Books That Changed Your Life

[mrnealcassady]

I'm looking for book recommendations. Just started the Trial by Kafka and love it. I'll start off by recommending A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. A brilliant take on the Vietnam War and the greater political-military intellectual currents that informed policymakers. Long, but well worth your time.

Any suggestions?

[keithy_19]

I'm not sur eif you've read it already, but The Great Gatsby is a fantastic work of art.

I would also suggest you pick up an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe's poetry and short stories. He is one writer who has never let me down.

[moochcassidy]

your in a pretty good one

[sr71blackbird]

Healing back pain: Dr John Sarno

[Foster]

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is the first book I read as a kid that opened my eyes to literature beyond comicbooks

[DonInNC]

Huckleberry Finn - Twain. I was 14 when I read it, and it inspired me to run away from home. I was back two days later, but it was a start.

Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky. I read this book in my early 20's when I was really messing things up but telling everyone that all was OK. I took the wisdom from the book, opened up to people, and they supported me as I got things taken care of.

Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut. This one just changed my perspective in general.

More pragmatic choices:
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People- Stephne Covey
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnagie
The Power of Positive Thinking - Vincent Peale

[Annie Waits]

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho was a big influence in my life as a teenager

[hedges]

These books helped to shape my life in varying degrees

A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life - Shantideva
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
The Bible
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Post Office - Charles Bukowski
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
The Great Shark Hunt - Hunter S. Thompson
The Stranger - Camus
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung - Lester Bangs

[evboat]

Two short ones that are quick reads. Maybe not life changing but very eye-opening.

Rocks of Ages - Steven Gould
Confessions of a Sub-Prime Lender - Bitner

[Freakshow]

I actually though Breakfast of Champions was the more life-changing Vonnegut book. Of course after I read God Bless You Mr. Rosewater before all of those, and it made me want to read everything he had ever written.

Kitchen Confiential by Anthony Bourdain was actually a bit life-change for me, along with the No Reservations TV show.

I would thinki reading Fight Club would be in this category, but I saw the movie first, so I just moved on to Hidden Monsters, Lullaby, and Survivor, so i'm not sure I can count it...

[Kublakhan61]

Don Quixote - Cervantes
Lost in the Funhouse - Barth
and any short story by Borges.

[Yosammity]

The Grapes of Wrath

The Life of Pi

[badorties]

all these books really changed or impacted my percetption of things

the stranger
blankets (graphic novel)
hitchhikers guide
motorcycle diaries
the fan man
skinny legs and all
johnny got his gun

[Foster]

The Grapes of Wrath

The Life of Pi

loved "the life of pi"

[Ritalin]

You Life of Pi people kill me. I've never felt more cheated by book than the end of that one.

The game changer for me was White Noise by Don DeLillo. Knocked Holden Caulfield right of the pedestal for me.

[Tallman388]

I'm looking for book recommendations. Just started the Trial by Kafka and love it. I'll start off by recommending A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. A brilliant take on the Vietnam War and the greater political-military intellectual currents that informed policymakers. Long, but well worth your time.

Any suggestions?

You ought to give The Best & The Brightest a read if you liked A Bright shining lie. It's long but informative, and much better, but that's just me.

[realmenhatelife]

Peter Pan- JM Barre I read as an adult and aside from blowing my mind with how effective some simple literary tricks are it made me realize how youth is treated as a commodity, and the paradox that comes with that. Also, it's a really iconoclastic treatment of youth, it's a little sinister.

Geek Love- Katherine Dunn I read this in middle school when I was a pretty casual reader and I had no idea that books like this were written. I became a much more voracious reader, and was intent on studying lit.

Flannery O'connor collected short stories- She writes with total conviction about her beliefs, and focuses her energy on testing those beliefs instead of trying to convert non believers.

[SinA]

On the Road

Not that it really spurred me to just drop everything and drive west and bang little Mexican chicks (as much as I wanted to), but the appreciation I have for "Americana" definitely came from that book. Things like.. the coffee and apple pie in diners get better the farther you get from the East coast, not necessarily in taste but in their authenticity. That, and calling blacks spades.

[GreatAmericanZero]

glad no one mentioned "the Bible"...that would've made me puke

There is this book by Irvine Welsh (who wrote Trainspotting) called "Filth". its about a dirty disgusting asshole Scottish cop with a tape worm that is almost possessing him. The book is just about the worst person ever but at the end you feel so bad for him that you want to cry. I wish more people have read this one

oh, and read "American Psycho". Twice.

