15 Books to Read Before You Die - Jay Dyer

One of the most common questions I get asked is what are my top favorite and or life-changing books, so today I compiled my list of the top 15 plus a couple honorable mentions. These books cover a variety of topics, including literature, philosophy, theology and geopolitics. The choice was hard but I narrowed it down and hopefully you will find benefit in these works as well.

Set up recurring Choq subscription with the discount code 'Jay53LIFE'

[JayDyer]

Be sure to like, share, comment and subscribe and turn on notifications!

[FreshPelmeni]

Jay's top 15 list of books:

Literary Texts:
06:52 - St. Augustine, The City of God
09:17 - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
10:58 - Plato, Republic
12:12 - Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Short Stories
13:46 - Frank Herbert, Dune
15:31 - Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
17:52 - JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Addendum: CS Lewis, Space Trilogy)
22:02 - George Orwell/Aldous Huxley, 1984/Brave New World
23:12 - Ian Fleming, The Bond Novels

Geopolitics:
27:55 - Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope
29:20 - F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance
29:58 - Daniel Estulin, The Bilderberg Group

Theology:
30:50 - Ken Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell
31:38 - Fr Dmitriu Staniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Vol I: The Experience of God
32:29 - The Bible (The Orthodox Study Bible particularly)

[FreshPelmeni]

Jay's top 15 list of books, and his reasons why:

1. Hollywood Love Affairs - 01:48 - it lets you know who was sleeping with who and why.

2. Sad Santa - 02:20 - "this is the story of a mall Santa who teams up with a small man - a midget person - and together they concoct a way to defraud investors.... it's probably one of the best books that I've ever read."

3. Stellaluna - 02:54 - "The story of a crypto obsessed bat who dumps all of his life savings into Stella and into Luna, with the promise of 80% APY returns... that's an important text"

4. What are you so Grumpy About - 03:18 - a book which Jay identifies with on a personal level, it gives him "the lay of the land in terms of being mean".

5. The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales - 04:03 - "This book helped me understand how to stack cheese - how to stack fetti, how to stack stacks - and really get the edge when it comes to competing in an entrepreneurial fashion when competing with other internet MLM men"


...Wait

[theophan]

- Philosophical Books that really impacted me in my "teenhood" before converting to Orthodoxy : Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors of Perception' (collection of essays) ; Friedrich Nietzsche's 'The Gay Science', 'Beyond Good and Evil' and 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', Max Stirner's 'The Ego and Its Own' ; Arthur Schopenhauer's 'The World As Will and Representation' (introduced me basically to Metaphysics in a fascinating way and made me break out from complete nihilism) ; René Guénon's 'The Crisis of the Modern World' and his other main works (I read almost all of them in the original French, it was a major intellectual shift for me, like it had been for Fr Seraphim Rose after his Nietzschean phase) ; then I studied Sanskrit at University and read quite a bit of Hindu philosophical stuff (mostly the major 'Upanishads', the 'Bhagavad-gîtâ' and vedântic classical texts) ; then I went more in depth in reading the New Testament (which I had never really seriously read, having been brought up in an agnostic background) and finally the 'Russian Pilgrim' and 'The Philokalia' (abridged anthology in French, mainly on prayer of the heart), which paved the way for me to the Truth. Then I converted to Orthodoxy and met a spiritual father on Mount Athos who was a former perennialist and really helped me out in getting rid of Guénon's influence (except on those areas of analysis where he was right of course), and advised me to read St John of Damascus' 'Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith'. Since then all my major intellectual/spiritual impacts have been Holy Fathers (especially St Symeon the New Theologian and St Macarius the Great), orthodox theologians like Vladimir Lossky (in original French), Fr George Florovsky, Jean-Claude Larchet (in original French as well) or St Justin Popovitch... and Jay Dyer's videos on theology and philosophy!

- On the literary/poetic side : a lot of French poetry (Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Tristan Tzara, René Daumal, Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, Stéphane Mallarmé...) ; Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' (a major influence) ; Marcel Proust's "A la Recherche du temps perdu" (in French, at least the first volume, "Du côté de chez Swann") ; Joris-Karl Huysmans' "A Rebours" (in French, a 'fin de siècle' classic which goes well with Wilde and in fact directly inspired his 'Dorian Gray') ; J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion', 'The Lord of the Rings' and all the Christopher Tolkien posthumous editions concerning the 'Legendarium' ('Beren and Luthien', 'The Fall of Gondolin', etc. ; probably one of my favorite fiction author of all times) ; some English Romantics or Proto-Romantics like William Blake, William Beckford, Lord Byron, Samuel T. Coleridge, etc. ; some German Romantics or "Frühromantiker" like Friedrich Hölderlin and Novalis (in German or bilingual editions) ; Dante Alighieri's "Divina Commedia" (one of the best epic/narrative poem ever written, even if you're not a Papist and don't believe in Purgatory or Filioque) ; Homer's 'Odyssee' (studied in highschool, a classic read ; I'm currently going through the 'Iliad' for the first time) ; the "Poetic Edda" (some very beautiful pieces of Icelandic poetry, but sometimes hard to digest) ; 'The Kalevala' (genuinely a beautiful read, even though in Finnish it must be a lot better!) ; Chrétien de Troyes' great medieval arthurian romances, especially "Erec et Enide" and "Perceval, ou le Conte du Graal" (in bilingual Old French/French edition)... I must add for the record great non-european Epics like the 'Mahâbhârata', the 'Râmâyana" or Farîd od-Dîn 'Attâr's 'Speech of the Birds' (or 'Conference of the Birds').

