Want to know what books Stephen Cave recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Stephen Cave's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley | 4.34
Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges's most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight, he takes us inside the minds of an unrepentant Nazi, an imprisoned Mayan priest, fanatical Christian theologians, a woman plotting vengeance on her father’s “killer,” and a man awaiting his assassin in a Buenos Aires guest house. This volume also contains the hauntingly brief vignettes about literary imagination and personal identity collected in The Maker, which Borges wrote as failing eyesight and public fame began to undermine... more Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges's most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight, he takes us inside the minds of an unrepentant Nazi, an imprisoned Mayan priest, fanatical Christian theologians, a woman plotting vengeance on her father’s “killer,” and a man awaiting his assassin in a Buenos Aires guest house. This volume also contains the hauntingly brief vignettes about literary imagination and personal identity collected in The Maker, which Borges wrote as failing eyesight and public fame began to undermine his sense of self.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. less 
Stephen CaveThis story is about a Roman officer who finds the fountain of youth, a river that cleanses men of death, as he puts it. He becomes an immortal and meets the other immortals who have found the river, and the story is about the consequences of this – namely, madness and meaninglessness. There’s a great deal of speculation among philosophers and religious types about what it might be like to live... (Source)
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2
An obsession with perpetual youth may seem a particularly modern phenomenon, but it is a goal that western scientists and philosophers have aspired to (and worked towards) for the last four hundred years.
Mortal Coil explores the medical, scientific, and philosophical theories behind the quest for the prolongation of human life. It was a conundrum that intrigued Sir Francis Bacon and underpinned the scientific revolution; ideas of ultimate perfectibility, indefinite progress, and worldly rather than heavenly immortality fed directly into the spirit of the Enlightenment and... more An obsession with perpetual youth may seem a particularly modern phenomenon, but it is a goal that western scientists and philosophers have aspired to (and worked towards) for the last four hundred years.
Mortal Coil explores the medical, scientific, and philosophical theories behind the quest for the prolongation of human life. It was a conundrum that intrigued Sir Francis Bacon and underpinned the scientific revolution; ideas of ultimate perfectibility, indefinite progress, and worldly rather than heavenly immortality fed directly into the spirit of the Enlightenment and even further into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In today's world of genetic research, cryonics, and nanotechnology, we still seek the same elusive philosopher's stone.
From Adam and Eve to human cloning and designer babies, from seventeenth-century lifestyle guides to science fiction, Haycock's gripping story introduces an array of fascinating individuals—René Descartes, Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Swift, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud as well as a score of unknown figures. Full of extraordinary stories and valuable insights, this is a curious, witty, and captivating exploration into our unceasing desire to live forever. less Stephen CaveThis is very much about the first path to immortality, of just staying alive, here in this body, forever and ever. It begins with Francis Bacon – one of the founding figures of science – and the wonderful story of how he died trying to figure out how to preserve life. On a cold night, he went outside in the snow, bought a live chicken, killed it, and stuffed it full of snow in the hope of... (Source)
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3
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Denial of Death, a penetrating and insightful perspective on the source of evil in our world.
"A profound, nourishing book…absolutely essential to the understanding of our troubled times." —Anais Nin
"An urgent essay that bears all the marks of a final philosophical raging against the dying of the light." —Newsweek more From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Denial of Death, a penetrating and insightful perspective on the source of evil in our world.
"A profound, nourishing book…absolutely essential to the understanding of our troubled times." —Anais Nin
"An urgent essay that bears all the marks of a final philosophical raging against the dying of the light." —Newsweek less Stephen CaveBecker was a very interesting anthropologist, working within a tradition of psychoanalysis, who tried to bring together a lot of different disciplines in the sciences and the arts, to create a kind of third culture in order to explain humanity. He thought the point of the human sciences – and indeed all science – was to stop us from being evil, and that evil resulted from our terror of death.... (Source)
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4
A work of social history, Life After Death illuminates different ways ancient civilizations grappled with the question of what exactly happens to the dead. Segal weaves together biblical & literary scholarship, sociology, history & philosophy. A scholar, he examines the maps of the afterlife found in Western religious texts & reveals not only what various cultures believed but how their notions reflected their societies' realities & ideals, & why those beliefs changed over time. He maintains that the afterlife is the mirror in which a society arranges its concept of... more A work of social history, Life After Death illuminates different ways ancient civilizations grappled with the question of what exactly happens to the dead. Segal weaves together biblical & literary scholarship, sociology, history & philosophy. A scholar, he examines the maps of the afterlife found in Western religious texts & reveals not only what various cultures believed but how their notions reflected their societies' realities & ideals, & why those beliefs changed over time. He maintains that the afterlife is the mirror in which a society arranges its concept of the self. The composition process for Judaism, Xianity & Islam begins in grief & ends in the victory of the self over death. Arguing that in all religious traditions the afterlife represents the ultimate reward for the good, he combines historical & anthropological data with insights gleaned from religious & philosophical writings to explain the following mysteries: why Egyptians insisted on a heavenly afterlife, while the body was embalmed in a tomb; why Babylonians viewed the dead as living in underground prisons; why Hebrews remained silent about life after death during the 1st Temple period, yet embraced it in the 2nd Temple period (534 BCE-70 CE); & why Xianity placed the afterlife in the center of its belief system. He discusses the inner dialogs & arguments within Judaism & Xianity, showing the underlying dynamic behind them, as well as the ideas marking the differences between the two. In an examination of the influence of biblical views of heaven & martyrdom on Islamic beliefs, he offers a perspective on the current rise of Islamic fundamentalism. In tracing the organic, historical relationships between sacred texts & communities of belief & comparing the visions of life after death that have emerged historically, he sheds light on the intimate connections between afterlife notions, the societies that produced them & the search for life's meaning. less Stephen CaveIn a way the Segal book is the perfect accompaniment to reading Gilgamesh, because he so brilliantly puts this into a broader context. This book covers the ancient history of the near East, and the origins of the Abrahamic tradition of Western religion up until the beginnings of Islam. We tend to see religions as very monolithic, having a set doctrine that sprang from the earth or was handed down... (Source)
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5
Andrew George's "masterly new translation" (The Times) of the world's first truly great work of literature
Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world’s oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh’s adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality. Alongside its themes of family, friendship and the duties of kings, the Epic of Gilgamesh is,... more Andrew George's "masterly new translation" (The Times) of the world's first truly great work of literature
Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world’s oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh’s adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality. Alongside its themes of family, friendship and the duties of kings, the Epic of Gilgamesh is, above all, about mankind’s eternal struggle with the fear of death.
The Babylonian version has been known for over a century, but linguists are still deciphering new fragments in Akkadian and Sumerian. Andrew George’s gripping translation brilliantly combines these into a fluent narrative and will long rank as the definitive English Gilgamesh.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. less 
Ryan HolidayI read this on my honeymoon (probably the only person on the beach reading it, if I had to guess). Especially when I learned after that a new introduction paragraph had been discovered only recently. His tomb may have been found recently too. Imagine if Homer’s works had only been discovered in the mid 1800’s after being lost to history for thousands of years. How crazy would that be? Reading the... (Source)
Stephen CaveGilgamesh is a hero in the ancient mould. He’s half-god, enormously strong, a bit randy, a bit dim, and he goes through adventures which embody the human experience writ large. He starts off as the king of a small kingdom, making a nuisance of himself – enforcing droit du seigneur, sleeping with women on their marriage night, pushing other men around, being a bit of an arse. So the gods make a... (Source)
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