General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat Book had the biggest influence on you?
For me, it was probably 'The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You To Read' first published in 1993. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Your-Church-Doesnt-Want/dp/0939040158/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402950258&sr=1-1&keywords=the+book+your+church+doesn%27t+want+you+to+read
I learned all about the European Enlightenment, free thought and how many other religions that preceded Christianity, taught the same stuff and had the same stories first. I had been taking an interest in Christianity before finding this book and it quickly turned me away from Christianity and into a free thinker. I didn't just take everything it said for granted either. It motivated me to do a lot more research into ancient religions and philosophies.
Not that I don't think the Bible has anything to offer. Big fan of many of the things Jesus taught and if those things moved Hillary then I don't have a problem with that as long as she understands as Jefferson did that they are "Diamond's in a dunghill".
Your turn!
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)There were chapters about the sixties that taught me lessons my school was failing to teach.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)mockmonkey
(2,892 posts)When I saw you post I was like, "Holy Crap, someone else read that book?" I always wanted to reread it and I couldn't locate a copy on-line at that time and so I gave up on it. Now it's too expensive...heh.
mattclearing
(10,092 posts)Zinn retells the American narrative through the eyes of the less fortunate, and provides a powerful counterpoint to popular American history.
jaysunb
(11,856 posts)Skeeter Barnes
(994 posts)elleng
(132,222 posts)femmocrat
(28,394 posts)(((hugs))) I'm not sure if it influenced me, but remember my aunt reading it to me, then reading on my own. I plan to read it to my granddaughter.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)elleng
(132,222 posts)and lives near me now.
Uncle Joe
(58,916 posts)come to mind.
On edit, When I was younger, "My Side of the Mountain" and "Swiss Family Robinson" were favorites of mine.
Thanks for the thread, Quixote.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)I saw the film version advertised on TCM the other day, had not thought of it in years....
Uncle Joe
(58,916 posts)Jon Stewart's book "America" (A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction) are also some of my favorite books.
lumpy
(13,704 posts)life was not tough for me; my family were Alaska homesteaders, self sufficient.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Plato's Republic (esp. the Parable of the Sun)
John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks
Thich Nhat Hanh's Being Peace
greatauntoftriplets
(175,866 posts)Quixote1818
(29,221 posts)Ordered from them all the time.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)Desert Solitaire got me into Monkeywrench Gang and that got me into others...
Those have definitely influenced my life
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)... and I took MWG as my Bible.
My lawyer told me to say nothing more.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)I've always wanted to live out another sequel to MWG.
My Good Babushka
(2,710 posts)The things that people did seem silly and primitive now that we have the advantage of 400 years of scientific inquiry on our side, but it makes me wonder about the things we take for truth now, how ridiculous will they seem in another 400 years?
closeupready
(29,503 posts)Chock full of amazing truths about work, life, getting to financial independence, etc.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)djean111
(14,255 posts)A Distant Mirror - Tuchman - the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The Culture of Contentment - Galbraith - I do think the contentment has been orchestrated by the 1%
Whisp
(24,096 posts)berni_mccoy
(23,018 posts)Used the ideas from this book all throughout my professional career. Has been used to further my career, provide for my family and do great things.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)That was a different time and I was different. I think I still have it and will have to drag it out.
An important part of this discussion is that the influence of a book on a person depends on where that person is at the time. For example "Catch 22" had a big impact at the time I read it but wouldnt have that same impact now.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)By Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I could also say 'The Tempest' by William Shakespeare.
This week, the book most influencing my life comes out tomorrow. Yep.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)But I will tell you that the internet with all of its books has been amazing. I can read anything and everything. I loved the library. I would skip class to go to the library and read.
The internet is like the world's biggest library and I take advantage of that.
Raine1967
(11,590 posts)followed by The Lorax and the Butter Battle Book.
I can't rule out any Judy Blume book, BTW.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)I have a string.
Do you have a string?
I have a string.
ileus
(15,396 posts)I have it put up now.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)I can't say that any one book has influenced the way I live my life--I'd say common sense and humanity take care of that automatically.
However, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle had quite an impact on me when I read it and probably played a role in my almost life-long vegetarianism. I read Native Son by Richard Wright in my early 20's and that really opened my eyes to racial social injustices. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins opened my eyes to quite a few things that took the polish off America's halo for me and when I was quite young I really liked Abe Lincoln's biography and I also really appreciated Susan B. Anthony's biography because it showed how hard women had to work to get the vote and how most men (at the time) thought it better a black man vote than a woman of any color because of his dangly bits making him exceptionally smarter than women without our dangly bits.
uppityperson
(115,686 posts)As a child, Beautiful Joe (about animal abuse), charlottes Web.
