Books That Changed Your Life
 

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?

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.

your in a pretty good one

Healing back pain: Dr John Sarno

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

The Grapes of Wrath

The Life of Pi

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

loved "the life of pi"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

: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.

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

oh...oops

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.)