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The Culturist Profile picture
@the_culturist_
Dec 20, 2024 • 14 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
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I asked X: "Which book changed your perspective on life more than any other?"

After THOUSANDS of replies, these were the top 50.

The ultimate 2025 reading list… (bookmark this) 🧵 Image
Note: Titles within each section are ordered roughly by how frequently they were suggested.

By FAR the most popular suggestion of all was the Holy Bible — so here are the top theological works...
Theology:

1. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
2. Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
3. The City of God, Augustine of Hippo
4. Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas
5. Confessions, Augustine of HippoImage
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Philosophy / Political Theory (Part 1):

6. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
7. Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
8. Letters from a Stoic, Seneca
9. The Republic, Plato
10. Tao Te Ching, LaoziImage
Image
Philosophy / Political Theory (Part 2):

11. Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche
12. The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis
13. The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli
14. The Federalist Papers, Hamilton / Madison / Jay
15. The Symposium, PlatoImage
Image
Psychology / Self Improvement:

16. Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl
17. The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene
18. The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck
19. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
20. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen CoveyImage
Image
Economics / Personal Finance:

21. Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell
22. The Richest Man in Babylon, George S. Clason
23. The Creature from Jekyll Island, G. Edward Griffin
24. Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki
25. Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon HillImage
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Fiction (Part 1):

Dostoevsky, Orwell and Rand dominated suggestions. The most common as follows...

26. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
27. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
28. 1984, George Orwell
29. Demons, Fyodor Dostoevsky
30. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper LeeImage
Image
Fiction (Part 2):

31. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
32. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
33. Animal Farm, George Orwell
34. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
35. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
36. The Alchemist, Paulo CoelhoImage
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Fiction (Part 3):

37. The Stranger, Albert Camus
38. The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
39. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
40. Dune, Frank Herbert
41. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
42. Brave New World, Aldous HuxleyImage
Image
Classical / Medieval Poetry:

43. The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
44. The Iliad, Homer
45. The Odyssey, Homer
46. Metamorphoses, OvidImage
Image
History & Other Non-Fiction:

47. The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
48. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
49. Histories, Herodotus
50. The Decline of the West, Oswald SpenglerImage
Image
We break down history's greatest books in our free newsletter.

Tomorrow we discuss Paradise Lost — and the even richer, darker Italian poem that inspired it...

100,000+ people read our newsletter every week!
culture-critic.com/welcome
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More from @the_culturist_

The Culturist Profile picture
Jul 29
Why would someone who could paint the picture on the left choose to paint the picture on the right?

A thread... 🧵 Image
Picasso died in 1973 at the age of 91.

His self portraits had changed quite a lot by that age... Image
But why did he want, as he put it, to "paint like a child"?

The answer has a lot to do with Picasso himself, but also with the changing world in general... Image
Read 17 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
Jul 11
The French Revolution was way more sinister than you think.

In a frenzy to purge all aspects of Christian life, they even changed the calendar and UNITS OF TIME.

10-hour days, 100-minute hours, 100-second minutes.

Then they made a new religion — the Cult of Reason… 🧵 Image
From 1793 to 1795, France mandated "metric time": 10 hours in a day, 100 minutes in an hour, etc.

In their zeal to remake society, revolutionaries deemed this an essential step to becoming truly "rational". Image
Authorities created new clocks to make people adjust to the new units, and went about checking that the new times/dates went on all public documents. Image
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Read 16 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
Jun 17
How did Christianity go from persecuted minority to official religion of the world's greatest empire?

Well, two pagan rivals went to war over Rome — and one saw something strange on the eve of battle.

A sign appeared in the sky, and altered history forever… (thread) 🧵 Image
For the early believers, being Christian in the Roman Empire was a dangerous business.

Its followers met in secret, and its martyrs were torn apart in arenas. Image
In 303 AD, Diocletian tried to stamp the faith out entirely. Christians were a threat to pagan unity, and of course, disloyal to the Roman gods.

But there was something else going on... Image
Read 20 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
May 22
Do you ever wonder what the White Tree of Gondor means — and why it's dead?

Well, there's a hidden story that most don't know about.

And it's the key to understanding the entirety of The Lord of the Rings… (thread) 🧵Image
Gondor's White Tree is a symbol of the realm. When we encounter it in The Return of the King, it's been dead for 150 years.

A reflection of Gondor's fortunes, before Aragorn's ascension as king...Image
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Tolkien was borrowing a very old idea. In Ancient Greece, towns had a hearth at the center called a prytaneion.

Someone had to tend the sacred fire each day — if it died, so too the city would die.Image
Read 17 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
May 8
Right now, cardinals are selecting a new Pope in this room, beneath Michelangelo's epic ceiling.

But what did he actually paint up there, and what does it mean?

Well, it's something quite strange — because these are no ordinary Bible scenes… (thread) 🧵 Image
Michelangelo did not want to paint the Sistine ceiling. He never considered himself a painter.

Still, in 1508, the Pope pressured him into doing so, and Michelangelo put his sculpting on pause... Image
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What he painted is unlike anything seen before or since, but on the surface it isn't obvious why.

There are 9 scenes from Genesis: Earth's Creation, Man's Creation, the Fall of Man, and the Great Flood. Image
Read 18 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
May 2
Educational content is exploding on X.

What are your favorite accounts posting beautiful, unique, and informative content?

30 accounts you MUST follow...👇 Image
Literature & Philosophy:

• Western lit, philosophy: @SirEvanAmato
• Literature, philosophy: @oldbooksguy
• Linguistics, literature, history: @colingorrie
• Classic literature: @CoffeewClassics
• Literature, philosophy: @SeanBerube4
• Great books, scripture: @TheGreatB00ks Image
History:

• Western history: @thinkingwest
• Medieval: @MedievalScholar
• Ancient: @costofglory
• Roman: @JeremyRyanSlate
• Great figures: @KnowledgeArchiv Image
Read 8 tweets

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