Where are you from? If you want I can send you a copy of my book "Cavemen with Smartphones: how evolution shaped history and finance" for free - I understand the struggle as I grew up in Mexico and getting new English books was very difficult. Either way, if you're interested, CWS is kind of like Sapiens but more focused on psychology and economics as well as with a sense of humour. So if you're interested in Yuval's books you're bound to like it as well ;)

Also Notes from the Underground is depressing but a great read nonetheless!

Man that is a tall order! I'd first pick out an era (ancient, medieval, or modern) and go from there.

Going in chronological order, Penguin has a pretty great book of Pre-Socratic philosophy:

https://www.amazon.com/Early-Greek-Philosophy-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140448152

The only problem is that the works are fairly fragmentary, sometimes even sentences are cut in half. AFAIK we don't have a coherent book of Western philosophy until Plato.

The gang is doing The Republic right now, which is about as political a work as you can get. It's worth digging into unconventional interpretations of the book, I really enjoyed this as a guide to thinking about Plato and others without giving you a specific reading:

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Between-Lines-History-Esoteric/dp/022647917X

I haven't read Aristotle but his Politics and Nichomachean Ethics show up on a lot of reading lists.

It's sort of a post-Socratic pre-Socratic book, but I really enjoyed Lucretius' De Natura Rerum. Basically he puts his own spin on the philosophy of Epicurus and renders it in Latin poetry. Roman philosophers are more about sharing life wisdom than doing rigorous logic, but you might check out Cicero and Seneca on the earlier side and Boethius and Marcus Aurelius on the later side.

Medieval philosophy basically equates to religious philosophy. You mentioned Augustine and Aquinas, also check out Maimonides ("the Jewish Aquinas"). I haven't studied these guys too closely.

Modern political philosophy starts with Machiavelli and runs through Locke, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Burke, Mill, and Marx. On the epistemology side there's Descartes, Hume, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer. Not to spoil anything for you, but a popular interpretation is that Marx and Nietzsche basically killed the entire Enlightenment project. In any event it definitely helps to have a grounding in both ancient and modern philosophy before tackling Nietzsche so that you know what he's talking about and responding to.

Oh yeah and Hobbes wrote a sequel to Leviathan called Behemoth where he analyzed the English Civil War using his political principles. Wasn't as popular as the original though!

This is Bret Easton Ellis’ first book and was written while he was still a student. He got the book published at the age of 21. Less Than Zero really illuminates the origins of many of the stylistic quirks found in American Psycho and it reads with a similar cynical tone. The way he writes seems very conversational but not dull or dumbed down. It follows a teen who’s returned to LA for the holidays, begrudgingly, and is faced with the vapid and transient nature of Hollywood culture. Highly recommend.

“Disappear here”

Less Than Zero https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679781498/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_miC8Bb4DZVM77

This is Bret Easton Ellis’ first book and was written while he was still a student. He got the book published at the age of 21. Less Than Zero really illuminates the origins of many of the stylistic quirks found in American Psycho and it reads with a similar cynical tone. The way he writes seems very conversational but not dull or dumbed down. It follows a teen who’s returned to LA for the holidays, begrudgingly, and is faced with the vapid and transient nature of Hollywood culture. Highly recommend.

“Disappear here”

Less Than Zero https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679781498/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_miC8Bb4DZVM77

I love the cover to We - Yevgeny Zamyatin

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0140185852/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_kIUSCb6WX33F2

There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind is also a good read about one of the most prominent atheists, Anthony Flew, and what turned him into a deist. Gerald Shroeder's argument was instrumental in this and can be found as number 5 on this page as well as Roy Varghese's book The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God.

