These are just some examples, but it's been a while since the last book discussion I remember, and this question is slightly different. What book has the most wisdom, or a better question, what book gave you the most wisdom?
I started reading Bird by Bird yesterday. So far really enjoy it - she hits the nail on the head when it comes to the / my process of creativity.
For writing: "On Writing" by Stephen King. A lot of Mark Twain's writing is particularly good, though I couldn't say anything about page-for-page wisdom. Edit: Again, not sure about "wisdom" but "Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It" by Jennifer Michael Hect is absolutely fantastic. It's a book that I read over and over and over again.
Mark Twain took a bit of work for me to get into. I enjoyed his short stories a lot more than his longer works, but I really enjoy his Essays. There are many out there, just do a quick google for "Mark Twain Essays" and Project Gutenberg will pop up.
I disagree about Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was a decent read, but much of its wisdom gets negated at the end. You realize he's not wise, because he wasn't listening to the person right next to him. He's been trapped in his head the whole time. Pirsig admitted in a later interview that he wrote the book because his son had died and he need closure. So he imagined riding with his son. Once I knew that, I felt much better about the book. I could see it as a very lovely presentation of unraveling the knots in his mind by showing them to the son he wished he still had with him. If I had to pick a book for the most page-for-page wisdom, it'd be Bob Mould's autobiography. I've read it thrice. Even he got so much out of the process that he restarted his career. I would give Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America the second spot. I read that right before I hit puberty. It taught me stuff about the pedestrian part of being an adult, without forcing any conclusions on the reader. It has plenty of absurdism, such as mailing a wino to the editor-in-chief of The Nation. It also has:
I am glad more of the world thinks this way these days. NO TRESPASSING
4/17THS OF A HAIKU
There is a lot of wisdom in . -The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius -Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon -The Strawberry Statement by James Simon Kunen -Mere Christianity by CS Lewis -Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams -The Once and Future King by TH White -Le Rouge et le Noir by Stendhal -The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell -The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain -Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville . those ten books. And many others.
I don't know about wisdom, but The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan had a huge influence on me. I read it years ago, and again last year. There was so much in there that I didn't remember, but which had clearly altered the way I thought about the world.
Anything by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is thought provoking. For those unfamiliar he was imprisoned in Stalin's GULAG Labor camp system for a decade after WW2 and wrote of the inhuman conditions in the camps and utter madness of the USSR police state. Many have disagreed with some of his political conclusions, but it would be hard to argue that the man did not have a profound handle on suffering, what's important in life and the human condition. Some titles if anyone's interested: One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich- semi-autobiographical stream of consciousness account of one prisoner's day in the camp. Cancer Ward- studies a group of Soviet citizens from all walks of life in Stalin's USSR undergoing treatment for various forms of cancer, the ward is a microcosm for Soviet society. this may be Solzhenitsyn's most profound work.
The GULAG Archipelago- Solzhenitsyn's master work, his own story of arrest, imprisonment and release combined with the input of over 200 other prisoners paints a complete picture of the breadth of oppression rampant in the USSR during those years. It is a massive work including his story, the stories of others and many essays and asides about various aspects of the camps and the system which made them possible. All amazing reads .
If you like Day in the Life, you should definitely give Cancer Ward a shot. Having read Day in the Life you will definitely understand whats going on with it's main character and appreciate it that much more.
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood fundamentally changed how I look at the world when I was 20.
If you're at all interested in either morality or religion, I would recommend this one. At a bit over 800 pages, it may not be the densest of the wisdom books. Here's it on jealousy:It is hard to imagine what some jealous men can make up their mind to and overlook, and what they can forgive! The jealous are the readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it. The jealous man can forgive extraordinarily quickly (though, of course, after a violent scene), and he is able to forgive infidelity almost conclusively proved, the very kisses and embraces he has seen, if only he can somehow be convinced that it has all been "for the last time," and that his rival will vanish from that day forward, will depart to the ends of the earth, or that he himself will carry her away somewhere, where that dreaded rival will not get near her. Of course the reconciliation is only for an hour. For, even if the rival did disappear next day, he would invent another one and would be jealous of him. And one might wonder what there was in a love that had to be so watched over, what a love could be worth that needed such strenuous guarding. But that the jealous will never understand. And yet among them are men of noble hearts. It is remarkable, too, that those very men of noble hearts, standing hidden in some cupboard, listening and spying, never feel the stings of conscience at that moment, anyway, though they understand clearly enough with their "noble hearts" the shameful depths to which they have voluntarily sunk.
Really? It sounds like it might if it were to flow off the tongue: maybe with many qualifications, but always directing towards some insight. It sounds quite fluid and poetic when read aloud! I was going to recommend you the grand inquisitor passage, but its best sections are wrapped up in walls of text. Unfortunately the free audio recordings of the chapter I found all sucked, but maybe this might be a decent distraction when you have some time?
I think it's mainly in the unusual verb placement, combined with really long sentences. Not that it isn't interesting, it's just far more mental effort to both keep track of what is going on in a sentence and retain all the information that it tries to convey - in another language.
Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country, to define "wisdom" loosely.
Having read Andrew Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", enhanced my life greatly. Surprising too. I was always a bit curious about it, but the title sounds so self-serving and manipulative. Sort of like "How to Hide the Fact from Others that You are a Douchebag". I remembered that Warren Buffet said something to the effect that his Andrew CarnegieCourse certificate was one of his most proud academic achievements. So while browsing a bookstore (when they existed), I read a bit and picked it up. Super simple stuff with very pragmatic arguments on why being nice is typically way better than being an ass.