3 Books That Will Make You More Attractive and Cultivate Your Masculinity

[pavlove]

So reading suck a lot of the time. I personally think school is to blame for this as being forced to read anything, even books you enjoy, is a hellish experience. However, once you've read a food good ones, you realize there's no other experience as rich no matter how good any movie or tv show.

Anyway, the following three books are going to help you men become more attractive in a direction you never would have even seen on your own. I also tailored to what, I feel, are male community on GaG's strengths and weaknesses since you all will be the only one's reading this...

The Fountainhead

This is a mammoth of a book, so you'll hate me for that. However, The Fountainhead is probably one of the most important books for a young man to read as he venture out into the big, scary world. Howard Roarke is a young architect who's recently been rejected from college and is now considering how he wants to start his career designing buildings. Peter Keating is his rival and opposite, where Roarke is unconventional looking, Keating is classically handsome, where Peter understands what people like and how and why they like certain people over others (standard manipulation,) Howard simply cannot understand why what other people think matters. Where Peter Keating steals ideas from history and from other architects, Howard Roarke challenges himself not only not to take from the past but also to design buildings in new ways, even though it upets the people around him who want tradition to stay in tact.

The journey of Howard Roarke is possibly the best exploration of the Ego and how man has, unfortunatly, learned to put himself below the rest of society, to measure himself based on the opinions of others and never himself even to the point of self-hatred, and to sacrifice who you truly are simply to be fall under the thumb of the uncaring masses and experience self-love only through them and never yourself. Howard suffers for the majority of the novel, constantly pissing people off and never getting work for very long, while Peter Keating thrives for the majority of the novel (I won't spoil what happens to him.) Although it is very hard to be a Howard Roarke when most of us are Peter Keatings, The Fountainhead will transform the direction you want to experience love. Instead of wanting that cute girl who sits next to you at work or in class to like you, you will be far more interested in deciding what you can do today that will make you even more worthy and attractive to yourself than you were yesterday and that will not only make you a more centered, happy person, but more attractive to women as well.

Way of the Peaceful Warrior

The protagonist of this story is an Olympic athlete with the perfect girlfriend and seemingly everything he could ever want. After meeting a strange old man under mysterious means, the protagonist looks down the next twenty years of his life and realizes he is headed towards high material success but years of inner misery. After suffering a nearly fatal accident, the protagonist becomes even more dedicated to the teachings of his new guru. The Way of the Peaceful Warrior teaches a man about not overthinking life, to be present and live in the moment, to take of his body as a temple, and to realize that everything he determined as "joy" was fleating and real happiness comes only from awareness that everything is simply an illusion. This book, like all books written about "overthinking" is very tripy since thinking about overthinking is paradoxical by nature. Give Peaceful Warrior a chance, however, and you'll realize all the girls, money, career success, and anything else you can think of that would make you happy are all meaningless when considering that the only real happiness comes from within yourself not outside, the cost of which is free.

The UltraMind Solution

This book basically steals from "The Mood Cure" which was written a long time ago but it may help you to know you're reading something current. A lot of the issues you have depression, anxiety, fatigue, restlessness, anger...could all simply be a result of the fact that you eat junk all day. The Ultra Mind Solution, like the book it ripped off, blows your mind that many people who have had seriously bad emotional conditions found themselves extremely happy and well balanced simply by eating a lot of the right foods. Think about it, when you get a $200 hot rock massage you feel amazing...you don't care about so many things you thought were so awful and you naturally think about all the fun things you want to do, want to say, and you're just generally amped on life. You can feel that way for way less just by drinking a kale, lemon, ginger juice or smoothie and they actually don't taste half bad. This book may be the hardest to trust because you won't want to believe eating better foods is going to make much of a difference. But not only will you look younger and physically better more vibrant and better looking, but your all that negativity you're carrying around that's repelling girls will be replaced by this natural energy for life that women can't get enough of (this is why the life of the party tends to get laid a lot.) Oh, and you'll feel amazing like all the time.

So, there they are. Men feel free to comment with any books that you feel are amazing. May not be the most fast-paced adventure, but it's damn potent...

***The Fountainhead is an extremely controversial book because the author is very anti big government. I would advise that you ignore this as The Fountainhead really doesn't get very political and try to glean the more universal messages about the human spirit instead.