[Thomas Merton]

Some well read folks here

Don Quixote
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
The Odyssey
Huck Finn
Absalom,Absalom!
The Confessions by St. Augustine
Seven Story Mountain
The Journals of Lewis & Clark
All the Kings Men
Hamlet
Catch-22
Lord of the Flies
Lolita
Guillivers Travels
Frankenstein
The Moviegoer

and many, many more. Reading is one of the greatest pleasures of a well-led life

[Kublakhan61]

The game changer for me was White Noise by Don DeLillo. Knocked Holden Caulfield right of the pedestal for me.

I'm convinced DeLillo only had one book in him. I read two others and thought both we a waste of time.
I'd also like to add Camus' The Fall. I was obsessed by the notion of absurdity for years afterward. That obsession led me to Nabokov - add Pale Fire to my list, I'm still amazed by the narrative structure of that book.

[Puggle_kicker]

glad no one mentioned "the Bible"...that would've made me puke

These books helped to shape my life in varying degrees

A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life - Shantideva
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
The Bible
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Post Office - Charles Bukowski
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
The Great Shark Hunt - Hunter S. Thompson
The Stranger - Camus
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung - Lester Bangs

:unsure:

I will second "On the Road" . . . It is the only book that has changed my life. Got me to grow up and move out of my hometown, 3000 miles away.

[suggums]

Kitchen Confiential by Anthony Bourdain was actually a bit life-change for me, along with the No Reservations TV show.


Kitchen Confidential definitely did it for me, as far as opening up a whole side of myself. I gave two shits about what I ate and how it was made before that. Got me into spending time and thought in the kitchen, learning how to cook, and giving a damn about it. Food suddenly became much more than a meal. I hate the fact that I never really cared about what my mom made for us growing up, now that I no longer live with her and she barely cooks these days, its made me realize what I missed out on all those years. I savor the rare holiday meals so much more. So yeah, many thanks to you mr Bourdain

[GreatAmericanZero]

:unsure:


oh...oops

[Thebazile78]

Hmmm.... I guess for me the "life-changing" books would be:

Catcher in the Rye (after I read it, I was hopelessly in love with Holden Caulfield, so it still holds a special place in my heart)

Dracula (this was probably the first book I could enjoy on multiple levels; at first read, it scared the living daylights out of me while in subsequent revisits, I've picked up on the sexual undertones and overtones, as well as thought critically about how the progress of technology changed the way we tell stories - even within the novel, technological advances like the steam engine and the phonograph are integral to the plot)

The Queen of the Damned (complicated narratives, some that echo works that have come before like The Unnameable and Handmaid's Tale, which are also "watershed" type books for me)

The Red Tent (a re-telling of the story of Dinah in the Bible, re-imagined and expanded ... I'm constantly fascinated by familiar stories told from alternate viewpoints, like The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and The Mists of Avalon)

The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet (simple introductions to taoist philosophy explicated using A.A. Milne's beloved animals from the Pooh stories)

Baghvad Gita (OK, so it's a "holy book" but it's so interesting to see other cultures' ideas of how to find our place in the Universe ... I've also got a collection of excerpts from the Koran, which is a beautifully written piece of literature, much like the Book of Psalms and the Song of Songs in the Bible)

In high school and college, I also read a great deal of existentialist and nihilist writings as part of literature survey courses, but, because they were introduced at a different time in my life, I don't remember them terribly fondly. This is a shame, because I have read The Stranger and was impressed by the writing even if I didn't quite grasp the philosophy (or refused to grasp it, as I was rather religious at the time.)

[razorboy]

Philosophy Of New Music - Theodor Adorno
But Beautiful - Geoff Dyer
The Birth of Tragedy - Nietzsche
The Mind of a Mnemonist - A.R. Luria

[hedges]

Absalom,Absalom!

The only Faulkner I've read. I've gotta read more. That book is amazing.

[Thomas Merton]

Try Light in August and As i Lay Dying, then tackle The Sound and the Fury

I can tell immediately if I like someone by whats on their bookshelf and in their Ipod

[moochcassidy]

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest & 1984

[Donnie Iris]

I read Cat's Cradle in my early teens and never looked at writing and/or writers the same. Probably not everyone's favorite Vonnegut, in fact I'm not entirely sure it is mine, but it certainly has had lasting impact.

[Suspect Chin]

Any John Updike, but in particular, the Rabbit Series.

Any EL Doctorow fans? I working on The March right now.

[Suspect Chin]

No Country for Old Men was great but The Road sucked.

[beachbum]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[high fly]

The Bible - helped me to love and forgive others better

The Art of War by Sun Tzu - I'm glad to have at least 3 different translations and I go back to it often

Psychedelic Reactions and Carburetor Dung edited by Dave Marsh - lots of laughs and great insight into music and punk by the late great Lester Bangs

[wii mii]

artie langes-----book

The Grapes of Wrath

[IamPixie]

all these books really changed or impacted my percetption of things


blankets (graphic novel)



I LOVE blankets...I read it in literally one sitting.

