From what I can tell, that's a pretty good list.
I was a bit disappointed by Prometheus Rising, but only because I'd already encountered all the ideas in other places before. It's great to see Godel Escher Bach too... one of my favorites.
I'm kind of surprised nobody has mentioned Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead. Or, as a newcomer to this forum, am I simply missing past hooplah about the Randroids? Especially given that around 1/4 of Illuminatus Trilogy is devoted to making fun of Ayn Rand (Telemachus Sneezed, anyone?).
Are we aiming for destruction of childish illusionment (normally Orwell, Rand, maybe Robert Pirsig) or tomes that actually worked to reconstruct public thought into new ideas? Campbell's work (Hero's Journey, etc) is fantastic. I'd also suggest Descartes' Discourse on Method as a useful tool for bullshit filtering.
Years ago, Kuro5hin (k5) had a couple of stories related to this, although they were more "what books have been influential in your life" while I suspect this is more "what books have been influential in your exploration of Discordianism".
Well, I have to say, the view on Ayn Rand on here isn't exactly...fantastic. Now it could just be that most of us have either met Objectivists, either online or off (I know the local libertarian crowd, but they're very...classical in their approach) who seem a little...insane. This is possible, given that nowadays Objectivism, as practised by the Ayn Rand Institute, is little more than a cult. Also, the most vocal people within that group seem to be hypocrites, who profess individualism while having no problem with lumping in all Muslims together and nuking them, for example. I wish I were making this up, but they seem to be 100% behind the War On Terror as well as the corporate arm of the government, and have advocated nuclear weapons to be used on the entire Middle East. Rothbard/Hess innfluenced libertarians in particular seem to hold a deep hatred for Objectivists and their wholesale backing of the War on Terror.
As for Ayn Rand herself, I've heard contradictory things about her works. On the one hand, you have a very dogmatic, demanding and somewhat authoritarian personality, not least towards women, homosexuals and Arabs, who sided with systems of control more often than not. This view seems to be borne out by her many successors, both within the Institute and in the less controlled blogosphere. On the other hand, in some respects, she made a couple of valid critiques, especially with regard to culture, and The Fountainhead is meant to be good in that respect, even if she spent much of her later life trying to repudiate certain views held within that.
The thing is...there are a lot of valid cultural critiques around, and if I spent all day reading them, I'd never get anything done. From what I can see, Rand wasn't an especially talented philospher, and her main influences are Aristotle and Nietzsche, both of whom I have read in detail and consider generally superior to most philosophy. Also, Nietzsche is a hilarious read most of the time. More than a few people here tend towards Nietzsche than Aristotle, philosophically too, and of course Rand took the opposite view, so there is a rather large difference in terms of worldview there, which may explain some level of antipathy.
Anyway, welcome to the forums Aestetix.
