Books that "Send Chills Up My Spine" Pt. 1 of 4

I have a huge library of books; some of which I have read, some I have not. I share a similar philosophy with Italo Calvino, that "a library ought to be composed half of books we have read and that have really counted for us, and half of books we propose to read and presume will come to count - leaving a section of empty shelves for surprises and occasional discoveries." My library keeps me wondering, thinking, studying; it reminds me that my television and the internet are anything but portals to Truth, and it encourages me to fully explore answers to serious questions.
Over time, as my library has grown, it has become it's own living, breathing entity; it practically creates itself and, in the same vain, it almost speaks to me. As I sit in my living room or bedroom and stare at the shelves I feel various sensations as a either recall the contents of a book or dream of the contents of an unread book. One of these sensations I particularly enjoy, which, of course, are the chills that climb up my spine. It sounds strange and sounds like these chilling feelings should be reserved for a Stephan King book or some similar work, but for me, this sensation occurs more so for books that just seem impossible to write. These books tend to be controversial, they tend to be hard to read or even unreadable (will be explained later), and the authors of them tend to be dead (...after reading through the list, I see only one author on it remains alive). Below is my list, complete with a photo of the book cover, a favorite quote from the work, and a little summery of why it gives me the chills.

The Holy Bible

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

This one may be obvious. It is the first book that ever created the "chills" for me - and in the greatest possible way that eternity can conceive. The quote above is from John 1:1-5, which instills more specific chills, along with the rest of the Book of John. The MacArthur Study New King James Version specifically blows my mind. Although I don't agree with everything MacArthur says, his commentaries are pretty brilliant and certainly exhaustive. It's incredible how much thinking this man has done in one lifetime.

Gödel, Escher, Back: an Eternal Golden Braid
Douglas R. Hofstadter
From the Introduction:

The book is structured in an unusual way: as a counterpoint between Dialogues and Chapters. The purpose of this structure is to allow me to present new concepts twice: almost every new concept is first presented metaphorically in a Dialogue, yielding a set of concrete, visual images; then these serve, during the reading of the following Chapter, as an intuitive background for a more serious and abstract presentation of the same concept. In many of the Dialogues I appear to be talking about one idea on the surface, but in reality I am talking about some other idea, in a thinly disguised way.

I have sought to weave an Eternal Golden Braid out of these three strands: Gödel, Escher, Bach. I began, intending to write an essay at the core of which would be Gödel's Theorem. I imagined it would be a mere pamphlet. But my ideas expanded like a sphere, and soon touched Back and Escher. It took some time for me to think of making this connection explicit, instead of just letting it be a private motivating force. But finally I realized that to me, Gödel and Escher and Back were only shadows cast in different directions by some central solid essence. I tried to reconstruct the central object, and came up with this book.

The little subtitle/summary on the bottom of the book reads "A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll." It is with this metaphor that this book sends the chills. Just the cover alone does it for me. As evidenced in the introduction, the cover photo really ties in the essence of the book (Hofstadter made those himself). The quoted introduction above really expresses well why this book is so chilling.

Being in Time
Martin Heidegger

The 'Being-true' of the Logos as aleithuein means that in legein as apophainesthai the entities of which one is talking must be taken out of their hiddenness; one must let them be seen as something unhidden (aleithes) that is, they must be discovered.

Heigegger is one of my favorite philosophers to read. His writing is very similar to the late Pope John Paul II: very concise, yet extremely complex. A class at Thomas More College initially sparked my interest in Being in Time. Without a class on Heidegger I don't think I would have ever been able to understand his writing. Without a class on the Greek language, I definitely wouldn't have even been able to read it - oh, and it's so much fun! Although Heidegger is considered an atheistic ontologist, his writings do nothing but strengthen my faith in Christ (the Logos!).