Early teen John Hersey 's Hiroshima, snuck from the adult library.
Then of course To Kill a Mockingbird, which was SO much more than the wonderful movie.
And on and on and on. While The Bible was not a favorite, it has had a huge influence in both my parent's librul interpretation as well as recent congress's "fuck the people praise the lord" one.
But often whatever I was reading, which is and has been a lot from deep to escapism.
countryjake
(8,554 posts)LoisB
(7,341 posts)tkmorris
(11,138 posts)I can't single out one book that has influenced my thinking more than others, but that one showed a young me that there were authors out there, decades older than I was, with whom I shared a connection. I think Vonnegut and I belong to the same karass, and I discovered a great many other writers who belong in there too. KV was first though, and remains my go to when I start to feel just a little shaken in my world view.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Vonnegut is missed.
JVS
(61,935 posts)dilby
(2,273 posts)I
louis c
(8,652 posts)FuzzyRabbit
(1,982 posts)opiate69
(10,129 posts)Puglover
(16,380 posts)CTyankee
(64,023 posts)Lint Head
(15,064 posts)wryter2000
(46,363 posts)And the rare movie that lived up to the book.
RGinNJ
(1,021 posts)One of my favs too
LiberalLovinLug
(14,216 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)also.
BainsBane
(53,175 posts)Oh, and selections from the Marx-Engels reader that I read when I was about 17.
Others, EP Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the Crowd," (Past and Present); and Douglas Hay, "Property, Authority, and Criminal Law," in Albion's Fatal Tree.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)There's billions of books out there. A lot of them deserve to be very influential. Not all of them in the same place. I can cite a diversity; Karl Marx, Frank Herbert, Mircea Eliade, Paulo Bacigalupi, Larry Niven, Naomi Klein, Charles Darwin, Black Elk, Tariq Ali, Rumi, Howard Zinn, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Brian Jaques, Richard Dawkins, David Quammen, Jack Horner, and hundreds of others.
How can I read as much as I do, absorb what I do, and pretend that one book, just one, is the be-all end-all formative text of my life?
If ANYTHING, the most influential book I read was David Lambert's "Dinosaurs"
Why? Well, it's the book I learned to read from! Seriously, this was the "storybook" my mother read to me (at my insistence - what little boy ISN'T enthralled by dinosaurs?) and well, I learned to read and pronounce "Deinonychus" before kindergarten.
BainsBane
(53,175 posts)and an AA Milne collection that included When We Were Very Young, but others as well.
I loved this poem
A. A. Milne - Disobedience
James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother
Though he was only three.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down to the end of the town, if
you don't go down with me."
James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown,
James James
Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James
Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down to the end of the town and be
back in time for tea."
King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES
MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HABE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN TO THE END OF
THE TOWN - FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!
James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he,
"You must never go down to the end of the town with-
out consulting me."
James James
Morrison's Mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John
Said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
"If people go down to the end of the town, well, what
can anyone do?"
(Now then, very softly)
J. J.
M. M.
W. G. du P.
Took great
C/o his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J. J.
Said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-if-
you-don't-go-down-with ME!"
cali
(114,904 posts)MinneapolisMatt
(1,550 posts)Upton Sinclair.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)FuzzyRabbit
(1,982 posts)I learned at an early age from MAD, starting with this first issue that I read, that newspapers, TV, the movies and conventional "wisdom" are full of lies.
rurallib
(62,581 posts)MAD taught me some real skepticism at a very early age.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)PDJane
(10,103 posts)No Bible, no Torah, no Koran...they don't give enough information on the things that man is capable of.
Response to Quixote1818 (Original post)
Warren DeMontague This message was self-deleted by its author.
GusBob
(7,290 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)Brief but a good lesson in how to question religious claptrap.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)short and to the point.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)edbermac
(15,970 posts)To kill a Mockingbird also
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,799 posts)story intensely. It made me laugh and cry, and it awed me with Salinger's ability to create something that could touch me so deeply on so many levels. I can't put it or any one book as my number one in any category, but it is certainly in the top tier.
Some interesting discussion of this book in the Amazon reviews.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)I love this kind of thread.
And whatever book you choose for me, I'd be reading it to a roomful of orphans.
japple
(9,956 posts)Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)btrflykng9
(287 posts)nolabels
(13,133 posts)Mostly, we are all just orphans
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)betsuni
(26,227 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)A sort of Nature/Self-Help Deal.
