Books that changed your life

[wicked woman]

Almost all of D. H. Lawrence's books. I can't remember if I read all of his books, or almost all of them, for my high school essay on him.

I loved his attitude about sex...that it's natural and good...and that's shaped my life and how I approach my sexuality. I often read about people who, when they were younger, thought sex was bad, dirty and had to overcome that idea. I never did and wondered why that was. I think I just found out why.

 

[Netzach]

Jeanette Winterson, Marguerite Duras. But the last year has really been about Cormac McCarthy. Blood Meridian especially - it has the most terrifying personification of evil I've ever read. It's not uplifting at all but it's altering altogether. If you love John Wayne you will hate Blood Meridian. If your revisionist fantasy of the West is filled with peaceful Native Americans you will hate Blood Meridian. If you think that the American West was anything short of a psychotic bloodbath you will hate Blood Meridian. If you can handle violence to get at some of the most gorgeous Biblical prose, then it's your book. I've never read a book straight through all night because the descriptive prose was making me wet my pants other than this one.

I get on a kick where I read multiples by one author.

I've read everything by Heller - Catch22 is overrated, the rest of his stuff positively unread and it's a shame. Good as Gold and God Knows should get more attention than anything Philip Roth ever wrote, but they don't. I've never met anyone who read them, or Picture This - which is a beautiful book of his on Rembrandt and Aristotle and other things.

Picture This was a game changer when I was in the hospital - it kept me focused on large-scale Thought.

God, looking at the above it's like my book list is a butch/femme bar.

 

[BiBunny]

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath was the first when I was about 17 years old. Opened my eyes about the maltreatment of the mentally ill and made me want to help change it. It was one of the biggest reasons I got my bachelor's in psychology.

Choice Theory by Dr. William Glasser was the second. I read my senior year in college in my Positive Psychology class. It helped me realize that basically everything we do is a choice, and I was able to shape my life accordingly, at least to some degree.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was the third. I can't remember when I first read it. I know I was in college. It's possible I may have actually read it before Dr. Glasser's book, but chronological order doesn't really matter here. It scared the fuck out of me AND helped me put together exactly why I'd given up on the Southern Baptist church when I was 13 or so.

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath was the first when I was about 17 years old. Opened my eyes about the maltreatment of the mentally ill and made me want to help change it. It was one of the biggest reasons I got my bachelor's in psychology.

Choice Theory by Dr. William Glasser was the second. I read my senior year in college in my Positive Psychology class. It helped me realize that basically everything we do is a choice, and I was able to shape my life accordingly, at least to some degree.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was the third. I can't remember when I first read it. I know I was in college. It's possible I may have actually read it before Dr. Glasser's book, but chronological order doesn't really matter here. It scared the fuck out of me AND helped me put together exactly why I'd given up on the Southern Baptist church when I was 13 or so.

LOVED The Handmaid's Tale - I wouldn't say it made me give up on religion, but it certainly made me take a look at some of the more extreme teachings.

Bella

 

[BiBunny]

LOVED The Handmaid's Tale - I wouldn't say it made me give up on religion, but it certainly made me take a look at some of the more extreme teachings.

Bella

Yep, I didn't give up on religion, either. I just knew that I'd given up on the Southern Baptist church some 10 or so years before, and that book made me realize exactly why.

 

[kittyn_]

Well, in comparison to everyones, mine is rather childish, but 'The Giver' by Lois Lowry. My family had never been normal, and while I was more or less all right with it, I was still young enough to think that I had to try to fit in with a group of people perfectly. I read the book, and read it again, and went 'huh, maybe..'
'Huh, maybe' became, 'Screw it, normal perfection is not worth it, and probably doesn't exist anyway.' It just made me think, a lot, at the time. Reading it again since then, not to long ago, actually, I went 'Damn, this book still scares me, for reasons I'm not sure it should' so, the YA novel now has a permanent home on my shelf in case I need a reminder of why I stopped trying for the acceptable norm all of the time.

