I love reading and I’ve always thought reading and books were important. So when I read the below article (only a couple paragraphs quoted) I appreciated the struggle he went through. Selecting the most important, best written and important books would be incredibly impossible, but I have to say he did a great job. So please do click on a read about the 12 most important books ever written.
The world’s best books
There was the American revolution, the French revolution, perhaps most important of all the industrial revolution, the draining of populations from the countryside to the cities. There was the extension of the lifespan, the eruptive transformations brought by the advances of technology. The rise and rise of mass consumerism. . . A mere book seems a very unlikely contender as a world-changing catalyst.Yet for those of us who love to read, the idea that a book can have an influence is not news. Our perceptions have been shaped through books, our store of information heaped up, our tastes extended, perhaps refined, our sense of humour tickled, our sense of well-being restored or reinforced; we have been excited, alerted, moved, consoled, felt less alone, even felt morally improved and inspired — at least for a while. We know that books can change us as individuals.
On a different level books have often been and still are the agents of creeds that have shaped and reshaped humanity. These generally religious books would, I think, have figured prominently in the reckoning for a list of the 12 most influential books in the world. At one stage I had a list dominated by the ancient Greeks, books of God, Marx and Mao and two or three books of science. It felt unsatisfactory; too ambitious and, despite the undoubted importance, not very lively as a selection.
TWELVE BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
Principia Mathematica (1687) by Isaac Newton
Married Love (1918) by Marie Stopes
Magna Carta (1215) by members of the English ruling classes
Book of Rules of Association Football (1863) by a group of former English public-school men
On the Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin
On the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1789) by William Wilberforce in Parliament, immediately printed in several versions
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft
Experimental Researches in Electricity (three volumes, 1839, 1844, 1855) by Michael FaradayPatent Specification for Arkwright’s Spinning Machine (1769) by Richard Arkwright
The King James Bible (1611) by William Tyndale and 54 scholars appointed by the king
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) by Adam Smith
The First Folio (1623) by William Shakespeare
