What are some books that have changed your life?

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BTW, I read Tolkein's trilogy over a single rainy weekend at college. I highly recommend it. Once you have the Hobbit under your belt, consider taking in the trilogy in a single go. It is spread over 3 books, but it is a story that hangs together quite well.
 
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Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Shinning - Stephen King
Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Sphere - Michael Crichton
Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
 
James and the Giant Peach, The Fantastic Mr Fox and various other Roald Dahl titles ignited my imagination as a child, I have a huge place in my heart for them still. The best!

Currahee. A WWII memoir by Donald Burgett, a paratrooper in 101st. My dad gave it to me and I read it when I was about 15, and then re-read the cover of it for years. It was amazing to see the Band of Brothers series which basically mirrored this story, as I had it so firmly crafted in my mind for years before that!

Catch-22 is my all time favourite book since I read it about 10 years ago (having seen the movie and told the book was far better!) I laughed, I cried, I laugh-cried and I go back for a visit every other year.

Shantaram. A really great story. I'm not sure how much of it, if any, is based on reality but it was a hell of a page-turner.

Genius (Richard Feynman) by James Glieck really peaked my interest in physics, I've since read a bunch of Feynman's lay-books as well, and I am so inspired!

Siddartha by Herman Hesse. I read this, and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho in the same week and I had such a peaceful feeling for days and days as I reflected on them. I re-read them from time to time and still love them to bits.

Hitchhikers Guide. They're all great. I laugh my *** off everytime I pick them up.

1984. I actually never want to read this book again it shocked me to the core, and I wasn't expecting a nursery rhyme. The final pages were really, really rough. An amazing story that makes me feel very, very uncomfortable about humans.
 
It’s funny, but I don’t read much fiction these days. I used to read a lot. I’m not sure the kind of non-fiction that I read these days would be of much interest to anyone here, but here’s a few fictions that have stayed with me.


Waterland by Graham Swift
A history teacher tries to teach history to a class of apathetic teens. One asks the inevitable question – why bother to study history? The story interweaves the teacher’s present difficulty with his memories of his own complicated past and with older history. The landscape in which the story is set is one of reclaimed land among natural and man-made water ways of various kinds, where the boundary between water and land is sometimes difficult to define. It serves as a metaphor for the way in which our histories impinge on our present and sometimes the borders between those are not so obvious either.


Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
Perhaps not Lawrence’s most obvious work. It’s in two parts and personally, it is actually part one that I found to be the most powerful. It is a very telling evocation of working class life in industrial Britain – the original gritty drama.


Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A giant of the literary canon, and much referenced. But the qualities of the original are not just in the epic story, but in some of the telling details. Like the account of the mother slaughtering, butchering and preparing the meat from a pig to sustain her family through their travels.


The Color Purple by Alice Walker
I only encountered this because it was among the set works when I was studying English literature. I don’t think I have cried as much reading anything else. An account of the problems of stratified society, particularly when you are unfortunate enough to come at the bottom of the pile. And possibly the most arresting opening sentence ever.


The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta by Mario Vargas Llosa
Again, several other works that are much more famous by this author, but this was the first of his that I read and it made a big impression. It is an account of the communist underground in Peru at a time when Peru is under right wing governance. It uses a very unusual and effective device of interspersing the story with accounts of the author conducting his research for the book. So after a passage which deals with the main character’s homosexuality, there is an account of the real person on whom the main character is based expressing his displeasure with the inaccurate portrayal of his sexuality.


Hitler by Ian Kershaw
One non-fiction book that I read a few years ago that is worth mentioning is a two volume biography of Hitler by Ian Kershaw, a British academic. Although it does tell Hitler’s own story in some detail, it is actually more than just a biography of Hitler. It is an account of the build up to and the execution of the Second World War from the German perspective. Something that is very useful for those of us brought up on the plucky-heroic account from the Allied perspective.
 
The Selfish Gene, for giving me the only "reason I am here" that made any sense.

Roger Penrose - Shadows of the Mind, for a near proof that we are not machines.

