What has most influenced your worldview?

Via Megan McArdle, Tony Woodlief  has an amazing post entitled “If only these people would read…”  Meaning that, if you’re a conservative, what books do you think you could get a liberal to read that may change his/her mind?  And, I ask , vice-versa.  Click the links to see what they and their commenters say.  I’ll add my two cents here, with 3 books for each point of view that I think will challenge as well as be palatable to the skeptical.

To convert a liberal to conservatism:

• All the Trouble in the World, P.J. O’Rourke.  Funny as all hell, chock full of facts [although the source of some of them seem loaded], but best of all powered by actual travel to actual hellholes such as Dhaka, Mogadishu, Miami University, etc., O’Rourke is in top form and will have you questioning some of your liberal assumptions about hunger, overcrowding, central planning as an environmental good, etc.
• Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler.  Before Orwell there was Koestler, a fanatic Communist whose travels to Stalin’s Soviet Union made him change his mind in a hurry.  This novel about a political prisoner about to meet his maker is an expression of this extreme volte-face.  It is a chilling look at what runaway communism brings.
• Fashionable Nonsense, Alan Sokal.  Written by a committed lefty, Sokal, the author of the Sokal Hoax, absolutely torches the leftist academic war on science.  Yes, the immediate threat on science comes from the right these days, but one must recall that the left also has an interest in mucking up science for its own twisted narrative.

To convert a conservative to liberalism:

• Betraying Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein.  Goldstein, raised an Orthodox Jew, recalls her own journey away from orthodoxy in this beautifully penned and brief biography of Spinoza, the first true modern liberal.  Spinoza’s philosophy had an absolute impact on this country in the Separation of Church and State.  Spinoza was, as our Founding Fathers were, Deists.  Not Christians, not observant Jews, not Muslims, etc.  Spinoza’s story is worth reading and re-reading as the Right in this country go to war against the Separation Clause in the First Amendment.
• “Host“, David Foster Wallace in The Atlantic [April 2005].  Read for yourself.  This article, extremely well-written as is everything Wallace and without any pretensions, single-handedly exposes the seedy end of the right-wing talk radio business.  Keep in mind that this was written in 2005, 3 years before any financial meltdown, as Wallace wonders “As of spring ’04, though, the most frequent and concussive ads on KFI are for mortgage and home-refi companies—Green Light Financial, HMS Capital, Home Field Financial, Benchmark Lending. Over and over….Why is KFI’s audience seen as so especially ripe and ready for refi?”  Scary as hell.  Remember that as the Right continues to blame Obama and poor people for the entire financial mess this country is in.  [BTW John Ziegler, the subject of the article, shows his classiness here.  Bravo.]
• Conspiracy of Fools, Kurt Eichenwald.  No, this is not an attack on capitalism.  But this extremely detailed and fascinating account of the Enron scandal will have you think twice before you think that business leaders can always be trusted to do the right thing in comparison with the government.

I’d like to hear if any of you have any suggestions along these lines, either way.  And, please, Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter will never convince a liberal, nor will Naomi Klein or Michael Moore convince a conservative.