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Most positive, non Fiction book that changed your life?

2

Comments

  • #32
    omerin
    Registered Users Posts: 1,460 ✭✭✭omerin


    My college books, without them i wouldnt be where i am and have the lifestyle i do. There will never be a book created that will surpass them


  • #33
    Asset management
    Registered Users Posts: 22 ✭Asset management


    Coneygree wrote: »
    Sounds like you'd like David Goggins' book Can't Hurt Me.

    Sounds great thanks, I’ll deffo read it.

    Also want to read The Road Less Taken from previous recommendation.


  • #34
    Asset management
    Registered Users Posts: 22 ✭Asset management


    Asset management wrote: »
    Sounds great thanks, I’ll deffo read it.

    Also want to read The Road Less Taken from previous recommendation.

    ‘Road Less Travelled’


  • #35
    mulbot
    Registered Users Posts: 1,794 ✭✭✭mulbot


    Alan watts-- 'The Book on the Taboo against knowing who you are'.


  • #36
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users Posts: 13,727 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    mulbot wrote: »
    Alan watts-- 'The Book on the Taboo against knowing who you are'.

    I love Alan Watts.
    I'd have to say The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Got me into meditation and mindfulness.


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  • #37
    spacetweek
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 4,951 Mod ✭✭✭✭spacetweek


    Steven Pinker - "Enlightenment Now"

    If you're despairing at the state of the world, this will perk you right up.


  • #38
    ShareShare
    Registered Users Posts: 54 ✭✭ShareShare


    Awareness - Anthony De Mello.

    Never was i hit so hard by truth then in my mid 20s when i found this. It thought me so much about how i work, how others work, and the addiction we have to pretty much everything so we can create more 'self' belief. It showed me how i was using everything and anyone to further more evidence of my own self image.

    quotes:
    https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/54195.Anthony_de_Mello

    “I have no fear of losing you, for you aren’t an object of my property, or anyone else’s. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine”
    ― Anthony de Mello


    I just bought several of the books suggested here as a gift for myself. Great Thread OP!


  • #39
    ShareShare
    Registered Users Posts: 54 ✭✭ShareShare


    Mad_maxx wrote: »
    something like a book could never " change my life "

    im just not middle class enough for that

    You've never read a new idea that inspired you to do something beyond what you thought you could do? You've never heard words explain a previous mystery of your own being with such clarity that you became a seeker of more? You never read information from another's experience in a life so different to yours that it challenged your existing conditioning to such an extent that you couldnt possibly pretend your old views were correct?

    It's possible you've just experienced change so slowly and perhaps consistently that it never felt like many intimate important pieces falling into place in one single motion.. but I would feel sorry if that is so. It a moment of awakening in one's life that you remember for all of it with vividness and intensity. That should anyone ask you what was the important moments of your life, this would be one of the first that come to your lips.


  • #40
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users Posts: 13,727 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    ShareShare wrote: »
    Awareness - Anthony De Mello.

    Yes, Anto is the man, I love this kind of stuff


  • #41
    lazygal
    Registered Users Posts: 12,644 ✭✭✭✭lazygal


    The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo. It made me recalibrate my relationship with "stuff" and confront some feeling and conflicts I didn't realise I had and work through them as I dealt with my physical belongings. It changed how I approach what I buy and has simplified my life in so many ways.


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  • #42
    Mad_maxx
    Registered Users Posts: 13,505 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    buried wrote: »
    Its got nothing to do with some divisional horse$hit like 'class'.

    You probably just need work on your own cognitive awareness.

    Plenty of books changed how I view life. They weren't self help books either.
    But from reading certain books I raised my cognitive awareness that made me enjoy life more, and also see things I had never seen before that were straight in front of my face.

    made the comment partially in jest


  • #43
    buried
    Registered Users Posts: 9,674 ✭✭✭buried


    Mad_maxx wrote: »
    made the comment partially in jest

    Fair enough man, the comment just seemed very cutting, and also kind of indicative of a mindset that does exist out there concerning anybody reading any sort of book.

    "You have disgraced yourselves again" - W. B. Yeats



  • #44
    Aongus Von Bismarck
    Registered Users Posts: 1,794 ✭✭✭Aongus Von Bismarck


    Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt.

    An extraordinary work that effortlessly moves through the history of Europe post war, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War; the development of what became the European Union, the closer integration between European states that moved beyond centuries of war and hatred, and the importance of Christian/Social Democracy in creating the Europe that we know and love.

    I cannot recommend it highly enough.


  • #45
    Mad_maxx
    Registered Users Posts: 13,505 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    ShareShare wrote: »
    You've never read a new idea that inspired you to do something beyond what you thought you could do? You've never heard words explain a previous mystery of your own being with such clarity that you became a seeker of more? You never read information from another's experience in a life so different to yours that it challenged your existing conditioning to such an extent that you couldnt possibly pretend your old views were correct?

    It's possible you've just experienced change so slowly and perhaps consistently that it never felt like many intimate important pieces falling into place in one single motion.. but I would feel sorry if that is so. It a moment of awakening in one's life that you remember for all of it with vividness and intensity. That should anyone ask you what was the important moments of your life, this would be one of the first that come to your lips.

    Of course I've experienced moments of clarity and epiphanies but never from reading a book


  • #46
    Better Than Christ
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,135 ✭✭✭Better Than Christ


    Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »
    Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt.

    An extraordinary work that effortlessly moves through the history of Europe post war, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War; the development of what became the European Union, the closer integration between European states that moved beyond centuries of war and hatred, and the importance of Christian/Social Democracy in creating the Europe that we know and love.

