Books with life-changing qualities

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
Can't think of a book that's changed my life. A good dictionary and the London A-Z have proved essential, though. I'm very post-modern in this respect. :D
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I can't say that many books have changed my life either, which I suppose is why I started this thread. There have been a handful however that have altered the way I think about things.
 

swears

preppy-kei
Fair point.

As for the Strauss, 'negging' has become a key slang-word in conversations with one of my friends (he's read it, I haven't).

And (sadly?) it is actually quite a workable concept, given most people's shaky sense of self-esteem (especially if covered over with bravado).

Jesus christ, I hate all that pick-up expert bullshit. Every meathead fuckwit I know is into it. If you're good looking/tall/funny/cool you're going to find it easy to sleep around, otherwise forget about it. What a racket.
 

swears

preppy-kei
I know it sounds corny, but probably 1984. I read it thinking it was a straight-ahead sci-fi novel when I was 12, and it introduced me to a lot of philosophical and political ideas for the first time.
 

subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
Jesus christ, I hate all that pick-up expert bullshit. Every meathead fuckwit I know is into it. If you're good looking/tall/funny/cool you're going to find it easy to sleep around, otherwise forget about it. What a racket.

It won't work for meathead fuckwits because they're following the game, not staying ahead of it. But it really did change my mate's life for a while: from being a total wuss, to getting off with any girl in the place. Until he got bored of it anyway.
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Likewise. Couldn't be arsed after reading 'LF' - life's too short.

i must admit...

i have read money, rachel papers, london fields (twice ha!) and a couple of others i can't remember names of and enjoyed them... {ok yellow dog is quite shit}

sure LF is over ripe, 100 pages too long and a bit silly from time to time but i'd take it over mr mediocre ian mcewan. Amis is like Rushdie to me - get into their style and used to the rules of their game and revel in their silly posturing!:)
 
It won't work for meathead fuckwits because they're following the game, not staying ahead of it. But it really did change my mate's life for a while: from being a total wuss, to getting off with any girl in the place. Until he got bored of it anyway.

I haven't read the book, only had a look at various web sites that deal with pick up artistry through NLP etc. and I found that it all reeks of a severe lack of dignity and respect for the woman these "artists" want to pick up and (maybe even more) for themselves.
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
So I started re-reading Catch 22 last night. It's still great. :)
I'm wondering if reading it at an impressionable age helped contribute to my borderline irrational antagonism towards the military.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
More Game gubbins

It won't work for meathead fuckwits because they're following the game, not staying ahead of it. But it really did change my mate's life for a while: from being a total wuss, to getting off with any girl in the place. Until he got bored of it anyway.

It's absoloutely mindblowing finding out how easy it is to actually kiss girls.

One of my best mates was the sad, speccy git who couldn't get a girlfriend from some C4 documentary about "The Game". He has a girlfriend now, she's pretty cute too. He gots tons of free advice and help from many top guys, before and after the TV show. There are money and status games being played, but it's only 1 part of the community not the whole thing.

I dabbled in this area myself. Usually leading me to dating foreign girls who needed showing around London and to be fucked by a local. Without that Pester Square Posse, a lot of foreign girls would have shit times in London. As a result, got a couple of free holidays later on and spent New Year 07/08 in one of the poshest sex clubs in Europe. Got my heartbroken and other stuff too, but that's okay.

Clearly there are respect issues within the community, are they really any different to the ones you find everywhere else? Most relationships are not that healthy and a lot of sex is driven by esteem issues and maniplulation. To the extent there's anything special going on in the 'pick-up community', then surely it's men trying to work out what the hell they're supposed to be doing with their lives in a 'post-feminist' world where the rules are increasingly unclear. It might be nice if that was a dialogue girls could be more actively included in, but like everything else it's a work in progress.

On another note, was Jarvis Cocker the/a prototype 'Mystery' figure? The lyrics to 'I Spy' from Different Class, in particular, are very interesting in this context. Pulp were supposed to be quite the girlfriend-stealers too.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Clearly there are respect issues within the community, are they really any different to the ones you find everywhere else?

Yes they are - the issues are a lot more "intense" as the sole focus is on women as objects to be manipulated so you can fuck them.

Most relationships are not that healthy and a lot of sex is driven by esteem issues and maniplulation.

Not true in my experience. If we are allowed to generalise about "most relationships", I could say that "most relationships" at least have the aspiration to something healthy - relationships which are driven by manipulation by definition fall outside this category. category.

To the extent there's anything special going on in the 'pick-up community', then surely it's men trying to work out what the hell they're supposed to be doing with their lives in a 'post-feminist' world where the rules are increasingly unclear.

I hate discussions about "men's role in the world which transfer male disatifactions and inadequacy back onto women and feminism. IMO, feminims is a boon for men, because it increases the status, respect and political consciousness of our partners. How is that not a good thing?

t might be nice if that was a dialogue girls could be more actively included in, but like everything else it's a work in progress.

Golly it's strange that women don't want to get involved in that dialogue. I wonder why ever not?
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
"It's absoloutely mindblowing finding out how easy it is to actually kiss girls."

Like it's some fucking big mystery anyhow, that needs a special technique to "crack". Christ on a bike.
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
I dabbled in this area myself. Usually leading me to dating foreign girls who needed showing around London and to be fucked by a local. Without that Pester Square Posse, a lot of foreign girls would have shit times in London. As a result, got a couple of free holidays later on and spent New Year 07/08 in one of the poshest sex clubs in Europe. Got my heartbroken and other stuff too, but that's okay.

Would your name happen to be Neal Cassady?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Something I think feminism should have done, but perhaps hasn't done to the extent that it might, is made women more willing to make the first move when it comes to pulling. It's not always the case, but in general I find it is usually left up to the man to be an active seeker-after-sex and for the woman to be passively sought. Well, maybe she puts out 'signals' but it's generally up to the man to go over and say something.
The traditional answer here is that old-fashioned sexist attitudes are to blame by making the woman a 'slut' if she puts out 'too easily', but is this really the case? I think most men would be delighted if more women were willing to make the first move. Perhaps there are still some idiots who still think this is disgraceful (religious conservatives, maybe) or, worse, hypocrites who'll shag a girl and then go on about what a slag she was for letting him do it. But I'd have thought such men would be in the minority, and a shrinking minority at that.

I hate discussions about "men's role in the world which transfer male disatifactions and inadequacy back onto women and feminism. IMO, feminims is a boon for men, because it increases the status, respect and political consciousness of our partners. How is that not a good thing?

Sure, but is 'feminism', as the force or process that's been active in society over the last couple of generations, a particularly good facsimile of feminism as it was originally ideated in the 60s/70s?* Which is to say, isn't at least possible that men (and women as well) have become confused because feminism has to some degree been hijacked by consumerism, filtered through various layers of pop culture, academised to within an inch of its life and gone through all kinds of other mutations? Would Andrea Dworkin have approved of Sex And The City I wonder...probably not, one suspects. Some of the culture theory buffs on here could take this discussion to a whole other level if they like, I'm just typing as I think.

*which of course in turn owes a lot to the first wave of modern feminism in the early 20th century, but AFAIK that was more about concrete things like suffrage and having career options other than housewife/nurse/servant/prostitute.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Mr Tea., feminism obviously is a whole bunch of different things, but I was responding to the assumption in thread that this nebulous force was somehow responsible for the ills of modern man. It's an assumption that crops up a lot in these discussions, y'know "modern man=NEUTERED BY FEMINAZIS" and I think it's a fallacious load of reactionary bollocks.
 
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