For me it's gotta be:
Catcher in the Rye
Hot water music
Breakfast of Champions

I'm very unoriginal.

[GreatAmericanZero]

i was in a Barnes & Noble today, a nice big two story one..it took me forever to find the "Fiction/literature" section. it was so surprisingly small. its sad.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Rilke

[instrument]

I think on the road was mine, not due to content but before that point reading seemed like nothing more than homework.

After then I think breakfast of champions, mainly because of his writing style, same as falkner and hemmingway have their own voices vonneguts personality is displayed on everypage.

[cougarjake13]

solophist by henry rollins

[Thebazile78]

solophist by henry rollins

I think you meant Solipsist, but, hey, not everyone's got spellcheck in their heads.

[Donnie Iris]

I also enjoyed both Jonathon Safran Foer's novels; Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly close.

[cougarjake13]

I think you meant Solipsist, but, hey, not everyone's got spellcheck in their heads.

yeh you know i had the i in there first thought it looked wrong and googled and at the top it said did you mean solophist

so i went with that

[Arby]

The Dharma Bums - Kerouac
Makes you want to sell everything you own and quit your job.

[MC Pee Pants]

Life of Pi was awesome. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda was excellent also, really interesting and kinda changes the way you look at drugs.

[Thebazile78]

yeh you know i had the i in there first thought it looked wrong and googled and at the top it said did you mean solophist

so i went with that

It's just a weird word, but why would you Google it rather than searching Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Solipsist-Rollins-Henry/dp/1880985594/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235268521&sr=8-1)? It's a book; Google doesn't do well with books. Yet.

Incidentally, I read it about 8 years ago because the guy I was dating at the time felt it was his "life-changing" book, so he loaned me his copy. I can see why it impressed him.

[MacVittie]

Leaves Of Grass - Walt Whitman
In Our Time - Ernest Hemingway

[JustJon]

I'm sure I'll think of other later, but she stole the first ones that came to mind...



Dracula (this was probably the first book I could enjoy on multiple levels; at first read, it scared the living daylights out of me while in subsequent revisits, I've picked up on the sexual undertones and overtones, as well as thought critically about how the progress of technology changed the way we tell stories - even within the novel, technological advances like the steam engine and the phonograph are integral to the plot)

The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet (simple introductions to taoist philosophy explicated using A.A. Milne's beloved animals from the Pooh stories)

Also:

Ender's Game was just an amazing coming of age story, that I read at just the right time in my life.

Snow Crash - just an amazing cyberpuck novel. Took the high science of Gibson and Sterling and took it into a more action oriented direction.

[IWOWedGregBrady]

Been meaning to read Kerouac, but in the meantime...

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The World According to Garp - John Irving

[Recyclerz]

I'm convinced DeLillo only had one book in him. I read two others and thought both we a waste of time.
...

Krazy Talk! Libra and Mao II (at a minimum) are as great as White Noise, which is pretty damn great. Underworld is even better.

I'm not sure about how to define "life-changing" but in addition to some of the great ones already listed here, these books gave me new ways to look at the world that have never left:

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

[yojimbo7248]

Krazy Talk! Libra and Mao II (at a minimum) are as great as White Noise, which is pretty damn great. Underworld is even better.

I'm not sure about how to define "life-changing" but in addition to some of the great ones already listed here, these books gave me new ways to look at the world that have never left:

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

First of all, Delillo is genius. Both Mao II and Underworld were life-changing and brilliant.

Kurt Vonnegut changed my world in high school. Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse Five are my favorites.

Karen Armstrong's History of God showed me that even people who knew Jesus weren't sure whether he was God or man. This was hugely helpful coming from a strict evangelical family.

Dostoevsky's Brother Karamazov was my most life-changing and all-time favorite book. The Grand Inquisitor is the best piece of literature of all time.

[Coach]

Dante's Inferno..started to open my eyes to the centuries of hypocrisy in the Catholic Church.
Paradise Lost
1984
Animal Farm
Brave New World
Canturbury Tales

[high fly]

Some fiction I really enjoyed and have read again includes:

London Fields by Martin Amis - wacky, bent characters and a plot that keeps going in unexpected directions

Confederacy of Dunces by Kenneth O'Toole - more wacky, bent characters and throw-the-book-at-the-wall funny

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy - strange characters, aimless meandering plot, interesting, funny and poignant



As for having an effect on my life, I'd toss out there:

The Old Breed by MacMillan
and
Strong Men Armed by Robert Leckie

Both are about the First Marine Division in World War II.
I began reading them when I was 6 and grew up with many of the people in them. Meeting and getting to know these "Old Breed" Marines was a treasure, but even moreso was socializing and reading some of the book and then going into the living room and talking to the men I had just been reading about. I'd ask them about what I had just read and it was an incredible education.
I strongly feel America does a crappy job of remembering her heroes, and having had the priveledge of knowing men like "Chesty" Puller, "Silent Lew" Walt, Lemuel Shephard and David Shoup, I have made it a point to teach the younger generation about them, their exploits as well as character strengths I saw in them.
I feel it is an obligation that comes from the priveledge.

