minds&#8221; and all).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/My_side_of_the_mountain\">My Side of the Mountain<\/a> &#8211; I read this when I was 10 or so &#8211; I already loved the outdoors; this book gave me a hunter-gatherer ideal to aspire to.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land\">Stranger in a Strange Land<\/a>\/<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress\">The Moon is a Harsh Mistress<\/a> &#8211; I&#8217;m cheating and combining two of Heinlein&#8217;s best into one entry.\u00a0 I know there&#8217;s a lot to argue about in these books, but at thirteen they were a pretty heady mix of libertarianism, sex, and confirmation of suspicions that everything you know is wrong. Got me ready for the anti-authoritarian streak (persists to this day) reinforced by:<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(novel)\">One Flew Over the Cuckoo&#8217;s Nest<\/a> &#8211; I read it in high school &#8211; a time when questioning authority needs to happen. It did &#8211; never wore off. It also gave me a taste for signs, symbols and layers; thank you, Noni Randolph (HS English teacher). Ms. Randolph asked me once to count the number of fishermen that go with McMurphy on the party boat trip, smiled, and walked off. Obviously, I still remember the moment, and the moments afterward.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Whole_Earth_Catalog\">The Whole Earth Catalogs<\/a> &#8211; you are not alone &#8211; in fact, there are a ton of people way ahead of you.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rage-Falcons-Stephen-Bodio\/dp\/0871088266\">A Rage for Falcons<\/a> &#8211; relit the fire that My Side of the Mountain kindled. &#8220;This [falconry] is do-able &#8211; it&#8217;s something you [I] can pursue!&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m going to take up Kevin Kelly&#8217;s challenge and list some things I read that changed my life. The list is short &#8211; my feeling is that if the book does not immediately come to mind, it&#8217;s probably disqualified (I &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/364\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqxx-5S","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}