Life-changing books?

kawaii

What books do you feel changed your overall persception of the world?

For me they would be (in no particular order):

- The Little Prince
- The Alchemist
- The Catcher in the Rye

IANOC

revolutionaries by sean cronin

Goodshape

- Prometheus Rising
- Cosmic Trigger (1 & 2, havn't gotten around to 3 yet)

Both by Robert Anton Wilson.

Naos

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior -
Dan Millman

elvenscout742

The Halfling's Gem. And The Legacy.

Isn't R.A. Salvatore the best?

Larianne

kawaii wrote:

What books do you feel changed your overall persception of the world?

For me they would be (in no particular order):

- The Little Prince
- The Alchemist
- The Catcher in the Rye

trying to get The Alchemist but my libaray still doesn't have it. Read 'Veronika Decides to die' which was really good. Read other Paolo Coehlo books 11 minutes and By the River Piedra, I sat down and wept Which I didn think were good at all.

Must get that Alchemist!!!!

Johnny Storm

Goodshape wrote:

- Prometheus Rising
- Cosmic Trigger (1 & 2, havn't gotten around to 3 yet)

Both by Robert Anton Wilson.

Nice one. I would add the Illuminatus! trilogy...

... and for a truly life changing experience: Catch 22 by Joesph Heller
(life-changing as opposed to mind-altering)

qz

1984. Mind changing, not life-changing.

Larianne

Johnny Storm wrote:

... and for a truly life changing experience: Catch 22 by Joesph Heller
(life-changing as opposed to mind-altering)

ooh that's another one I wanna take out of the library. Thanks didn't know the authors name.

Gone West

anarchists cookbook (the real one, not the fake one online)
steal this book by abbie hoffmann
crime and punishment by fyodor dostoyevsky
the brothers karamazov by fyodor dostoyevsky (not really, but it was slightly mind changing)

Johnny Storm

qz wrote:

1984. Mind changing, not life-changing.

Yes, I read it again recently. Its doubleplusgood. Its very timely too - I wonder has Tony Blair ever read it? or any book?

Two other excellent books (if not entirely life changing)
Portnoys Complaint by Philip Roth
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (ignore the hype about the movie, this is an excellent book and in a way an updating of 1984)

LadyJ

Less than zero
The catcher in the rye

John

Darwin's Origin of Species and Orwell's 1984. Mind change led to life change.

luckat

The Borders trilogy by Cormac McCarthy, which I'm reading at the moment
Ulysses by James Joyce - *so* funny, mad dry Dublin humour
Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor - book on how to train dogs, dolphins, cats, horses, people, anything
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Story of Ferdinand, banned by Franco, a kids' story about a little bull that just wanted to sit quietly and smell the flowers
Irish Fairy Tales byJames Stephens, stories about Fionn and the Fianna and Partholan and so on, but human and funny and great, with fabulous illustrations by Willy Pogani
Women in the Wall by Julia O'Faolain, about hermits
Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien - read it!
The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin, about a physicist from an anarchist planet who goes to the capitalist planet that is its moon, and vice versa
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick, about a world in which the Nazis and the Japanese won WWII; very human, touching, funny, gripping
The Oxford Book of Irish Verse - the one collected by Donagh MacDonagh
Duanaire, Poems of the Dispossessed
An Béal Bocht - hilarious takeoff of books like Peig, which infuriates serious Gaelgoiri
The Bible - wonderful language, gripping tales, disturbed, angry and conflicted protagonist
Njal's Saga - haven't got a copy any more, dammit, brilliant 14th-century Icelandic novel full of dry Viking humour, which includes on-the-spot reportage of the Battle of Clontarf

stop me stop me stop me stop me stop me...

LadyJ

luckat wrote:

The Borders trilogy by Cormac McCarthy, which I'm reading at the moment
Ulysses by James Joyce - *so* funny, mad dry Dublin humour
Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor - book on how to train dogs, dolphins, cats, horses, people, anything
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Story of Ferdinand, banned by Franco, a kids' story about a little bull that just wanted to sit quietly and smell the flowers
Irish Fairy Tales byJames Stephens, stories about Fionn and the Fianna and Partholan and so on, but human and funny and great, with fabulous illustrations by Willy Pogani
Women in the Wall by Julia O'Faolain, about hermits
Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien - read it!
The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin, about a physicist from an anarchist planet who goes to the capitalist planet that is its moon, and vice versa
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick, about a world in which the Nazis and the Japanese won WWII; very human, touching, funny, gripping
The Oxford Book of Irish Verse - the one collected by Donagh MacDonagh
Duanaire, Poems of the Dispossessed
An Béal Bocht - hilarious takeoff of books like Peig, which infuriates serious Gaelgoiri
The Bible - wonderful language, gripping tales, disturbed, angry and conflicted protagonist
Njal's Saga - haven't got a copy any more, dammit, brilliant 14th-century Icelandic novel full of dry Viking humour, which includes on-the-spot reportage of the Battle of Clontarf

stop me stop me stop me stop me stop me...