[thespywholovedmeat]

read my moms diary when i was 12. holy shit.

[yajunyuan]

You are welcome!
1) Hollywood Lovers by Sheridan Mccoid
2) Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
3) What are You So Grumpy About? by Tom Lichtenheld
4) The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka
5) Plato Republic by G.M.A. Grube
6) Dune by Frank Herbert
7) The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
8) The Lord of the Rings Hardcover by J. R. R. Tolkien (illust Alan Lee)
9) Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis
10) Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
11) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
12) Bond novels (multiple) by Ian Fleming
13) Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley
14) The True Story of The Bilderberg Group by Daniel Estulin
15) Before Jerusalem Fell by Kenneth Gentry
16) The Experience of God by Dumitru Stăniloae
17) Orthodox Study Bible by Thomas Nelson

[grsaeyend]

“15 books I’ve read that changed my life”
was waiting for this video since the notification

[melissatuggle]

Short, easy reads: "Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare" by Michael Hoffman; "The Hidden History of Zionism" by Ralph Schoenman; "Blood on the Altar" by Craig Heimbichner

[cynthiapercy]

Father Seraphim Rose's "Nihilism" woke me up to Orthodoxy and led to my conversion. Thank you, Jay, for reminding me of Flannery O'Connor. I once listed my phone number under the name Hazel Motes to avoid the charge for an unlisted number. Time to read her again .

[ecclesiastesxyz]

Jay can you PLEASE do a top 10 history books? like American history, world history, history of philosophy, history of the church etc etc This would BE really helpful!

[nathanwallis]

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand really opened my eyes. The character Elsworth Toohey shows a lot about how NGOs wield influence.

[lfi]

Muh Literary List

1. Cervantes: Don Quixote
2. Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time
3. Fyodor Dostoevsky: Demons, Notes From Underground, Brothers Karamazov
4. Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji
5. Franz Kafka: The Trial, The Castle
6. Herman Melville: Moby-Dick
7. Andrei Bely: Petersburg
8. James Joyce: Finnegans Wake, Ulysses
9. Yasunari Kawabata: House of the Sleeping Beauties, Thousand Cranes, Snow Country
10. Goethe: Faust

[jamalkhan]

As a ex Muslim converted Christian first i need to read 66 books of the Bible 😊

[thegreatsiberianitch]

"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie..."
Gold stars 🌟 🌟 🌟

[mirzaghalib]

I love Fyodor Dostoevsky but there is something so very great about his novel THE IDIOT, that I love this one above all of his other books which are fantastic in many ways... I need to pick it up again and read it before the end of this year.... something about how certain characters in the book just speak to and affect me, my life and, of course, opening my mind to different places from the first time in my early twenties and still each time after reading it, too....

[LadyOfShaIott]

Great point you make Jay; a book will have a different impact or meaning, depending the stage of life at which you read it. Many thanks - I’m always fascinated by the books people choose and the reasons for their choice.

[doenutfactory]

I read stinky cheese man and brave new world in elementary school. Changed my life!

[appleantonio]

Jay, please do a video on how to study books properly: reading, note-taking, etc. And maybe show us a little bit from your collection. Thank you for your work, much appreciated. God bless you☦!

[pinkoslayer]

I highly recommend 1984 to many people that I meet for several reasons. Many are confused about the language, doublespeak and psychological warfare that is our current situation. 1984 does an excellent job of helping a person understand this method. Also one of the most important and often overlooked lessons of 1984 is O’Brien and Goldstein. Not only the conversation with Watson but the concept of trust while living under a dystopian tyranny. I’ve noticed for the last couple decades that I’ve been aware of this reality that many people will trust people or “leaders” that they do not know and do not know the background, connections and or motives of these so called leaders. Trust should be reserved for people that you’ve known intimately for a long time. Trust is not necessarily that you trust that person is just like you but you trust that you have a thorough understanding of their character, behavior background etc to a level that you can reasonably expect or predict their future behavior whether it is pro or con to your path. Understanding this will help you to interact with that person appropriately. Regarding people online or tv that you do not know, it comes down to track record and value of information no matter from which perspective, but always remember you don’t know them. The last reason for 1984 for people who are new to this understanding is that it is very short, very simple and packed with valuable information to form a basic understanding.

[tedtheman]

thanks for adding the space trilogy Jay