• The Will to Believe, by William James. An unflagging and poetic defense of the need and right of every person to believe whatsoever s/he chooses at his/her own risk of being wrong. I attribute my soul to this book. I also attribute to it the removal of my compulsion to see religious people as idiots who lack a proper analysis of the nature of the world.
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll. The very best of children's literature, creating a fascinating and fun world for the child that loses none of its impressiveness when the child grows into an adult.
• Nichomachean Ethics, by Aristotle. No one has ever come close to Aristotle in terms of being the philosophic ideal: a disinterested seeker. Disinterested insofar as he seems to have absolutely no vested interest in arriving at any specific conclusion. He is, just as much as we, along for the ride.
• Harry Potter, by JK Rowling. Very good "children's" literature, in the same sense as with Alice. Also, I'm a big fan of fantasy. Anyway, who doesn't like seeing the underdog come out on top???
• Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. As far as I'm concerned, way better than 1984 for several reasons, principal among them being the simple fact that, in the end, the reader is left unsure who is the "good guy." The case that the Controller presents to the protagonists is absolutely compelling. 1984 is fun, but it falls back into the old good/bad guy pattern, even though the good guy gets squashed in the end. Moreover, Huxley's future world is immensely more possible from my point of view -- and more beautifully explained.
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison. An absolutely unbelievable piece of fiction, passionate and sharp from end to end. Completely absorbing and capable of putting the reader firmly into a convincing world that bears no resemblance to his own.
• Genealogy of Morality, by Friedrich Nietzsche. An incisive and profound indictment of just about everything. And, at bottom, a celebration of the active life that bases itself on actions and positive values (as opposed to what philosophy understands as "negative values"). The main message that I took from this book was, "Don't let the world get you down." If you can believe that. Nietzsche's gotten a rep for being anti-religion. In reality, he's just critical in general of the herd mentality, including that of atheistic intellectuals: "naïveté is involved in this belief of the scholar in his superiority" (Beyond Good and Evil).
• Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. An intelligent psychologist's account of his time in a concentration camp. An indefatigable voice of hope that earns credence from the author's situation. Intellectually and emotionally compelling.
• Strong Motion, by Jonathan Franzen. An incredible writer, able to completely develop several characters at once and put them into situations that are interesting from every one of their points of view. Better than The Corrections due to there being less of the impulse to use big words for the sake of just using them and to there being a better "story" with a beginning, middle, and end.

Magazines:

• Muy Interesante. A Mexican publication and the most interesting magazine I have ever read in any language. Every issue contains articles addressed to diverse fields: science, philosophy, history, technology, etc. Some of my favorite articles have dealt with gravity, Einstein, a technique for squaring large numbers without a calculator ... there are more.
• CPU. A US-based (of course) computer science magazine, most impressive for its ability to successfully address itself to a wide range of subsets of the computer world: gamers, programmers, developers, and more. Even more impressive, though, is its popularity alongside its refusal to be Windows-exclusive. Windows is the most popular OS family, of course, so it's only natural that it should deal mostly with Windows, but Linux news can also be found ... and even an article here and there on things like the Commodore.