[skyscraper]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

[skyscraper]

Dante's Inferno..started to open my eyes to the centuries of hypocrisy in the Catholic Church.
Paradise Lost
1984
Animal Farm
Brave New World
Canturbury Tales

that must have been a pretty eye-opening sophomore year of high school for you.

[CYYYFYYY]

Catcher and the Rye. I read it for the first time in College. I enjoyed it but what made it change my life is it made me begin to write. I now love writing.

[CYYYFYYY]

Book I loved that no one has heard of is P.S Your Cati is Dead. Amazing!

[John Galt]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Pretty much took the wind out of my sails (not literally, figuratively).

I'll throw out a few more:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte
Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr.
The Prince by Machiavelli
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Etc.

[meanmrbill]

The Fountainhead--Ayn Rand
The Razor's Edge--Somerset Maugham
Life Without Principle--H.D. Thoreau
Self Reliance--R.W. Emerson

All of these books/writings taught me to never discount my own thoughts.

[PhishHead]

Dharma Bums
Junky
Catch-22
The Stranger
A Happy Death
The Brothers Karamazov (so much better than Crime and Punishment)
The Divine Comedy (Longfellows Translation, the only good one)

[Coach]

that must have been a pretty eye-opening sophomore year of high school for you.
hahaha, I read Dante in 7th grade. Did my senior thesis in College on Milton, because I was sick of Shakespeare.

[Kerouac72]

I'll post "On the Road" like a lot of other people. Never heard of it, then picked it up. Remember reading outside my tent at night during my first camping trip in the mountains.

Couple years ago I stopped by the Opera house in Central City. Like going to mecca almost. CC is one big penny slot casino now.

[Slumbag]

Steppenwolff by Herman Hesse is amazing. I am trying to read Siddhartha, but can't get into it as easily.
Survivor by Chuck P did a number on me.
Animal Farm and 1984, too.

[RoseBlood]

The Brain That Changes Itself.

[Gvac]

http://truereligiondebate.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/bible3.gif

[Bob Impact]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand turned me from a miserable angry person to a person who lives every day in inexhaustible joy.

[RoseBlood]

http://truereligiondebate.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/bible3.gif
God must be a female on the rag with that tampon string.

[RoseBlood]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand turned me from a miserable angry person to a person who lives every day in inexhaustible joy.

I think Sarah should get the credit for that. :wink:

[barjockey]

Deadeye Dick
Martian chronicles

[CofyCrakCocaine]

The Aeneid
The Iliad
To Kill a Mockingbird
Anything by Aristophanes
The Liar's Club
yes I know these are books they dump on you in high school, but I actually read them of my own volition before I got to the classes that taught them. and liked them.
edit: Oh and changed my life too.

[Kathleen From The Bronx]

I know that a lot of these have been mentioned, but I'll run the mad risk of being repetitive in listing these just cause they all have meant a lot to me.........

1) A Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole

2) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

3) On the Road - Jack Kerouac

4) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

5) Every Hunter S. Thompson book I've read.... Fear and Loathing first, then The Rum Diaries, then everything else...... Sorry to do a lame ass tied thing, "Oh I can't make up my lil mind!".... but really...... I loved everything that man wrote so, ya know what I mean.

6) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

7) Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut

8) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe

9) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

10) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams


There's a lot more though :0)

[Bob Impact]

I think Sarah should get the credit for that. :wink:

I can add that in there too, I never would have met Sarah had I not read that book.

[Kerouac72]

Rand Mcnally Road Atlas.
Who needs GPS.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

I can add that in there too, I never would have met Sarah had I not read that book.

How, pray tell, were the Impacts born through Atlas Shrugged? And are your children going to be Bioshock? (I'm sure 2 people will get that)

[Thebazile78]

I know that a lot of these have been mentioned, but I'll run the mad risk of being repetitive in listing these just cause they all have meant a lot to me.........

There's a reason so many of the same books have been mentioned over and over and over again ... they have an impact on our lives.

Don't apologize just because you loved the books and they made a difference in who you are today!

(Incidentally, I loved Gatsby, but I never finished it (although I know how it turns out) because of some things that happened in my personal life when it was assigned, but I've always wanted to go back and revisit it. Maybe I will soon.)

[Philip]

100 years of Solitude -Gabriel García Márquez

Jesus' son - Denis Johnson