If I think about it. Perhaps, "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak.

http://books.google.com/books?id=M-CocWLBGB4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Maurice+inauthor:Sendak&sig=9P08-tpET39NtU_T8EWB19VU7FQ#PPP1,M1

""Now stop!" Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper. And Max the king of all the wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all...Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat so he gave up being king of where the wild things are."

I was a little kid when I read and saw "Where the Wild Things Are". The weirdness of it, and the strange characters, and the imaginative travels undoubtedly inspired me to live a life of knowing exotic people, living in other cultures, enjoying good food, and indulging my imagination.

http://www.MichaelNewberry.com

A fortunate bit of luck while channel-surfing allowed me catch the balcony scene 'Cyrano.' (The one with Jose Ferrar.) I am very familiar with the play and the film, but, as always, was profoundly moved. I had caught the movie late and knew that I was not emotionally prepared for the rest, so, when the scene was over, I clicked...

It caused practically an out-of-body experience for me to then catch Cartman faking Tourette's on 'South Park.'

From Siberia to Senegal so suddenly, I nearly fainted...

Debut novel by this excellent author - my second favourite writer after Colin Wilson of "The Outsider" and "The Occult" fame. The Wasp Factory taught me so many things like... we are all different, don't take life too seriously, things are not always as they seem and don't give birth to big-headed children.

Paul (Skin) Nickson - Tariki, East Egmont, Taranaki

I watched it for a few years, got away from it, and have been watching again.

Brilliant, fearless, hysterical, original, and a show that has made a quantum leap in production values and sophistication/subtly.

Scott DeSalvo

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!

Then, there are quite a few "immature" SOLOists.

It might sound immature but I’ve been watching the show since I was about 10 and it has guided me towards the worldview I hold today. The show has grown up with me, when I was 10 it was mainly about fart jokes and naughty words (with a bit of Barbara Streisand bashing for good measure) but gradually it’s become more and more satirical every season. When I say it’s grown up with me that is exactly what I mean. I’ve become more mature and so has the show. SP criticizes ideas and individuals no other popular satire dares to. It was the ideas in South Park that lead me towards the philosophy of Liberty.

..."the Butter Battle Book"...yes that was the one I was thinking of about the cold war.

When I think back on "Horton Hears a Who" you could also say that Seuss is mainly concerned with the rights of the under-privileged. However that part was lost on me and probably other kids too, because I literally thought "smallness" referred to physical size.

However, I have recently looked at "Horton Hatches an Egg" and that is about personal integrity and parasites trying to take an unearned reward - and not getting it. So that one could actually be seen as an Objectivist type tale for children.

The Butter Battle Book was Seuss's poor attempt at either a commentary on the Cold War or an imitation of Swift.

Well observed, Marcus. (In defense of "Horton," I would only say that there ARE snake-oil salesmen -- and under every system of economic organization.)

You know, for some reason I haven't fully identified yet, I find even the Lorax far less offensive than something like the American television show, "Mad Men," which is nothing but a crude assault on Madison Avenue executives circa 1960. Presenting as "naturalism," it actually inhabits the mythological world of over-simplified Leftist caricatures of the era, the advertising business, and American capitalism generally.

...and liked it a lot. Dr Seuss probably was quite passionate about "individual rights" in a liberal sort of way and it comes through in this story.

However, once you read "the Lorax" you cannot ignore that Seuss is definitely an out-and-out left-wing hippy who hates capitalism. It is also clear from another of his stories (can't remember which one) that he was a pacifist who thought the west should have kissed and made-up with the Soviet Union during the cold-war.

"The Sneetches" is a terrible moral inversion too. Once again an exploitative capitalist is the bad-guy who sells and removes stars and the "racist" Sneetches are simply his victims. Notice how Seuss's capitalist characters in "the Sneetches" and "the Lorax" always just take or use some limited resource up until it is all gone? Only after they destroy everything and nothing is left do the characters have a chance to be happy again. Yuck!!!

Oh, yes, for the kids -- of course.

Random House, 1954.

(Did that just suck all the credibility out of any recommendation of the plays of Ibsen I might make?)

I'd never heard of "Horton Hears a Who". It sounds good, I'll have to see if I can find a copy (for the kids of course).

Cheers.

This is more than you wanted to know, I suspect, but maybe I should explain before I get complaints from Objectivists familiar with those Seuss stories.

