  | “Lord of the World” by Robert Hugh Benson
- Pope Francis during the discussion with the journalists
The title describes a play on words based on the Biblical notion that the ‘god of this age’ is an unforgiving deity whose primary enemy is Christ. The themes of one-world government and suppression of truth wouldn’t be out of place in a George Orwell novel of the end times, but the Catholic and apostasy element is more of a weird mixture between the Book of Revelation and The DaVinci Code. Also, there are surprisingly modern elements of near-instant communication, fast travel, and weapons of mass destruction.
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Larry King favorite books
photo: CNN
Interviewer №1 about the books that he loves
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ri bng the sharks into the open.
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 | “One Summer: America, 1927” by Bill Bryson
Larry King on Reddit.com
1927 was a busy year, between the Atlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh, a great baseball season with Babe Ruth, and the strangled husband of a Queens Village housewife. Ruth Snyder later took up temporary residence in Sing Sing. However, politicians such as Calvin Coolidge seemed to take things easy, while others had to clean up from a disastrous flood in Mississippi. This era of Al Capone's sharp and illegal dealings and 'talking' pictures shares space with bankers' decisions in Long Island that brought on the Great Depression. If anything, Bryson's book proves that the former glory days had much of our current age's trouble and action.
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 | “How to Overthrow the Government” by Arianna Huffington
"Every elected official should be forced to read it."
Larry King
Quoting sections of the Declaration of Independence, Huffington moves beyond political commentary toward encouraging a shift away from the status quo of a divided and ineffective government. Moral and political decay have become indistinguishable, and this President and Chief Editor of the Huffington Post urges citizens to restore power to a government that better reflects the wishes of the people – rather than the elite. Both campaign finance reform and civil disobedience are reviewed and detailed, with pointers toward existing groups of activists already engaged in anti-establishment work.
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 | "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
“Song of Solomon” ends up on many to-read book lists because of the author's 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, and because the book itself won the prestigious National Book Critics Fiction award in 1977. Somewhat like the James Joyce classic “Ulysses”, this book combines historical elements, free association, and unanswerable questions in the life of its main character. Beginning with a suicide and a black child's birth into a Michigan hospital, Morrison explores the complicated role of black family life, its heritage and its possible future. Though the poetic style remains the same as some of her other works, such as “Beloved” and “The Bluest Eye”, Morrison stretches herself in this novel by using a male perspective.
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 | "The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene
While the main character in Graham Greene's novel “The Power and the Glory” hasn't lived the pure life of Jesus, his experiences while on the run in Mexico provide an eery similarity to his Lord's sufferings. The nameless priest shows quite human flaws, with a daughter from a past love affair and a current drinking problem, while the antagonistic lieutenant (an atheist) appears more as a reverse Javier from Les Miserables. Greene personally suffered his way through a two-month research tour in Mexico, according to John Updike's New York Times review in 1990, but the result still shows up on must-read book lists, from Oprah's book club to one of Barack Obama's favorite books.
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Self-help books recommended by Oprah Winfrey
photo: Wikimedia
The most influential woman in the world recommends her favorite self-help books
  | "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" by Don Miguel Ruiz
- Oprah Winfrey
Four practices are all you need for a better life, insists Ruiz, and millions of readers have agreed with him. Seven years of being on the New York Times bestseller book list is quite an achievement, for a book describing just a few lifelong changes that need to be made: verbal integrity, questions without assumptions, a refusal to personalize, and making the best happen. As a surgeon with spiritual roots in the deep heart of Mexico, Ruiz weaves both practices in and out of this work. It has been promoted by Spiritually Fit Yoga and by Oprah, at the top of her favorites self-help books list.
 | "The Power Of Now" by Eckhart Tolle
This Zen Buddhist work of philosophy has made quite an impression on a number of reading lists of famous celebrities, from Paris Hilton to Oprah Winfrey. As might be deduced from the title, Tolle promotes the perspective of living in the moment – but not in a shallow way. Styled as a spiritual teacher, Tolle goes beyond the practical necessity of living moment-to-moment, but says that the present is truly all that there is, and should be lived with intensity – because time is purely an illusion. The rejection of struggle by implementing mindfulness, and moving from inactive waiting to the integrity of action, are also intriguing themes.