Your life must change frequently!

John

LadyJ wrote:

Your life must change frequently!

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe luckat is just very old

LadyJ

John2 wrote:

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe luckat is just very old

Nah,just very fickle!
Surely if that many books have changed your life,you must come back around to your original opinion on it all eventually!

kawaii

Larianne wrote:

trying to get The Alchemist but my libaray still doesn't have it. Read 'Veronika Decides to die' which was really good. Read other Paolo Coehlo books 11 minutes and By the River Piedra, I sat down and wept Which I didn think were good at all.

Must get that Alchemist!!!!

Yes, I've almost finished 'Veronica Decides to Die' and I haven't gotten 'round to reading any of his others.

I got a box set of his books for only 16 euro :cool: .

Naos

LadyJ wrote:

Nah,just very fickle!
Surely if that many books have changed your life,you must come back around to your original opinion on it all eventually!

Of course! Have you not heard of the circle of life??
Check out the link in my sig.

lacuna

Not exactly life-changing books but some of them definitly altered my perspective on people and the world.

In no particular order:
A Prayer For Owen Meany - John Irving
The Outsider - Camus
The Old Man In the Sea - Hemingway
Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow - Peter Hoeg
Our Man In Havana - Graham Greene
A Brave New World - Huxley

I'm sure there are others but these jump to mind at the moment.

cecilwinthorpe

the dave peltzer books

marshmallow

My Dad had a stroke and his friend bought him Lance Armstrong's book and found it, as others said : not life-changing but mind-changing, he really had a different outlook on life post reading it. I have yet to read it!

supersheep

Small Wonder, by Barbara Kingsolver. A collection of short stories, and it basically made me care about the environment.

ANarcho-Munk

Magician - Raymond E Fiest
1984 - George Orwell

both mind changing, not life changing

The Lopper

Bill Bryson: The Lost Continent. The book that truly introduced me to the art of sarcasm. I have not looked back since.

is_that_so

The Pearl/Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck
The Hobbit
The Godfather (at 12)
La Casa de Bernarda Alba - Lorca
An Evil Cradling - Brian Keenan
Animal Farm - Orwell
Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Perfume - Patrick Susskind
The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien
Lord of The Rings ( :rolleyes: )
Toraiocht Diarmuid agus Grainne ( unexpurgated version )
Scothscealta - Padraic O Conaire ( amazing stories which may even be available in translation)
God's Playground Volume 1 - Norman Davies ( superb history of Poland )

Reaver772

Mine, Mine, Mine!: A Little Help with Sharing (Barney's Little Lessons)
Sheryl Berk, Josie Yee (Illustrator)

After havind to read this damn godless thing over and over and over again to little spawn of satan i can say that it definately has changed my life!


Also life changing are:
The Anatomy Coloring Book - Wynn Kapit, Lawrence M. Elson
Police Training Manual - Jack English, Brian English
Forensics for Dummies - D.P. Lyle
Clinically Oriented Anatomy - Keith L. Moore, Arthur F. Dalley
The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd Ed
Home Book of Taxidermy and Tanning - Gerald J. Grantz
Crime Scene to Court: The Essentials of Forensic Science - P.C. White
Police Law - Jack English, Richard Card

THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO PAY!!!

RainyDay

Johnny Storm wrote:

... and for a truly life changing experience: Catch 22 by Joesph Heller
(life-changing as opposed to mind-altering)

That's the one for me. Took me 4 attempts to get all the way through, but well worth the effort. I revisit it every couple of years.

Sleepy

Tony Parsons - Man and Boy (made me realise that I'd love to be a father some day)
Sun Tzu - The Art of War
Bob Geldof - Is That It? (made me care about the third world, which was strange because it's actually his autobiography)
Anne Rice - The Vampire Lestat (made me realise I've a darker side to my personality than I was aware of)

McGinty

"The road less travelled" M.Scott Peck
"Awareness" Anthony de Mello

Playboy

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

arbeitsscheuer

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
Black Hawk Down - Mark Bowden
The Qur'an

Caoimhe89

Jostein Gardiner - Not Sophie's World, as I haven't gotten through that yet, but another one. Which, coincidentally, I can't remember the name of. I think it's 'Hello, Is Anybody Out There?'. And 'The Christmas Mystery', which made me think about God a lot more than I had before.

I loved 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell as well, and I really have to read '1984'.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' was another mind-changing read.

Aged about 9, the Narnia Chronicles were life-changing. They opened my eyes to fantasy, to the thought of another world, and to spirituality.

Dades

Some people sure have a lot of life changes.

Two for me:

On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Cosmos - Carl Sagan