I am well aware that "Horton Hears a Who" (1954) is widely regarded as a reaction to McCarthyism and that "The Sneetches" (1961) is widely seen as an assault on just racism, noble as that theme is. However, both are written at a level of abstraction that is much wider than that. Horton and his Who counterpart, Doctor Who-vee, I believe, are not communists, but Galileo-like in their intellectual independence. "The Sneetches" not only learn that physical characteristics do not determine superiority, but also that any attempt to "keep up with the Jones's" must be self-defeating. "Horton" teaches that life-saving -- world-saving -- truth is the product of ~ individual ~ thought, while the Sneetches learn the dangers of Social Metaphysics, if you will.

In an interesting footnote, anti-abortion groups attempted to use for their own purposes the wonderful phrase "because a person's a person, no matter how small" from "Horton," something to which both Geisel and, later, his widow strongly objected.

"Also Michael has a point Dianetics wouldn't count unless you see your worldview as fiction, something like "Battlefield Earth" would apply though"

Thats cool. It was fun though while it lasted. Cheers.

'The Sneetches'! Very profound, indeed.

Yes, really.

And don't forget 'Horton Hears a Who' -- in a modest way, together they form a sort of 'Fountainhead' for small children.

Really.

But there's one that I think kind of prepared me for it, and that would be "Fight Club." I have major problems with it now but at the time it was what I really needed to get to the point of re-evaluating my life.

Atlas is still definitely tops though.

---Landon

p.s. Kevin I'm not ignoring you but we've hijacked this thread long enough and I get the feeling that as long as you're here we're going to continue this so we may as well let the thread go back to the actual topic.

Also Michael has a point Dianetics wouldn't count unless you see your worldview as fiction, something like "Battlefield Earth" would apply though

Inking is sexy.

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wickedlakes

my mistake The Blind Watchmaker is non fiction

I would not normally post on the subject of Scientology -- it's simply not worthy of much consideration -- but I cannot resist sharing with y'all L. Ron Hubbard's original patent application for the E-Meter. In his no doubt mind-blowing treatise, E-METER ESSENTIALS (1961), the Commodore informs us that "[t]he E-meter is never wrong. It sees all; it knows all. It tells everything."

If the name "Scientology" doesn't already indicate the sham and pretense involved here -- indeed, almost a guaranty that an opposition to real science is around the corner -- then, surely, selling its flock on the importance of getting "clear" and the usefulness of these "devices" (available at a reasonable price) are ample demonstrations of the thoroughly mystical fraud of this racket.

Oh, and folks, if you're really sick, don't stop taking those medications that a real doctor has given you... sheesh!

Sincerely,

John Smith

(That was a great SOUTH PARK, wasn't it?)

The Blind Watchmaker made me convinced theres no god,the best agument against god ive seen yet

If that was the only site I had visited to get information about dianetics and scientology, I would probably be as confused about it as you are. Cheers

would say "Answered Prayers" by Truman Capote, which I read when I was 16.

It was intended to be his masterpiece, and ended up an unfinished novel.

I found it absolutely brilliant!

How it had an influence on me was the thought of "what might have been" had Capote finished the book...and a vow never to end up like that myself.

(As a nitpicky tangent... according to his biographer, Capote intended his short story 'Mojave' to be part of the novel, but goodness knows how on Earth that would have fitted in.)

I first read Macbeth when I was 9 or 10 years old. I found it in my parent's bookshelf after having devoured most every other piece of published prose and poetry on the property. It was a nondescript copy bound in a plain blue cover with just Macbeth on the spine. But inside... oh boy, inside was something I was not expecting; ghosts, murders, witches, sword-fights! And the language, ohhhh the language:

"Lay on, Macduff,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!"

"That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,
What hath quenched them hath given me fire."

"When our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors."

This sparked off a life-long love of literature and an obsession with theatre, which has been a big part of my life. No other work of fiction has had such an impact or influence on me.

My copy of Atlas Shrugged will be turning up tomorrow or Monday however...

L Ron Hubbard loved his drugs and used his imagination

From Clambake:

"Data (1) (1)
The head of the Galactic
Confederation (76 planets around
larger stars visible from here)
(founded 95,000,000 yrs ago, very space opera)
solved overpopulation (250 billion
or so per planet) -- 178 billion
average) by mass implanting.
He caused people to be brought to
Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H Bomb
on the principal volcanoes (Incident 2)
and then the Pacific area ones
were taken in boxes to Hawaii
and the Atlantic Area ones to
Las Palmas and there "packaged."
His name was Xenu. He used
renegades. Various misleading
data by means of circuits etc.
were placed in the implants.
When through with his crime Loyal Officers
(to the people) captured him
after 6 years of battle
and put him in an electronic
mountain trap where he still
is. "They" are gone. The place (Confed.)
has since been a desert."

