For my freshman year of college, I took some classes that basically were discussions on life, nature, man, and religion. I didn't read all of these books (I wish I did now though), but they introduced the topics we discussed. "Civilization and Its Discontents" by Sigmund Freud "Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy "Austerlitz" by WG Sebald "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn "San Manuel Bueno, Martyr" by Miguel de Unamuno "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

Along with these books, we read some short essays that complemented many of the topics in the books (most, if not all, are from "Scientific American"). Here are some if you are interested. Wilson 2001, "Introduction: Life is a Narrative" Plumwood 2001, "Being Prey" Goodall 2001, "In the Forests of Gombe" Williams 2002, "One Acre" Young, "When the Full Moon Shines it's Magic Over Monument Valley" Irvine 2011, "Spectral Lights" Stark 2002, "Sting of the Assassin" Angier 2005, "My God Problem - And Theirs" Horgan 2005, "Keeping the Faith In My Doubt" Quinn 2011, "Sign Here If You Exist" Sacks 2013, "Altered States" Moers, "Female Gothic: The Monster's Mother" Poovey, "The Lady and the Monster" Hrdy 2002, "Mothers and Others" Angier 2003, "Weighing the Grandma Factor" MacKinnon 2013, "False Idyll" Maxmen 2015, "Digging through the World's Oldest Graveyard" Subramaian 2015, "The City and the Sea" Jabr 2014, "Why the Brain Prefers Paper" Hale 2013, "The Last Distinction?" Mukherjee 2013, "Introduction on Tenderness" Dobbs 2014, "The Social Life of Genes"