Books that changed your life

[DiscoBiscuit]

Shogun - James Clavell

Tai Pan - James Clavell

Blue Blood - Edward Conlon

Reqiuem for an Assassin - Barry Eisler (game me the idea for the ice man and the child thread)

 

[tcda]

The Communist Manifesto

 

[evilrobot]

A song of ice and fire series ruined every fantasy novels I've read, because none of the latter ever matched up to the epic scales Ice and Fire has built.

Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it’s probably my favorite series; unfortunately with Martin’s involvement in the HBO production and everything else, it looks like a long wait for the next book. Screw the HBO series, I want him to finish the books.

I remember loving those books at that age, but then my parents made me stop reading them because they were "Satanic." (Oh the irony.)

Seriously? Those are the least 'satanic' books ever. How sad
Those books spurred my imagination.

I tried to find Narnia when I was a kid, searching in closets, the attic, the basement...

As for Narnia being Satanic, how do you even begin to respond to something like that?

 

[nomadic]

The Communist Manifesto

great college reading

you have to sell out eventually though

its a cruel cruel world we live in

maybe the next generation can make it better

 

[tcda]

great college reading

you have to sell out eventually though

its a cruel cruel world we live in

maybe the next generation can make it better

not sure, where I live there's a lot of trade union activism. the CM was just the start for me.

 

[Kool Keith]

The World According to Garp by John Irving

Wonder Boys by Micheal Chabon

I read both of these novels during the same summer. Both opened up a world of literature that I never new about. Wonder Boys, in particular, doesn't have a false note or a boring paragraph in it.

 

[Lark]

*Bump*

I'm going to try and find my list and look at my library tommorrow to answer this better, just for now I want to mention:-

The Fear of Freedom by Eric Fromm
Fabian Socialism by GDH Cole
The Bible with RCC commentary

Fiction:-
Tim Powers, The Drawing of The Dark, The Anubis Gates
Michael Swanwick, Jack Faust, The Iron Dragons Daughter
PKD, Time Out of Joint, The Man in The High Castle

 

[Haight]

People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

 

[Aquarelle]

I can't remember if I have posted in this thread yet, but it's a good one!

For me the big ones I can think of right now are:
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Racial Contract - Charles Mills
The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley

Also many scholarly articles.

 

[Halla74]

(1) The Kama Sutra

(2) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

(3) Confessions of a S.O.B.

 

[Wonkavision]

The Bible

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

Personality Type: An Owner's Manual by Lenore Thomson

The Rosy Crucifixion Trilogy (Nexus, Sexus, Plexus) by Henry Miller

 

[Rebe]

Norwegian Wood by Murakami
The God Of Small Things by Roy
Mountains Beyond Mountains about Paul Farmer
Love Thy Neighbor by Peter Maass

 

[Mole]

The Child, the Authoritarian and the Patron Saint

"The Wind in the Willows", by Kenneth Grahame delighted me as a child and delights me to this day.

"The Divided Self", by R.D.Laing showed me the divided mind of the authoritarian.

"The Mass Psychology of Fascism", by Wilhelm Reich showed me what happens when authoritarians get together.

And, "Understanding Media', by Marshall McLuhan, the patron saint of the internet, shows us what we am doing here today.

 

[mmhmm]

it made me fall in love with reading.
mrs j's 1st grade class. 1985.

 

[Lark]

(1) The Kama Sutra

That book caused a complete change in outlook for me too, it was a revelation to find a culture in which sex was taboo, just bad sex, really made me think.

There's a book which I'm sure no one will have heard of which is called "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart", it can appear a little pessimistic and I'm not sure I'd actually befriend the guy who is the author in real life but a hell of a lot of true grit wisdom in there. Wish that I'd read it when I was in like my early teens or something. And been smart enough not to just dismiss it.

 

[InsatiableCuriosity]

Anne of Green Gables series L M Montgomery
Arthur Mee Children's Encyclopaedia
Encyclopaedia Brittanica Junior

The Just So Stories Rudyard Kipling
The Water Babies Charles Kingsley

The Poems of Banjo Patterson

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out - lectures and interviews of Richard Feynman
Brave New World Aldous Huxley
Ishmael and My Ishmael - Daniel Quinn
The Witching Hour (and the Vampire Chronicles) - Anne Rice
Ecotopia - Ernest Callenbach

Most of the works of the following:

the urban fantasies of Charles de Lint
The feminist SciFi of Sherri S Tepper
Asimov & Heinlein
Julian May
Colleen McCulloch
Christian Jacq
Leon Uris
James Michener

The Prophet - Gibran
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam
A Child's Garden of Verses - Robert Louis Stephenson
War and Peace - Tolstoy

ADHD a Different Perception - and other books, political, philosophical and spiritual by Thom Hartmann

Dreamers, Discoverers and Dynamos - Lucy Jo Palladino
Please Understand Me II - David Keirsey
MBTI Manual
In the Mind's Eye - Thomas G. West

and soooo many more but these few are the most significant over half a life time and a bit more

 

[Queen Kat]

Harry Potter. I'm not a huge fan anymore, but I used to be from age 10 to 13. I got so sucked into it I totally forgot about getting obsessed with boybands. I'm grateful for that.

 

[Aquarelle]

I got so sucked into it I totally forgot about getting obsessed with boybands. I'm grateful for that.

Hehe. Fantastic. That's a very good thing!

I'm sure Harry Potter has changed a lot of people's lives. Especially kids who weren't into reading until it came out. Of course, the movies probably kind of ruined that in a way, although of course the books are way better and anyone who only sees the movies is missing out. (But I still love the movies.)

Another one for me, or rather a series:
The Anastasia books by Lois Lowry. I want to raise my kids the way Anastasia's parents raise her in the books.

 

[Lark]

The Fevre Dream really changed my life, its awesome tale and some how about friendship. I read it when I was trying to put this girl I'd been seeing out my head and it worked. Very few things did at that time.

I Am Legend I remember, in the Sci Fi Masterworks edition with a clawing vampire on the cover, I remember seeing it in the shop and the cover totally grabbed my attention, it was more money than I had to spend back then but I spent it and risked having to skip a meal or two and it was awesome! Few books have really held my attention like that, I was lonely at that time despite having people around, and it really helped, I've re-read it if I get into turmoil.

Also a book I read but I dont remember all of it or remember how it finishes is Primo Levi's If Not Now When, it was about Jewish partisans during the war living in a big forest, there was a time when I was badly traumatised, the whole family where in a way and seriously my world was in flux but I carried on, went to uni, feel in with a bad, hard drinking group, got further messed up in other peoples emotional shit, dont know how I finished uni and got a job but I did. At the time I sort of credit reading that book, when for the first time ever I couldnt read, had no inclination to read, wanted to just throw everything away, with helping me get back on track.

 

[Oberon]

Starship Troopers by Heinlein. I was in high school.