 

[YourCaptor]

None

Books suck and kill trees.

 

[graceanne]

The Lord of The Rings.

What can I say? I'm a geek.

I could never get into LOTR's. K's read it several times, and doesn't understand why I can't get into it when I LOVED CS Lewis' books.

Really so many books. I could go on and on.

Animal Farm

I thought that book was hilarious. I loved the end where the pigs and the humans are eating together and no one can tell them apart. LOL

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was the third. I can't remember when I first read it. I know I was in college. It's possible I may have actually read it before Dr. Glasser's book, but chronological order doesn't really matter here. It scared the fuck out of me AND helped me put together exactly why I'd given up on the Southern Baptist church when I was 13 or so.

That was a good book, but I didn't like it enough to re-read it.

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

None

Books suck and kill trees.

Buy a Kindle and quit bitching.

Bella

 

[graceanne]

Buy a Kindle and quit bitching.

Bella

LOL Great minds. Most of my books are e-books; I have probably close to a hundred. I prefer it cause it takes less room.

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

Well, in comparison to everyones, mine is rather childish, but 'The Giver' by Lois Lowry. My family had never been normal, and while I was more or less all right with it, I was still young enough to think that I had to try to fit in with a group of people perfectly. I read the book, and read it again, and went 'huh, maybe..'
'Huh, maybe' became, 'Screw it, normal perfection is not worth it, and probably doesn't exist anyway.' It just made me think, a lot, at the time. Reading it again since then, not to long ago, actually, I went 'Damn, this book still scares me, for reasons I'm not sure it should' so, the YA novel now has a permanent home on my shelf in case I need a reminder of why I stopped trying for the acceptable norm all of the time.

Did you know there are two sequels to The Giver? Gathering Blue and Messenger. Both of them are very good.

Bella

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

LOL Great minds. Most of my books are e-books; I have probably close to a hundred. I prefer it cause it takes less room.

I'm sorry - that just popped out before I could stop it. I have a bunch on my computer, but I haven't broken down and gotten a Kindle yet. I'm thinking my husband loves me enough to buy me one for Christmas.

Bella

 

[graceanne]

I'm sorry - that just popped out before I could stop it. I have a bunch on my computer, but I haven't broken down and gotten a Kindle yet. I'm thinking my husband loves me enough to buy me one for Christmas.

Bella

I'm dropping major hints to mine. Of course, hints rarely work for him, and he will still end up asking me what I want for christmas.

 

[kittyn_]

Did you know there are two sequels to The Giver? Gathering Blue and Messenger. Both of them are very good.

Bella

Read them both late last year, actually. Neither impressed me as much as The Giver did though, though they are good and well above most YA/Teen novels, in my opinion. I also have a weak spot for Madeline L'Engle (probably misspelled the author, sorry) novels, too.

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

I'm dropping major hints to mine. Of course, hints rarely work for him, and he will still end up asking me what I want for christmas.

Well... I did end up buying my own Mother's Day gift. I really NEEDED that 16 gig iPod, you see...

Bella

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

Read them both late last year, actually. Neither impressed me as much as The Giver did though, though they are good and well above most YA/Teen novels, in my opinion. I also have a weak spot for Madeline L'Engle (probably misspelled the author, sorry) novels, too.

My kid is 14. You'd be amazed at how many of those YA titles I've read... I think the first one is better too, but I like the sequels as well. You got it right on Ms. Madeline.

Bella

 

[graceanne]

Well... I did end up buying my own Mother's Day gift. I really NEEDED that 16 gig iPod, you see...

Bella

.... covet . . . .

 

[graceanne]

My kid is 14. You'd be amazed at how many of those YA titles I've read... I think the first one is better too, but I like the sequels as well. You got it right on Ms. Madeline.

Bella

I loved her wrinkle in time series.

