I've been finishing about one book per week every week for the last 3 years. It's probably my favorite hobby. I read mostly non-fiction and take lots of notes.
While these 10 books aren't about current events (most of them are pretty old) they all deeply apply to what's happening now. I've read a lot of good stuff and a lot of crap, but these 10 are the best time investments I've made when it comes to reading. I think they're very important and relevant.
The books by topic:
Political Psychology
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind By Gustave Le Bon
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
Thought Reform And The Psychology Of Totalism by Robert Jay Lifton
Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building; Selected Papers
History & Culture
The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature by C. S. Lewis
The Pagan Temptation by Thomas Molnar
Political Philosophy
The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy by Carl Schmitt
Fascism Viewed from the Right by Julius Evola
King of the Castle: Choice and Responsibility in the Modern World by Gai Eaton
Always make me roll my eyes when people think that the bible haven't been through kazahrian hands on numerous occasions and rewritten and edited to suit their agenda....
The whole number of the beast/satan mythos is a good example, the original number was 616 and it was a number they feared so much they changed it to their number, the original story wasn't their satan but a story more akin to that of Prometheus in Greek mythology and the person in question being better describe there and in Loki of nordic mythology, but these people don't like stories of individualism that could inspire people to start thinking and start pushing back/standing on their own...
Ever wonder why there seem to some rather strong common threads in various religions texts and why they seem to be somewhat 'different' in the major adherent ones.....Common origin, many scribes, not all of them good....