1984/Brave New World - as relevant today as they have ever been.

E E Smiths Lensman (minus the last one "Masters of the Vortex", which doesn't belong) and Skylark Series introducing me to a lifetime of Sci-Fi reading including The (original) Foundation Trilogy which I can read again and again, but none of the ones before and after.
 
The Kama Sutra. Has the Lotus Sutra beat by a mile.
 
Jimmy Snyder said:
The Kama Sutra. Has the Lotus Sutra beat by a mile.


Tell me Mr Snyder, have you read the whole thing? Bearing in mind that only a small section of it is about sexual practice. And did you read Richard Burton’s translation or did you read it in the original Sanskrit? Or are we talking about anyone of a myriad of modern books with the same title that have very little to do with the original?
 
Ken Natton said:
Tell me Mr Snyder, have you read the whole thing? Bearing in mind that only a small section of it is about sexual practice. And did you read Richard Burton’s translation or did you read it in the original Sanskrit? Or are we talking about anyone of a myriad of modern books with the same title that have very little to do with the original?
Actually it was Danish Nurses Go Wild, but it was in the original Sanskrit I think. I didn't actually read it.
 
The Phantom Tollbooth. It's very easy to read, but it is imaginative and delirious. I highly recommend it. It's an amazing read.
 
Nietzche's Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ
Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale and The God Delusion
 
The Selfish gene - Richard Dawkins

Because in the country I live, evolution is not taught at schools for various political reasons. I had no idea what evolution is. Then in my first year at university I decided to know and grabbed this book which was supposed to be a popularization of the concept. I was so angry that no one had introduced me to the concept for such a long time. I felt suddenly a lot of the world and how it works makes sense!

The Problems of Philosophy - Bertrand Russel

Because it taught me that even the most obvious of things can be doubted without absurdity. Thus I became more skeptical about everything in life. And the beliefs that survived this skepticism were standing on an even firmer ground than before.
 
nobody has mentioned QED by feynman? wow...

the fountainhead rang my bell when i was 19.

siddhartha is wonderful, as is almost everything by hesse.

existentialism (camus, etc) was simply unreadable for me. droll, pointless and boring. reminds me of a parker quote - "this is not a book to be put down lightly - it should be thrown away with great force."

best book overall has to be meditations by marcus aurelius.
 
As a young child attending a state-funded elementary school, our library was just a bit out dated. Looking back though, it was a neat experience being introduced to science and space from a late 1950's to 1970's perspective. When we had classroom trips to the library and everyone else was bored and thumbing through the large open-displayed dictionary looking for dirty words, I was picking out every astronomy book possible. I still remember some of the check out dates behind the front cover reading 1978 and 1974. Apparently astronomy wasn't a very popular subject! lol.

Funk & Wagnalls Wildlife Encyclopedia
World Book Encyclopedia (plus 1962 and up Year Books)
The golden Book of Astronomy (1955)
Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan (1994)
The Journeys of "Voyager" - Nasa Reaches for the Planets (1990)
 
I have never read any of these so i may be on a different wavelength. i recommend Euclid's Elements, Archimedes' On method, Euler's Elements of Algebra, the collected works of Riemann, Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, Courant's Differential and Integral calculus, and George Kempf's Abelian Integrals, oh yes and Mad magazine, Superman, Shane, and the Count of Monte Cristo (the classic comic).
 
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, Lansing

“For scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen, but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”​
 
I could mention a lot of books that made an influence on me, but I can't really say anyone that changed my life.

Although, in a decade I might say that James R. Newmans "The Word Of Mathematics" changed my life.
 
DivisionByZro said:
The Phantom Tollbooth. It's very easy to read, but it is imaginative and delirious. I highly recommend it. It's an amazing read.
YES! This book is so beautiful, eye opening(especially reading it as a child), and just...a stunning read.

Well let's see..
Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan
Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo <--- This book is just...wow.

...And you can't forget The Zombie Survival Guide (:
 
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" I love that book, and I love Feynman.