<p>Why has nobody mentioned Camus yet?</p>
<p>lol to become an intellectual, read the books on college board's recommended list, then learn to have insightful thoughts. cocaine is the intellectual's drug of choice.</p>
<p>what about freud and his opium?</p>
<p>I believe that Freud used cocaine, not opium. In fact, he reccommended it to his patients. He even wrote about it in The Interpretation of Dreams. When I was reading it, he mentioned using cocaine very nonchalantly, and I was insanely shocked for a second; it was kind of funny. Freud used and advocated it before the it was linked to abuse, of course.</p>
<p>who determines what an intellectual is anyway?
what is the definition?
is there some giant list of intellectual books?
do they attempt to find the meaning of life?</p>
<p>:P</p>
<p>Sometimes. I'd say the Western canon is a good place to start, but then there are popular books amongst people's friends who are "intellectuals," another place to look. It's a fairly fluid term, definition-wise.</p>
<p>Carter beats the devil</p>
<p>who cares about books everyone else has read...just read one really interesting book that no one else is likely to have read and you'll seem really cool. i would suggest something "controversial"....i read this book about a lesbian my freshman year of high school, and then did an oral report about it, and i swear everyone knew who i was after that...even ppl who didn't hear the report.</p>
<p>Freakonomics is an amazing book, definately worth a read, and not too long either.</p>
<p>I enjoyed Brave New World, Going After Cacciato, and We (by Zamyatin). </p>
<p>Not really "intellectual" books per se, but all of David Eddings' books were very enjoyable and thought provoking.</p>
<p>"Pleasure of Finding Things Out"</p>
<p>Complilation of Feynman stuff</p>
<p>The Elegant Universe and The World is Flat were good.</p>
<p>Werner Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy was good too.</p>
<p>Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Spinoza's Ethics, Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason are some must-reads too.</p>
<p>Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Seriously. EVERYONE's read it, and it's a great jumping point for political debate.</p>
<p>Also, War and Peace is mad good.</p>