    I cannot recommend it highly enough.

    It's brilliant, but I found it hard-going. Like most academic books, it's not an easy read (and I say that as someone who is very intelligent, actually). Well worth dipping in and out of though, especially if you're a politics & international relations student, looking for a guaranteed A.

    On a similar note, Diarmaid Ferriter's The Transformation of Ireland 1900 - 2000 is a nice read, if modern Irish history is your thing. Worth it for the bibliography alone. It's by no means a comprehensive masterpiece, and I wouldn't say it 'changed my life', but it did encourage me to invest in access to online newspaper archives for further research.


  • #47
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Too many to mention - but I guess the book that inspired me to make choices that subsequently had the biggest impacts on the direction of my life - would be Rowlands "The Philosopher and the Wolf".


  • #48
    zerosugarbuzz
    Registered Users Posts: 1,224 ✭✭✭zerosugarbuzz


    ShareShare wrote: »
    Awareness - Anthony De Mello.

    Never was i hit so hard by truth then in my mid 20s when i found this. It thought me so much about how i work, how others work, and the addiction we have to pretty much everything so we can create more 'self' belief. It showed me how i was using everything and anyone to further more evidence of my own self image.

    quotes:
    https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/54195.Anthony_de_Mello

    “I have no fear of losing you, for you aren’t an object of my property, or anyone else’s. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine”
    ― Anthony de Mello


    I just bought several of the books suggested here as a gift for myself. Great Thread OP!

    Great quote!


  • #49
    ILoveYourVibes
    Registered Users Posts: 15,176 ✭✭✭✭ILoveYourVibes


    I am not sure i could say a nonfiction book changed by life.


  • #50
    Panda Killa
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,384 ✭✭✭Panda Killa


    I used to be a voracious reader...the first 2 books I got from the library were Baba Yaga & a book on model plane construction :)
    As for books that affected me deeply.. Paule Kimmage's autobiography.. Paul McGrath's also
    Further afield Bury my heart at Wounded Knee & John Hersey's Hiroshima


  • #51
    ILoveYourVibes
    Registered Users Posts: 15,176 ✭✭✭✭ILoveYourVibes


    Panda Killa wrote: »
    I used to be a voracious reader...the first 2 books I got from the library were Baba Yaga & a book on model plane construction :)
    As for books that affected me deeply.. Paule Kimmage's autobiography.. Paul McGrath's also
    Further afield Bury my heart at Wounded Knee & John Hersey's Hiroshima
    Who is the author of Baba Yaga?


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  • #52
    Hector Savage
    Registered Users Posts: 8,810 ✭✭✭Hector Savage


    _Enlightenment Now_ by Steven Pinker - really puts it all into perspective and how this is the greatest time to be alive in history, don't listen to the doom and gloom media...


  • #53
    Baggly
    Registered Users Posts: 35,024 ✭✭✭✭Baggly


    Mod

    Moved to literature forum. Please observe the local charter.


  • #54
    Mattdhg
    Closed Accounts Posts: 70 ✭✭Mattdhg


    The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs.

    It's written by an American counsellor/"shrink" who had a lot of gay clients. He noticed the same destructive patterns in their lives and wrote a book detailing the general stages gay men pass through in order to accept themselves. It's not really a guide to happiness, more a guide out of depression.

    It is definitely very white upper class oriented as those were his type of clients, but the book is still hugely eye opening. It has been passed around my group of friends the last few months and we have all strongly identified with different sections of it. I'd strongly recommend it for any gay men out there.


  • #55
    Panda Killa
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,384 ✭✭✭Panda Killa


    ILoveYourVibes wrote: »
    Who is the author of Baba Yaga?

    John Wick? :)
    Couldn't tell you tbh ...it was my first book from the library with wonderful colourful pics...old russian tale as you probably know


  • #56
    mr.anonymous
    Registered Users Posts: 481 ✭✭mr.anonymous


    Mattdhg wrote: »
    The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs.

    It's written by an American counsellor/"shrink" who had a lot of gay clients. He noticed the same destructive patterns in their lives and wrote a book detailing the general stages gay men pass through in order to accept themselves. It's not really a guide to happiness, more a guide out of depression.

    It is definitely very white upper class oriented as those were his type of clients, but the book is still hugely eye opening. It has been passed around my group of friends the last few months and we have all strongly identified with different sections of it. I'd strongly recommend it for any gay men out there.

    Since I started reading as a hobby after college that's the only book I've read twice! It's changed my outlook no doubt.

    There's another similar one called Straight Jacket by Matthew Todd


  • #57
    ShineOn7
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,550 ✭✭✭ShineOn7


    Baggly wrote: »
    Mod

    Moved to literature forum. Please observe the local charter.


    The Literature forum ...



    200.gif






    There was nothing wrong with it in AH


  • #58
    ShineOn7
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,550 ✭✭✭ShineOn7


    As predicted. Thread gets moved to Literature and it dies. It was ok where it was in AH and had some great, positive replies

    Boards in general needs a trimming of tumbleweed fora


  • #59
    otnomart
    Registered Users Posts: 4,065 ✭✭✭otnomart


    Didn't change my life but made a great impression on me.
    The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
    True story of a couple who lose their home and start walking the South West Coast Path.


  • #60
    Lavinia
    Registered Users Posts: 8,089 ✭✭✭Lavinia


    oopsie a double post...


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  • #61
    Lavinia
    Registered Users Posts: 8,089 ✭✭✭Lavinia


    Running: The Autobiography
    by World Snooker Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan

    would recommend it to anyone even if they know nothing about snooker :)


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