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As a former naval architect and professor at Reading University, Gordon is more than qualified to explain the purpose of underlying structures – from chariot wheels to Chinese boats. Concepts of design are key to upholding or destroying powerful weapons, such as naval boats (like the H.M.S. Captain) and spaceships. A discussion on load-bearing is just as important here as a chapter on compression. It's not hard to understand why this was one of the best books of the required reading in military academies, from the United States to the former Soviet Union, and still in high demand today.
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- Martin Luther King Jr. in his autobiography
While some cynics label this seminal work as ‘a guy sitting by a pond thinking for two years’, many have found this essay of conscience a riveting exploration of government deriving its right to rule by the use of power rather than by either consent or by right. Many of a revolutionary mindset have taken to heart Thoreau’s suggestion that the United States government has become an unjust ruler by engaging in wars of aggression and the use of slavery, and that the way to an untroubled conscience is to avoid government’s inner workings.
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- from an article on atlantablackstar.com
From the varied chapter titles (Slavery, the Social Compact, Law, Voting), it’s obvious that Rousseau is seeking to reform rather than appeal to the almighty and anarchical invidual found in a ‘state of nature’. Rather, Rousseau argues that it’s to everyone’s advantage if people allow for a certain amount of liberty to be exchanged for the sort of strength that is found in numbers that promote the common good. Laws must reflect the good of liberty and equality for all, while periodic assemblies will restrain the government’s thirst for complete domination; also, the state’s size ought to determine the application of monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy.
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Top books to read according to Bill Clinton
photo: Mou-ikkai (flickr)
Top books to read according to one of the most influential politicians in the USA of the 21st century
 | "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker
Bill Clinton has put this book on a list of the books that have been the most influential in his life (the list made by Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company).
Describing the earth as an immense burial mound or wasteland of fertilizer, Becker points out man's desire and inability to rise above the knowledge that he is mortal. Animals only have this knowledge momentarily, while humans must struggle with their abilities and inabilities along the road to the grave. Becker's favorite reading list includes authors such as Søren Kierkegaard and Otto Rank, whose ideas crop up frequently in Becker's assertion that the overwhelming reality of man's terror of death is often overcome by the fiction of religion, or the temporary distractions of life.
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 | "The Way of the World: From the Dawn of Civilizations to the Eve of the Twenty-first Century" by David Fromkin
Bill Clinton listed this book as one of his top choices in “Today” show on NBC.
The role of leaders pushing unremittingly for progress is one of the themes of Fromkin's work, which seeks to explore one of man's fundamental questions: where did we come from to get here? High school and college students needing to expand their reading lists may be attracted to the small size of the book, and those with an extensive book list of favorites may be attracted by the author's Pulitzer Prize nomination. In under 300 pages, Fromkin moves through the biggest highlights of the ancient and modern world, from Socrates to Copernicus to Thomas Edison, from an agricultural to an industrial society.
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Elizabeth Holmes’ recommended reads
Ambitious businesswoman and the CEO of Theranos recommends the books she is fascinated by
 | “The Complete Story of Civilization” by Will Durant and Ariel Durant
This eleven-volume set includes some rather forgotten eras of history, such as the ‘Age of Voltaire’ and the ‘Age of Napoleon’. The wedded pair of Nobel Prize-winning historians managed to work in many illustrations of women and domestic life, which is sometimes overlooked in historical accounts. The lively wording and primary source quotes put this set on the 1960’s Book of the Month club listings. While some readers complain that the section on Asia origins is rather thin, those in search of improving their grasp of Western Civilization should find this an insightful and entertaining read, especially if the readers enjoy puns.
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