[Dandeus]

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Ayn Rand was a sociopath. Literally. Her writing will not make you a man, it will make you a selfish prick who walks all over others to get what you want. She once described William Edward Hickman - a man who kidnapped a 12 year old girl for ransom before cutting her throat and dismembering her, then scattering parts of her body around for people to find, - as her ideal man who upheld her moral code of selfishness.

www.alternet.org/.../3_fatal_flaws_in_ayn_rand's_perverse_'moral_philosophy'

[Dandeus]

Also, Howard Roark, the "hero" of The Fountainhead, is a rapist. Great example of a man you picked there.

[DarkHumorRUs]

So basically these books are a bunch of hippie bullshit?

[KHaskins]

@DarkHumorRUs
Hippie? Hardly. Rand was a polarizing figure; immigrated to the US after nearly starving to death in the Soviet Union. It was something of a formative experience. Her writings were powerfully anti-totalitarian, and tended to piss off both left-wing socialists AND the religious right. It's funny reading some of the reviews for Atlas Shrugged and seeing how she got some people frothing at the mouth (one guy back in the 50's who clearly never read it summed it up as "To the gas chambers, go!" before defecting to the USSR).

Anyways, regarding "hippie bullshit," she was actually pretty steadfastly anti-hippie. Just as a primer, check out "Apollo and Dionysus" here: aynrandlexicon.com/.../apollo-dionysus.html

It's funny, because even during is lecture, the audience is divided, some booing, many more applauding. All I can say is don't let the reviewers make up your mind for you when it comes to her works (I don't agree with everything she said either). Check it out and decide for yourself.

[KHaskins]

Haven't read "The Fountainhead," so I can't dispute Dandeus' assessment of Roark. Have read "Atlas Shrugged" and "We The Living," and listened to that lecture in its entirety - in a nutshell, it compares the conduct of the attendees of the Apollo 11 launch to the attendees of the Woodstock music festival, and the philosophical underpinnings of both events.

[Dandeus]

"I met him when he was working in a granite quarry. Why not? You'll put him in a chain gang or a jute mill. He was working in a quarry. He didn't ask my consent. He raped me. That's how it began."

That's a quote from The Fountainhead. The perverse thing is that Rand makes the woman fall in love with Roark.

The hilarious thing is that so called Objectivists continually try to justify the rape in the context of Dominique's actions toward Roark... Which obviously flies in the face of the central concept of Objectivism.

And of course anyone who understands Rand's general endorsement of self interest above all else, raping her without regard for her consent is perfectly aligned with her twisted morality.

[KHaskins]

I wouldn't say it was in line with it. As I recall, John Galt in Atlas Shrugged was pretty explicit on the point that the *initiation of force* is just about the biggest sin there is - rape certainly classifies as such.

Not in any way shape or form defending it here. Just saying.

[KHaskins]

Also, not an objectivist. Just amused by some of Rand's more rabid supporters and detractors. Some of her ideas are valuable and workable, others not so much. Either way, I maintain that "Atlas" was worth reading. John Rogers' dismissive "review" in your original post? Not so much.

[Dandeus]

John Galt considered force *against him* a sin. He did not consider his initiation of force against others as a sin. The central concept of Objectivism is "I'm special and you're not, and I'm more important than you." Galt also rails against collectivism (amongst the working class, this being unspoken) while setting up a collectivist commune for the wealthy elite. Rand and Objectivism are rife with contradiction.

Alas Shrugged is the only book I've read that I found so morally repugnant that I stopped reading it and threw it away, and I'm an atheist who owns a copy of the Bible.

[KHaskins]

Wow. I didn't get "I'm special, you're not" from it *at all,* and I don't see where you get your initiation of force interpretation either. "I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine" is the oath they all took in the valley. I don't recall Galt initiating force in the story, ever (Ragnar, on the other hand, did). Galt told them how the repair the machine the government people were torturing him with when it broke down, for fug's sake.

I agree her "model society" was unworkable; if it can only survive in total isolation from those who don't adhere to its core ideology it is of course unworkable. That said, if you were paying attention, Galt wasn't exclusively targeting the ultra-rich for "recruitment." Heck, some of the villains of the story fit the description to a T.

