What are some books that have changed your life?

[Fragment]

Since this is about Any book, I decided that General forums would be a good place, feel free to move. What books do you deeply love, have changed you, or believe that every literate person should have?

These can be in any language and of any subject. I pose this in hopes of expanding my collection of already amazing books. As for my input, I believe every person should read:

Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise)
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
(Marquis De Sade for a powerful message; very, very, very disturbing to most people.)
Philosophy: Plato (Obviously), Kant, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Hegel, Spinoza, Aristotle, Epictetus, Nietzsche, Sartre, Confucius.
Homer's Odyssey and Iliad (Alexander Pope's translation proved to be the best for me)
The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli


Many thanks for any input.


Fragment

 

[Pupil]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/014303653X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

I just finished reading it, and I think it's a very important and relevant book for today, even though it was written '85. A good one to own.

Here's an amusing little comic to summarize: http://fatpita.net/images/image (1952).jpg

 

[Evo]

Bunicula.

 

[turbo]

Be Here Now. I bought a copy, read it several times, and gave it to somebody that I thought would benefit from it. I bought another copy a few years later to re-read it, and again, ended up giving that copy away to another friend.https://www.discountbooksale.com/st...oduct=21066&ec=1&ProdId=112&AWTrck=1038713935

 

[TVP45]

Dr Zhivago
Of Human Bondage
Les Miserables
The Spell of the Yukon
Development of Concepts of Physics
The Stranger
The Nature of the Chemical Bond
Machinery's Handbook (any after 15th ed)
The Lady in the Lake
the Bible Book of Amos
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Soul on Ice
A Farewell to Arms
The Guns of August
Street Without Joy
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Guide for the Perplexed
Huck Finn

 

[junglebeast]

Bunicula.

Hahaha...I only know what this is because when I traveled to Uganda, we brought a bunch of random childrens books (they don't have books there), and this was one of them...my gf's choice.

 

[TVP45]

And,
The Business of May Next
The Furniture Doctor
The Confederate Nation
Mere Christianity
Relativity Visualized
The Federalist Papers
The Odyssey
Quo Vadis
Dispatches
The Gathering Storm
To Kill a Mockingbird

 

[Astronuc]

Encyclopedia Brittanica (A-Z). I used to browse through it at a neighbor's house, because my parents couldn't afford a set.

Columbia Encyclopedia, 2nd Ed. Nice condensed book about 5 inches thick with tiny print, but had lots of articles in the humanities (history, geography, art, . . .) and science. I used to read that in bed, especially when I was home ill and couldn't go to school.

Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia - strictly science and technology. I used to spend hours browsing it in addition to the Columbia Encyclopedia.


Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Simply brilliant.


Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire series.


Myths and Modern Man (one of the best books on the subject)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00072V4S8/?tag=pfamazon01-20
by Barbara Stanford

Houston Smith's The World's Religions

Christmas Humphreys - an obscure book on Buddhism, which I can't locate.


Jerzy Kosinski's Being There


There are thousands of other books on my list.

 

[lisab]

I second Astro's nomination of a good set of encyclopedias. We had the World Book set...well not a full set .

Our household also had a giant dictionary...had to be 6" thick. It wasn't the OED, but it was a great book for a kid to browse through.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise)
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
(Marquis De Sade for a powerful message; very, very, very disturbing to most people.)
Philosophy: Plato (Obviously), Kant, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Hegel, Spinoza, Aristotle, Epictetus, Nietzsche, Sartre, Confucius.
Homer's Odyssey and Iliad (Alexander Pope's translation proved to be the best for me)
The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli

It happens I've read each of the books in your list (but not each of the authors) except for Canterbury Tales which I am reading now.

My list would include:
The Apology of Socrates, by Plato
This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
The Mouse that Roared, by Leonard Wibberley
The Einstein Theory of Relativity by Lilian Leiber

 

[waht]

The Stranger was the most influential book I've ever read, it changed me forever, and I'm glad.

But the best book I read is Sartre's Nausea

The story is excellent but even more so is the writing which expresses a rich use of language, even in a translation from the French. The book is deep, it's not an easy read.

 

[turbo]

I second Astro's nomination of a good set of encyclopedias.

Our household also had a giant dictionary...had to be 6" thick. It wasn't the OED, but it was a great book for a kid to browse through.

