Books Everyone Must Read, Part 1

Everyone who knows me knows most of the great works that influenced my thoughts throughout the years. When I look back, I think it all started with J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It is difficult to list all the books I've read since then! There are some, however, which few people have even heard of. The first of these I would like to mention is George Santayana's The Life of Reason. It is probably impossible to do justice to this monumental treatise here, so I just recommend that everyone read it for themselves. Santayana is one of the most insightful men I have ever encountered in philosophy and ethics. I particularly admire his aim of showing that an objective form of morality (though more on a philosophical than practical level) exists. Through well supported theory of ethics he comes to some very good conclusions about the falsehood of democracy and danger of overly patriotic societies. In this regard reading Santayana was almost like reading Mises or Rothbard, though the man certainly attacked the issues from a different perspective and did not spend as much time on pure theory. Nonetheless Santayana's great work, as its title suggests, is extremely logical and therefore somewhat of a 'must read' for people who admire reason as the greatest virtue. It is not merely about society and government either - that is only a subset of the entire philosophy. Other topics discussed are love, family, morals, and the essence of 'the good' and of humanity itself. It is rather difficult to find such a comprehensive treatise on morality anywhere else.
And, above all else, The Life of Reason is simply a great read. I have seen few books written so beautifully and with such eloquence. Sufficient to say many of our modern cliche terms such as "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" come from Santayana's writing.

The most powerful, though less know, quote which I can mention here is "Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment." This is why, after reading The Life of Reason, I became deeply interested in more radical forms or individualism and Epicureanism.