 

[Homburg]

Bulfinch's Mythology began my long-standing love for religious myth and cultural story. I credit the many hours spent reading it (and others) in the fourth grade with me evntually completing a degree in philosophy and religious studies. And, honestly, I chose that major for the pure love of topic. I can think of few decisions in my life that were better.

"Tao of Jeet Kune Do" made me completely rethink both how I moved, and how I thought about learning most skills.

"Consciousness Explained" by Dan Dennett utterly rewrote how I thought about thought itself, and the brain in general. I would go so far as to say that it was a complete paradigm shift for me into realising that the world is far different from how we perceive it.

 

[Cattypuss]

I've read everything by Heller - Catch22 is overrated, the rest of his stuff positively unread and it's a shame. Good as Gold and God Knows should get more attention than anything Philip Roth ever wrote, but they don't. I've never met anyone who read them, or Picture This - which is a beautiful book of his on Rembrandt and Aristotle and other things.

Picture This was a game changer when I was in the hospital - it kept me focused on large-scale Thought.

I REALLY liked Picture This (mind you, I REALLY liked Catch-22 too). But I found Good as Gold and God Knows and Closing Time pretty tedious.

 

[ecstaticsub]

Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker I can't say it changed my life but it's story of female circumcision and why it continues, and the trauma it can produce got firmly imprinted in my mind. I have bought the book many times, reread it and then given it to others to read.

83 Hours Til Dawn by Barbara Jane Mackle (Collaborator), Gene Miller (Author) I read this book when I was about 12. It is the true story of Barbara Mackle's kidnaping ordeal. Not a great piece of literature but I remember reading it and being scared not of the plot but because I was getting aroused by the thought of being kidnaped and locked in a box under ground. I remember feeling both disgusted with myself, yet unable to put the book down. I read it over and over again for years.

 

[00Syd]

A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick.

First full novel of his that I read, and it totally blew my mind. I had read a ton of his short stories before, but A Scanner Darkly really pushed me over the edge. Not just that one book, but pretty much everything of Philip K. Dick's that I've read has made me evaluate and re-evaluate my notions of authority and reality. A Scanner Darkly in particular made me question reality, because while in a lot of his other books the unreality of the worlds, or the multiple realities, are more explicit, but in A Scanner Darkly it mind-fucked reality within the brain, in a way that made me wonder about my own mind.

Philip K. Dick is still one of my greatest inspirations in how I live my life, and he helped me not take everything so seriously because you never know, this could all just be a fever dream of an opium-addled mind.

 

[Netzach]

I REALLY liked Picture This (mind you, I REALLY liked Catch-22 too). But I found Good as Gold and God Knows and Closing Time pretty tedious.

Yay, someone else!

Those three, esp. the first two are kind of dependent on being really immersed in the US East Coast Jewish familial experience, now that I think about it.

Philip Roth comparisons are fair. Expecting them to resonate with a UK audience hugely is not.

And I love Catch-22 I do - but it's not the only thing he wrote!


If you like Picture This try "Still Life with a Bridle" by Zbigniew Herbert - another treatment of a remarkably similar subject.

 

[rosco rathbone]

"Consciousness Explained" by Dan Dennett utterly rewrote how I thought about thought itself, and the brain in general. I would go so far as to say that it was a complete paradigm shift for me into realising that the world is far different from how we perceive it.

I was gonna say, not really any books that have "changed my life" but this one might count. Single-handedly got me into philosophy. I own every book he ever wrote and I've read most of them at least 4 times.

 

[Netzach]

Yeah, it's not so much a life changing thing as a finding the right one at the right time.

If I think about the best book hookup in my life, it's actually probably a book a lot of people will find royally irritating: It's Not How Good You Are It's How Good You Want To Be by Paul Arden.

I think of it as a self help book, mercifully slim, for people like me who DETEST the self-help and positive thinking voodoo genre. It helped me transition away from being someone's wage stooge, so yeah, that's changing I guess.