When I was about 10 or 11, my father scraped up the dough for a set of World Book encyclopedias, and kept buying yearly updates. I read them from cover to cover, and I always had a volume in my bedroom, bookmarked so that I could keep track of where I was. They weren't Compton's or Britannica, but it was enough for a young kid who had questions and a library card.

When we moved into that house, my parents and my younger sisters got the actual bedrooms upstairs. I got a very small walk-in closet with a small ell over the staircase. Lucky for me, that ell contained shelves full of cheap editions of classic literature. When I wasn't reading the World Book, I was reading Twain, Dickens, Hawthorne, Verne, etc every night. I had a cheap AM radio that could pull in stations in Buffalo, Albany, Boston, WWV, etc, and I had multi-media every night. Music and books.

Edit: By the time I hit 5th grade, nothing in our elementary school library was interesting or demanding enough to capture my attention for long. The principal of the school who also taught 5th and 6th grades used to bring in books from her library and loan them to me for reading with assigned commentary/review required. God! I learned to hate Somerset Maugham during that period, and idolize Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.

 

[colonelcrayon]

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller - simply unbeatable in every way

Closing Time, by Joseph Heller - almost as good as its predecessor (but very grim)

Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton - a good thriller with some surprisingly interesting philosophy

The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin - my favorite novel in elementary school, still a favorite

The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure, by Hans Magnus Enzensberger - the book that first got me really interested in math

Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky - a classic exploration of morality with decent thrills to keep things moving

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky - denser than C&P, but also a bit deeper

and many more...

 

[rootX]

I don't read.
I don't understand how a book will change me.
I don't understand why people read books to change their lives or themselves/find some book that changed them (someone recommended me to read a book that changed his life).
I unsuccessful tried to change myself using a book about living the present moment (zen) but later I discovered that changing life involves bit of more work than just sitting and reading a book.

IMO, if I want to change myself/believes I would write the way I changed them rather than reading.

 

[turbo]

Be the book, rootx. Be the book.(be the ball, Danny, in case you were sleeping or unavailable during the 80s)

 

[Anticitizen]

1984.

Truth, freedom, dignity, sanity, values, and why losing them is a fate worse than death.

 

[qntty]

I don't read.
I don't understand how a book will change me.
I don't understand why people read books to change their lives or themselves/find some book that changed them (someone recommended me to read a book that changed his life).
I unsuccessful tried to change myself using a book about living the present moment (zen) but later I discovered that changing life involves bit of more work than just sitting and reading a book.

IMO, if I want to change myself/believes I would write the way I changed them rather than reading.

I can understand if you don't think that a book will change you, but why do you choose not to read at all? Many "classic" books are written much better than alternative forms of entertainment (television shows, movies, video games). Whereas a television show is written in a few days by a team of writers, books can capture the brilliance of the works of some of the best authors in the past several hundred or thousand years which took years to complete.

 

[Fragment]

Art of Love, Ovid
Anything Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas (Their works are much better in French, if you can read it.)
Metamorphoses, Ovid
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
War and Peace, Tolstoy
Don Quixote, De Cervantes
Lolita, Nabokov
Paradise Lost & Paradise regained, Milton
Das Kapital, Karl Marx (Touches many subjects, including philosophy and economics)

A good book is hard to find, but once you find it, you realize you need nothing more.

 

[Fragment]

How about more "educational"/textbook books. I realize Encyclopedia Brittanica might be a good place to start, but what would one read to gain general knowledge of one particular subject? (Medicine, law, history, geology...)

 

[Moonbear]

Where the Wild Things Are
James and the Giant Peach
Rumpelstiltskin
The Billy Goats Gruff
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
A Christmas Carol
Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates

(Yes, some are fairy tale stories, not so much books.)
Once you're old enough to read literature, I don't think it matters much what you read, but I think it's those childhood books with lessons about how to treat other people that are important.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Sir Arther Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories.

Edgar Allen Poe's short stories and poetry.

Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (+ Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul and sequel)

Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus Trilogy

Robert Anton Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy

Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction (all of his books really but this is the first I read)

Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (along with Twenty Years After and The Man in the Iron Mask)

I enjoy most books but these are the ones that stick out the most in my mind.

 

[DaveC426913]

1984. Opened my eyes. Can't get em closed again.

Shogun. Taught me what a leader is.

Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas. Math is beautiful. Reread it every few years.

