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What books have changed your life?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Changed your life/ Affected you deeply/ Just really really love? Why?
Mine are that I love:
Mine are that I love:
- Conversations with God v/1-3- Neale Donald Walsch. (Made me rethink my entire faith)
- The Secret (made me think about how I think)
- Nothing in this book is true, but it's exactly how it is- Bob Frissell (the title says it all)
- The Little Prince- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (human nature through the eyes of a child)
Post edited by JustV on
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I would say I am still the same person - perhaps slightly more enlightened, than I would have been without reading certain books.
The Master & Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
Belarmino & Apolonio - Ramon Perez de Ayala
We - Evgenii Zamyatin
The Catcher In The Rhye - JD Salinger
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevskii
I now like fairs
That's on my list, too.
I read it as a precocious teenager and again recently and it really hit home how much it changed the way I thought and acted throughout my teenage years. It didn't have the same appeal for me now that it did then, but I think that is definitely a book for disaffected youth and there is something innately relatable about Holden Caulfield for any self-aware teenager. Fantastic.
I think that - in a way like Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar - it is one of those books that helps me to realise that "I'm ok". I read The Bell Jar once a year for that purpose, it gives me a lot of perspective. I love her poetry too, it's a window into a really frightening world of insanity. Gripping.
Others:
The Women's Room is undoubtedly the most influential book I've read. It informed a lot of my opinions and helped me relate to femininity as well as feminism. I recommend it to everyone I talk books with. Marilyn French is a genius, I just adore this book.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. Quite possibly my favourite book.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. This should be self-explanatory. The most affecting part being that it's possible to see more and more of the world she creates in our own world, every day. It's true horror writing.
Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky. My favourite of his, though The Idiot gave me a lot of food for thought, too.
The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir. Everyone should read this, even if it isn't all relevant anymore that's by the by.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It's another one that scared the living daylights out of me, it's very entertaining while driving home really important messages without even a whiff of preachiness.
The Chosen by Chaim Potok. Very few people I meet have read this, it's so underrated. When I picked it up I couldn't imagine relating to the story of two Jewish schoolboys, it's amazing how much I learned from this book - not just about Judaism but about the mechanics of friendship and of obligation.
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer. 'Nuff said.
THE LORAX by Dr Seuss is just right on. I remember reading it as a little kid and being able to relate this daft little story to what actually happens in the world. Pretty powerful stuff.
Oh, and Orwell's Animal Farm. If anyone has read that and not experience a change in character I would be truly surprised. Such a simple metaphor that has definitely changed literature... and the world.
There are more, but I'm boring myself at this point :razz:
Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail & Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung influenced how I write.
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs made it ok for me to over think simple things.
:yes:.
Although I'm in agreement that no book has changed my life drastically, there are a couple that have made me think a lot.
An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan. How he managed to remain so defiant towards the people who held him captive for so many years is beyond me. You have to read it though, really. It's very good.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, and Therese Raquin by Emile Zola, because they gave me a new perspective on some things, and it's always nice to get insight into past cultures and things like that.
And one of the books that Mr. Thunderstruck gave me for my birthday (All Fires the Fire and Other Stories by Julio Cortazar - and yes, Joe, I've started reading some of the others now
I'll probably think of some more later, or something...
i feel pretty immature after reading the rest of this thread
maybe i should just say satre?
:yippe:
My favourite one from Cortazar is the traffic jam that results in the total breakdown of society. That one was pretty entertaining.
Also, I recently read a book called the smart woman's guide to making and keeping money. There were some really interesting parts to it that have changed the way I view and see money and have really helped me budget, pay off debts and stop spending money on so much crap.
How to beat depression and get on with your life - Started me on the road to recovery from depression and helped me think more positively and plan ahead again.
Women's bodies, women's wisdom - Helped me get over my feelings of being totally out of control of my body and stopped me being scared of getting ill again. It helped me realise that my body isn't working against me but that I should listen to it and trust it.
Similarly Heal your Life helped massively with both my depression and physical illnesses and helped me move on a lot from a really dark place.
Other than that, I read a lot of books which inspire me and all get logged somewhere in my brain for furture reference.
But....
I'd recommend Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, I read it when I was about 14 and it had a big effect on me, opened my mind to a lot of possibilities.
Looking back it's maybe not as good as I remember but if you want to read all 35 pages it's here
http://www.oddvenue.com/cgi-bin/bookviewer1.pl?bookname=jonathon_livingston_seagull&page=0
When I was visiting a couple weekends ago, coincidently enough, I saw it in a box and took it home with me
But I'm with Koe. I've read alot of real good books, but none life altering. Maybe I'm just too lazy to get into them that much
And what a terrific job it did too.
I only read books to enjoy them, they never really have a profound impact on me.
One play did though, Samuel Beckett-Waiting for Godot.
You should give it a read some time, you might learn something
Did it turn you into an atheist, like most other people who've actually read it?
No it made me love God even more
Forever - which not only taught me about sex - but also that you dont' have sex with just one person for all of your life (I was about 10 when i read it and therefore I think forgiven for being a little naieve)
The Sword of Honor Trilogy - which confirmed that you can be interested in religion without believing in it, and that adults are just as confused as teenagers.
Plus the Bell Jar and the Cather in the Rye - though I feel they have already been fully analised. I did my A-Level dissertation on both of these!
The Phantom Tollbooth - Not a great book but well worth a read and it did change me - stopped me whining too much.
Something Happened - One of the most gruelling and difficult books i have ever read but such indescribably brilliant writing.
The English Patient - i'm not sure if the lesson i took from that was in the book or something i brought with me, but it was about really dirty sex actually being compatible with real affection.
Fear and Loating in Las Vegas - i became much more relaxed about more or less everything after i read this.
I've read the bible - its rubbish. Apart from bits of John maybe.
I am not just saying this to be difficult, but I truly despised the book.
Either way, out of all the books I have read there is only one which has truly affected me and changed my perception -yes other books have done so as well, but nowhere near the extent of 'Demian' by Hermann Hesse.
It taught me a lot about the process of growing up and about ones sense of self as well as personality/individuality and basically just the route one goes through in life.
Amazing amazing book, and whilst Hesse gained a lot of critical acclaim, as well as the Nobel prize in litterature, it still saddens me that today he doesn't have the recognition I would have liked him to recieve.
it's like..... WOW. so sad. but amazing.
I know what you mean. I personally didn't despise it thought it was nothing special. 1984 is better though it is a pretty blatant rip-off of a far superior book, Evgenii Zamyatin's We.
catcher in the rye by j.d salinger (I
lolita by vladmir nabokov
jane eyre by charlotte bronte
the time traveller's wife by audrey niffenegger
the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky
kitchen by banana yoshimoto