I'd advise @DarkHumorRUs to read it and reach his own conclusions.

[Dandeus]

"I'm special, you're not" is implicit in rational egoism. If the only moral behavior is putting your own self interest ahead of others (and really, underneath it all, she really means pursuit of wealth), you cannot recognize that "morality" in others without strife because the self interest of others will inevitably run counter to your own. So to recognize their behavior as moral would be to recognize actions taken by others against your self interest as moral: a contradiction.

Also, Galt engineers the collapse of society and the economy to impose his vision on mankind. I'd call that force. Reardon also espoused force when employed towards his own self interest.

Galt certainly vilified certain of the upper class (Rand would hate billionaire philanthropists like Bill Gates), but the speech by d'Aconia espoused the virtue of greed and the pursuit of money as the only moral activity of man..

[Dandeus]

And let's make no mistake. Galt, Reardon, Ragnar, d'Aconia... every one of them serves as a simple mouthpiece for Rand. Literarilly speaking the book is juvenile garbage, so it doesn't really matter which character in Galt's circle says what. They all serve the same purpose in Rand's parable.

[pavlove]

Again, this is one of the reasons I chose to recommend The Fountainhead over Atlas Shrugged though I enjoyed both books. One focuses on the Ego in relation to Society and the power of the Human Spirit admits those who would seek to suppress it. The other obviously goes for it and is extremely libertarian/pro big business. How I sort of come to terms with her philosophy is that I remind myself that she came from an incredibly oppressive background and maybe got a little too infatuated with capitalism and ignored some of its flaws. Back to Fountainhead, the rape I'm not sure I would call it that but either way you're picking one scene in the novel against countless positive examples of one man knowing extremely well who he is and not being shaken even when the majority of his life is filled with rejection and hate. That to me is lost on a lot of guys who are always looking to be validated and have no sense of purpose or identity beyond what's popular at the time.

[pavlove]

The rape is an interesting point though, and I don't want to dismiss it lightly. It's hard to take it too hard when we're completely certain she wanted and enjoyed it through narration. With Rand I think she makes good points but then goes a little too hardcore with the "freedom to be yourself." All things have have good and bad to them even personal freedom isn't inherently good or bad.

[KHaskins]

Galt employed no force. He simply walked out and refused to prop it up anymore. The reason society collapsed in Atlas Shrugged was because the people who actually produced at all levels of the socioeconomic pyramid did as he did, and the rest, who had been content to be carried by them before, were too inept to run things on their own, responding with increasingly totalitarian sanctions being slapped on everyone who stayed in the game which only made the economic crisis worse.

I honestly don't know where you get the rest of your conclusion from. There was nothing "collectivist" about the society in Galt's Gulch, nor were all of its denizens wealthy in their past or current lives. The whole point of D'Anconia's speech was that money (rather, the value it represents) must be *made* through the honest production of goods and services, not begged, not demanded at gunpoint. I'm seriously left to question if you even read it.

[jacquesvol]

“He moved one hand, took her two wrists and pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades.…She fell back against the dressing table, she stood crouching, her hands clasping the edge behind her, her eyes wide, colorless, shapeless in terror. He was laughing.” – (Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead”)

[emmabee11]

A man isn't a man if he's too insecure about his own sexuality and too afraid to show his feminine side, is attached to the hip of his friends and can't use his own mind to make his own decision... that is all you need to know... with every human it's about individuality of a human being and if a female or male can't show who they really are inside, can't use their own brain and let people tell them what to do, let people tell them what's right instead of detemring it for themselves and lets them peer-pressure them in every situation and just constantly afraid of their own shadow then what use are you? lol non to nobody, not even yourself.

[Anonymous]

Personally, i kind of found this offensive because i happen to be a writer. Currently finishing my first book on fantasy/sci-fi. Books are not a hellish experience what the fuck? The books that honestly change a kid's childhood are the Harry Potter Series, The Lord of the Rings, The Inheritance Cycle. Those three changed my childhood and that's what inspired me to write. But seriously i found this take a bit offensive.

[JohnBhoy94]

I'm glad someone else feels the same. Although my reading has been bleak lately, I've always had a fascination for the Sherlock Holmes short stories. Agatha Christie too, and the Harry Potter series.