 

[bleedblue1234]

Atlas Shrugged

(and its surprisingly relevant for our current time)

 

[Phrak]

"The Enormous Egg", by Oliver Butterworth, ages 10-14.

 

[Huckleberry]

1984. Opened my eyes. Can't get em closed again.

Shogun. Taught me what a leader is.

Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas. Math is beautiful. Reread it every few years.

I'm going to have to read 'Shogun'. I'm planning to go to the bookstore soon to get some Philip K. Dick stories, and I think I'll get that while I'm there.

This wouldn't happen to be the book that inspired the 80's tv miniseries, would it? I hope so. I fell in love with it when I was like 10 years old. Books are almost always better than the movies so I'm sure it would be one of my favorites as well.

 

[redargon]

The BFG - Roald Dahl, basically got me really interested in reading in the first place. I must have been about 10 or so, and I just couldn't put it down.

Other than that, I read for pleasure or for research, not really life changing stuff.
Terry Prattchet
Tolkien
Tom Holt
etc

I have a great aerodynamics book by John Anderson, which I think is very accessible to anyone, not just engineers.

 

[tchitt]

1984. Opened my eyes. Can't get em closed again.

Well said. I'll go with that answer too.

Also, Animal Farm and Atlas Shrugged.

 

[phyzmatix]

I'm going to have to read 'Shogun'. I'm planning to go to the bookstore soon to get some Philip K. Dick stories, and I think I'll get that while I'm there.

This wouldn't happen to be the book that inspired the 80's tv miniseries, would it? I hope so. I fell in love with it when I was like 10 years old. Books are almost always better than the movies so I'm sure it would be one of my favorites as well.

That would be it. By James Clavell.

 

[phyzmatix]

Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Simply brilliant.

Oh yes! Can you believe I've forgotten about it? Think I'll track it down and read it again.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

1984. Opened my eyes. Can't get em closed again.

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess was like that for me.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

I'll second a lot of previously mentioned books, but when I was young, this one really stood out:

"Earth Abides" by George R Stewart

 

[DaveC426913]

This wouldn't happen to be the book that inspired the 80's tv miniseries, would it?

It is, yes.

Foolish me, I never saw the mini-series. I was in my "I don't watch pop TV" phase.
Missed V, Roots, SNL, Hill Street Blues too.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I agree with a lot of the books mentioned that I've read, will try to think of others.

Telling that my daughter recently asked what the big books that look alike in her grandparent’s house are about, and why her grandfather is often looking through them.
I appreciate having had them around- even more so now that I don’t. As my internet savvy daughter noted, my Dad still enjoys them.

 

[Fragment]

Does anyone know the price of Encyclopedia Brittanica in U.S. stores? (All volumes, A-Z)

 

[tchitt]

Does anyone know the price of Encyclopedia Brittanica in U.S. stores? (All volumes, A-Z)

http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=822

I don't know that I've ever seen an encyclopedia set actually sold in stores. I'm sure they were at one point and they still might be but a quick google search will get you in the ballpark.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Are people really listing books that "changed their life" or just books they liked?

 

[Fragment]

Any book that they read and just adored, or had an influence on them, or just think that others should read. Of course I don't think any book will completely change someone, but a small change here and there definitely adds up, does it not?

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Well I don't know if any book has every changed me directly but when we read the stranger and catcher in the rye in school it was a life changing experience. The reason being that I got quite depressed when most of my class mates found nothing to relate to in them and thought the holden and meursault were some sort of emotionally disfunctional sociopaths. I however REALLY related to the characters and absolutely empathized with them and the stories which made me realize that I'd probably never see eye to eye with the majority of people. Although, like I said, that was more the context of the book and its perception by others then the actual written words themselves

 

[maverick_starstrider]

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

 

[Fragment]

I second American Psycho; it truly gives a rather accurate depiction of the motives behind killing. It is a hard book to put down once you start, I had to read it in one sitting:shy:

As a question probably directed to Astronuc (Judging from his expertise), is a newer edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica as good as an earlier one? (let's say 15th edition as compared to 11th)

 

[Kenneth Mann]

1984. Opened my eyes. Can't get em closed again.

This is a book that I would definitely endorse - - though the fact that its title is in the past might be a turn-off to some. I hope not.

I would also suggest two other somewhat similar negative utopias:
Brave New World (Huxley)
We (Zamyatin) -- I tried twice to read this one and didn't finish. I got hung up on the Russian poetic style.

