[gom_jabbar]

Absolutely. One of my favorite books about the power of books is The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2011) by Stephen Greenblatt. It tells the story of the rediscovery of Lucretius's poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), which was assumed lost.

[rramadass]

Nice. I had long wanted to read Lucretius' work and try and understand his philosophy/arguments. But a couple of translations that i looked at were in verse form and hence i did not followup on it. I am less interested in his poetry/form and more in his ideas. Maybe i should start with the book that you mention.

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swerve

De rerum natura - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura

PS: I just submitted this which you might also find interesting - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47295304

[gom_jabbar]

If you're only interested in his ideas, The Swerve summarizes them on pages 185-199 (1st edition).

[rramadass]

That certainly is helpful; a TLDR of his ideas before tackling his work in entirety (a rather difficult endeavour).

A quick Google search gave me exactly what you pointed out i.e. Chapter 8, Pages 182-202 which somebody had uploaded.