She has looked at everything. And guess what, psyche meds work wonders. Without them she's paranoid, sometimes to the point of locking herself in a bathroom with a kitchen knife fighting off demons that aren't there, oftentimes catatonic, often times suicidal, sometimes potentially homicidal.

Right now I'm living with a wonderful person who loves stuffed animals and actual animals because they're both so cute and pleasant to be around. A person who's one of the sweetest amd HAPPIEST people I know. A person who just 10 years ago thought she'd never get her life on track past maybe holding a low responsibility job at somewhere like McDonalds but is now in college with a double major in computer-engineering and applied mathmematics.

If I was religous I would thank god every day for medications like Geodon, cymbalta, lamictal and Lorazapram. But since I'm not I'm just thankful that there are people who dedicated their lives to making discoveries such as these amazing life saving drugs. They and a good personal support network are all the help she needs.

---Landon

Inking is sexy.

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wickedlakes

Scientology was created by a man who declared that the fastest way to become wealthy was to invent a religion. It is as much of a joke as Catholicism -- if not more so.

Jennifer

-- Food Philosophy. Sensuality. Sass.

"I'm living with a woman who has schizophrenia and scientology says she'd be better off without her meds"

At least I know why your anti it. Well done for copeing with that situation. Maybe our psychotherapy could help her but you'll probably never know because you are unable to look.

As for mental illness, we just have a different term for it
[Spiritual and Mental Stress]

PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS
MANUFACTURING MADNESS

Webster's [dictionary] defines fiction as "anything
made up or imagined. "Anyone reviewing psychiatry's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and
the mental health section of' the International
Classification of Diseases (ICD: tenth version)
would find it difficult to place it in, any other
category. They are literally psychiatry's "bible"
of invented mental illnesses. Of course, psychiatry
will protest that they do not invent the behaviors
defined. And this is true the behaviors are often
observable. However psychiatry's unscientific and
arbitrary bundling together of behaviors and
emotions under the fraudulent tag of "mental
illness" is pure fabrication - calculated to further
the myth of mental illness and precipitate a Mental
Health State.

For more information contact:
Citizen's Commission on Human Rights®
Ph/Fax 09-3733897
PO Box 5257 Auckland

http://www.psychcrime.org
http://www.cchr.org

I brought 17500 dollars worth of shares after reading Atlas Shrugged in my first foray into the stockmarket they went up quite well then went for a dive but im still confidant in them
After reading Atlas ive decided to make ny long term plan in life to get into space before I die but first i have to get fantastically rich

To most people scientology is just a joke but I have some major issues with it.

Most of which stem from the fact that I'm living with a woman who has schizophrenia and scientology says she'd be better off without her meds, when I have seen for with my own eyes that without them she'd likely be homeless, a murderer, or dead (most likely the last).

A lot of people can just write mental illness off but asking me to do that is like asking anyone else to write off the fact that the sky is blue or that water is wet.

---Landon

Inking is sexy.

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wickedlakes

Sorry mate. There are no xenus for me. The only time I come across the xenu term is when cuckoos like you bring it up

As for Tom Cruise and John Travolta, they are the top movie stars on the planet. A few levels above you I would think.

cheers

Cuckoo Kev? A concise fiction huh? Xenu is reality for you probably - whoops have you not paid to get to that level yet. (For that knowledge you have to be Tom or John in Hollywood - reality land)

Royal Hunt For The Sun I liked this at school for showing us some corruption of church and military. Oh and Shrugged for cleverly describing personality/political motivations following similar in Fountainhead

At least you recognize it as a work of fiction.

It gave me real knowledge, skills and training that I could use to help myself, family, and others.
To help the above in all areas of their lives, you have to be competent in many fields of rehabilitation.

http://www.rehabilitatenz.co.nz
http://www.rehabnz.co.nz

The true story of Dianetics and Scientology
http://www.rehabilitatenz.co.nz/pages/true-story-of-scientology.html [Full article]

The true story of Scientology® is simple, concise and direct. It is quickly told:

1. A philosopher develops a philosophy about life and death.
2. People find it interesting.
3. People find it works.
4. People pass it along to others.
5. It grows.

I voted other for this book. For all its philosophical flaws this was the first book I read as a teenager that got me thinking about the dangers of the intrusion of the state in the life of the "free" indivdual and therefore set me off in the correct "intellectual" direction.