KM

 

[Kenneth Mann]

Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire series.

I don't fully follow. This was one title of the 7-book Foundation series. I enjoyed them all. (also the three added books by Benford, Brin and Bear.) These would make a great subject for a video series some time in the future. I don't think that the industry is quite ready for them yet.

KM

 

[DaveC426913]

Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire series.

I tried so hard. Really I tried. Please forgive me... :sob:
I tried to read it. I just couldn't get through it. I was a third of the way through it before I realized that the plot wasn't going to start, this was the plot.

: tears geek badge off vest and throws on floor :

 

[Fragment]

More reflection has summarized my initial aim of the thread: what book do you believe should be on one's bookshelf? (regardless of subject) It can be a textbook, a short novel, a collection of children's short stories, really anything.

 

[fourier jr]

i don't know how anyone can list 1984 without also listing brave new world. those two belong together! here's another that I think is a million times better though, since it's about stuff that actually happened. american journalist milton mayer went to a small town in germany after WW2 to live with some "ordinary" Germans (a baker, a tailor, a policeman, etc) who became Nazis & made friends with them, etc over the course of a year or so to find out how they made sense of it all. he put his conversations in this book:

the famous (?) poem about Pastor Niemoller is actually a found poem which I think was taken from a quotation in the 13th chapter, excerpted here on the publisher's website:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

"when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late."

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Similar, but different.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not protest;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came..."

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

This is a book that I would definitely endorse - - though the fact that its title is in the past might be a turn-off to some. I hope not.

The title is a code for 1948. He was describing disturbing trends in his own day.

 

[Tibarn]

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad is an excellent book.

I would also recommend Machiavelli, both The Prince and Discourses on Livy. The difference between the two was surprising, to say the least.

 

[Huckleberry]

I don't fully follow. This was one title of the 7-book Foundation series. I enjoyed them all. (also the three added books by Benford, Brin and Bear.) These would make a great subject for a video series some time in the future. I don't think that the industry is quite ready for them yet.

KM

It's already being workeed on, unless things have changed. And it's got just the right people to do it too. I wish them lots of luck. This would be something I would very much like to see.

Ex-New Line Cinema founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne have moved on to become producers and they've just set up their first project. The two will produce an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation, an epic sci-fi story that was first published in 1951. Asimov actually wrote a complete series of Foundation books, however Shaye and Lynne only plan to adapt the first book for now and if successful, potentially finish off a trilogy like they did with Lord of the Rings.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/07/29/isaac-asimovs-foundation-trilogy-headed-to-the-big-screen/

edit- hmm, looks like things might have changed for the worse.

Foundation science fiction trilogy, with Roland Emmerich attached to direct. Emmerich will produce along with Michael Wimer,...

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/01/16...ation-trilogy-with-roland-emmerich-directing/

Wilmer was a producer for 10'000BC. A few of Emmerich's sci-fi directed films include Universal Soldier, Stargate, Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow, 10'000BC and 2012. I just hope they keep it true to the books and not go all 'blockbuster style' on this one.

 

[Astronuc]

I don't fully follow. This was one title of the 7-book Foundation series. I enjoyed them all. (also the three added books by Benford, Brin and Bear.) These would make a great subject for a video series some time in the future. I don't think that the industry is quite ready for them yet.

KM

I think the common reference is "Foundation Series", after the title of the first book.

Prelude to Foundation (1988)
Forward the Foundation (1993)

Foundation (1951)
Foundation and Empire (1952)
Second Foundation (1953)

Foundation's Edge (1982)
Foundation and Earth (1983)

I really didn't like to read fiction until I read this series. I read Foundation and Empire first, then Foundation and then Second Foundation, since I did not know that there was a series/order. I read the book as part of my English (literature) elective in high school. I also read Heinlein's Glory Road and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. I read the prequels then sequels about 5 years ago.

It was interesting to read the Foundation series at the time (~1974, with the backdrop of the US and Vietnam War), since I could see parallels in world. It was also interesting in the role of nuclear technology, which was understandable given that Foundation was written in 1951, and many people had unrealistic expectations of nuclear energy.


I think the Foundation series would make an awesome SciFi movie - but only if done right. Unfortunately, what appeals to me (the plot and characters rather than action) would probably not appeal to the masses.