Note: I'm talking about the audiobook don't be fooled by the paperback option
Here's a link
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Woman-Dunes-Vintage-International-Abe/dp/0679733787/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1542570120&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=the+woman+in+the+dunes+by+kobo+abe

Got the complete mouse from amazon
If you google "mouse comic pdf" you can also find the first of the two books

I think you're thinking of Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

​

https://www.amazon.com/Flowers-Algernon-Daniel-Keyes/dp/015603008X

Books Felix reviewed:


The Master and Margarita
Rating 5/5
Video https://youtu.be/OoRlp3--ckU?t=56
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Master-Margarita-Mikhail-Bulgakov-ebook/dp/B01DC7OGSO/


Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death
Rating 4/5
Video https://youtu.be/OoRlp3--ckU?t=263
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Death-Poems-Written-Monks-ebook/dp/B00R1W9PEW


Don Quixote
Rating 5/5
Video https://youtu.be/OoRlp3--ckU?t=623
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Quixote-Penguin-Classics-Cervantes-Saavedra-ebook/dp/B002RI99J6

No spoilers, but you are going to be disappointed and OP is right about it being a bit of a bore. I'd suggest reading "The Scramble for Africa" by Thomas Pakenham instead. Rip roaring adventure from start to finish, and amazingly it is non-fiction at that.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scramble-Africa-Thomas-Pakenham/dp/0349104492

I made a list based on where you can purchase them if you want to edit it onto your post:

This Month's Book

• The Woman in the Dunes by Kobe Abe
  
  

  January:
  

  
  

• [Consider Phlebas
  by Iain Banks]
  (https://www.amazon.com/Consider-Phlebas-Culture-Iain-Banks/dp/031600538X)
  
  
• [Brave New World
  by Aldous Huxley]
  (https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-World-Aldous-Huxley/dp/0060850523)
  
  
• Fahrenheit 451
  by Ray Bradbury
  
  
  
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
  by Oscar Wilde
  
  
• Children of Time
  by Adrian Tchaikovsky
  
  
• [12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
  by Jordan B. Peterson]
  (https://www.amazon.com/12-Rules-Life-Antidote-Chaos/dp/B0797Y87JC)
  
  
  

  February:
  

  
  

• I Am Legend
  by Richard Matheson
  
  
• Dune
  by Frank Herbert
  
  
• Kafka on the Shore
  by Haruki Murakami
  
  
• American Psycho
  by Bret Easton Ellis
  
  
• Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
  by Max Tegmark
  
  
• Beyond Good and Evil
  by Friedrich Nietzsche
  
  

  March:
  

  
  

• The Old Man and The Sea
  by Ernest Hemingway
  
  
• Moby Dick
  by Herman Melville
  
  
• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
  
  
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  
  
• The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  
  
• The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima
  
  
• The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
  
  
• The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
  
  
• Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe
  
  

  April:
  

  
  

• [The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart]
  (https://www.amazon.com/Dice-Man-Luke-Rhinehart/dp/0879518642)
  
  
• [Stoner by John Williams](
  https://www.amazon.com/Stoner-York-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590171993)
  
  
• [Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky]
  (https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Punishment-Fyodor-Dostoyevsky/dp/0486415872)
  
  
• [No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai](
  https://www.amazon.com/No-Longer-Human-Osamu-Dazai/dp/0811204812)
  
  
• Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima
  
  

  May:
  

  
  

• [Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima](
  https://www.amazon.com/Spring-Snow-Sea-Fertility-1/dp/0679722416)
  
  
• [Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima]
  (https://www.amazon.com/Runaway-Horses-Sea-Fertility-2/dp/0679722408)
  
  
• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
  
  
• In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon by Bhikkhu Bodhi
  
  
• Mythos by Stephen Fry
  
  
• Inferno by August Strindberg
  
  

  November
  

  
  

• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  
  
• Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death by Yoel Hoffmann
  
  
• Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
  
  
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
  
  

  Books Pewds suggested but hasn't talked about in any of the episodes yet:
  

  
  

• The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima
  
  
• Tony Takitani by Haruki Murakami
  
  
• The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
  
  linking pewds to see this u/pewpewpewPEWdie