[Opinion Owner]

Yeah same, although my range of readings are large so I'll read anything from Alex Rider to Sherlock Holmes, to Harry Potter to Eragon to Return of the Kings etc.

[rocelot]

Dude, its some else's opinion. Idiotic or not, no reason to get offended.

[jacquesvol]

Ayn Rand' ? Just a quote:
“He moved one hand, took her two wrists and pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades.…She fell back against the dressing table, she stood crouching, her hands clasping the edge behind her, her eyes wide, colorless, shapeless in terror. He was laughing.” – (Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead”)

[jacquesvol]

Will Make You More Attractive and Cultivate Your Masculinity...
Nuff said.

[jacquesvol]

Have no doubt, Paul Ryan is a big admirer of Ayn Rand: www.atlassociety.org/.../paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again
Why Liking Ayn Rand Makes You A Terrible Lover: www.nerve.com/.../why-liking-ayn-rand-makes-you-a-terrible-lover

[rocelot]

If all the things wrong with Ayn Rand, liking it rough was never one of them.

[jacquesvol]

That apology of the egoistic rapist suggests a lot about her vision on sexuality.

[Anonymous]

Saw Ayn Rynd, determined take was utter bullshit, didn't read.

[pavlove]

lol funny. i knew she'd be polarizing but the book is damn good and this is coming from a liberal in every sense of the word.

[jacquesvol]

"a liberal in every sense of the word"
Rand was libertarian, not liberal. 'An economical anarchist thus. (and very egocentric.)

[evenlift]

Thanks for the reading suggestions!

And it's great to see another Ayn Rand fan here. Let me recommend 'Atlas Shrugged' and Ayn Rand's non-fiction, if you haven't read them yet.

[pavlove]

I heard that her non-fiction was redundant if you've already read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged?

[evenlift]

Her non-fiction, as one might expect from non-fiction, presents her philosophy more explicitly and more systematically, especially as it was written after the fiction. In addition to dealing with philosophy, her non-fiction touches on matters of practical politics, art, etc. So, it's far from redundant. I recommend reading her first non-fiction book 'The Virtue of Selfishness' first, which presents the Objectivist ethics.

In addition to Ayn Rand's own works, there's Leonard Peikoff's book, 'Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand', which is a systematic presentation of all aspects of Objectivism. However, that book is hard to read, if you're not used to reading non-fiction philosophy texts.

[cajun]

Zorba the greek and iron john tops the list..

zorba talks about man's freedom and Iron jhon about his muculinity..

[JackKerouac77]

Interesting choices you have there. Always good to read everything.

[Roycaryn]

To everybody complaining about the Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, just because Ernest Hemingway was an unapologetic chauvinist for most of his life doesn't mean his short stories don't have literary value.

[ArabianPwincess197]

I enjoy reading so I disagree with the fact that it sucks. But thanks for the suggestions I'll look into them

[LauraMarx]

LMAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I LOVE WHEN A LIST OF BOOKS STARTS OFF WITH AYN FUCKING RAND

OH MY GOD

[Agrojag]

Yeah, I was going to comment I REALLY doubt following Ayn Rand's philosophies is going to make a guy more attractive to the ladies.

[pavlove]

glad you're keeping an open mind and not looking at books and ideas in black and white

[astatine]

The Fountainhead is kind of like my holy book
i am all for objectivism

[Anonymous]

The Power of One, The Count of Monte Cristo and Les Miserables.

[GirlScoutsRevenge]

I know who you are!!! Xx still not read Dr Z.

[Opinion Owner]

I read most of Boris Pasternak's books!

[Anonymous]

can you summarize the diet recommended in the third book?

[Anonymous]

I'm curious about the Fountainhead

[guitar94]

Ayn Rand is a dumbass

[pavlove]

The woman can write that can't be argued. She's also got a very interesting take on individualism and not getting lost in the opinions of the masses. I agree that politically she is controversial and not in keeping with my view on things but dumbass?

[guitar94]

She basically wrote a whole book about how people need to be more selfish. Seriously? I don't know what your impression of human beings has been, but some things go without saying lol.

[jacquesvol]

Ain rand was the one who wanted to suppress welfare... for others: she lived off it.

[UltimateSkaros]

I'll consider them.