JVS
(61,935 posts)Kingofalldems
(38,617 posts)Seriously.
japple
(9,956 posts)take us to the (Army/Air Force) Base library and let us check out as many books as we could carry. Library day was always a huge event from ages 6-13. Lois Lenski's books were a favorites of mine from the time I could read big words. She wrote about children in different situations and they always sounded like someone I would love to have as friends.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)Also there were the Moffat books. Did you read about the Moffat Family?
japple
(9,956 posts)Thanks for the recs.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)Really quite enlightening as to how they got along.
Another book I remember is the Trolley Car Family. Homeless during the Depression, they found an old trolley to make into a home.
sufrommich
(22,871 posts)a little girl,last summer I found 7 of them at a garage sale,3 of them 1st editions,all in wonderful shape.I was so happy and they are now sitting on my bookshelf.
japple
(9,956 posts)Congratulations to you!
Newsjock
(11,733 posts)By James Kunetka and (pre-woo) Whitley Strieber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday
Louisiana1976
(3,962 posts)about environmental degradation called "Nature's End" that I like.
Newsjock
(11,733 posts)Well spotted! The opening incident in Denver was indeed reminiscent of "Warday." The book also did a good job of predicting the rise of social media and how it can be used to propagandize public policy.
Although it didn't have the same lasting impact on me as "Warday," perhaps it merits a repeat reading, since it's been at least a decade for me.
elephant hunter
(70 posts)Not wanting to be Willie Loman it was the book that convinced me to join the army. Best decision I ever made.
betsuni
(26,227 posts)That was a bolt of lightning -- it completely changed my life. In the moment of that bolt I realized I didn't have to be a Christian. I was pretty slow as a young person, from a small town, it never occurred to me that I didn't have to go to church because everyone I knew did. Existentialism! Fun! Then "Tropic of Cancer" and Anais Nin.
WhiteTara
(29,785 posts)orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)mokawanis
(4,455 posts)I'm going to have find a copy and read it again. Thanks for mentioning it!
Iggo
(47,713 posts)pnwmom
(109,064 posts)Just kidding.
Who can name just one book? I think HRC's answer is as good as anything.
I'd rather have a President influenced by the teachings of Jesus than one whose biggest influence was The Fountainhead.
JVS
(61,935 posts)KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Runner-up would be "Living on the Earth" by Alicia Bay Laurel.
Third place goes to "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman.
Honorary Mention goes to "The Whole Earth Catalogue".
yesphan
(1,589 posts)Be Here Now followed by Autobiography of a Yogi.
OutNow
(875 posts)Fire in the Lake and the Pentagon Papers were both very influential in my life. I knew that the US involvement in Vietnam War was wrong and caused so many soldiers to die needlessly, but I really didn't understand the background and the evil maneuvering that took place in the 1940s and 50s that inexorably led to the "war". It didn't just happen in a day or a month or a year, and the Tokin Gulf incident, even if it occurred (probably didn't) was just one more small step into the quagmire. The historical perspective described in Fire in the Lake and supplemented by Danial Ellsberg's disclosure of the official documentation of our involvement led me to question other foreign and domestic policies. Yes, there was a lot of history that led to Bush's was on Iraq. Yes, Snowden is a hero for releasing official records that describe our country's dealings with both enemies and allies alike.
GeorgeGist
(25,329 posts)HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)Two books that I read when I was 11 ... Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.
I have read so many books .... but I can still "feel" what I felt when I read those two (42 years later)
kairos12
(13,060 posts)TeamPooka
(24,461 posts)kentuck
(111,246 posts)by Herman Hesse.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)but it certainly is one I reread every so often to remind me of just how damn materialistic I am.
kentuck
(111,246 posts)I read it when I was in Vietnam. It helped to shape my ideas about war and peace. I recall that I loaned the book to a friend and he refused to cut his hair afterwards and was punished with an Article 15 and threatened expulsion from the Army.
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)LiberalLovinLug
(14,216 posts)Learning to appreciate.....period. Music, life, people.... no matter how it comes to you.
Read it at 17, changed the course of my life, as well as everything else by Hesse.
Next it was Nikos Kazantzakis.
Hekate
(91,656 posts)I always read voraciously from grade school onward so it's very hard to single out one book. Chalice and the Blade gave me something entirely new to think about human history with, though.
Squinch
(51,217 posts)scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)It's on my bookshelf, along with such books as The First Sex, When God Was a Woman, The Encylopedia of Women's Myths and Secrets, Women Who Run With the Wolves, The Lady of the Beasts, and several dozen others dealing with the Feminine in mythology and archetype and anthropological history.
Hekate
(91,656 posts)Sadly, I dropped it when Bush started beating the war drums because it seemed so very urgent to oppose him. I believe I was right to do so, but it meant a distinct fork in the road and I haven't been able to find my way back. If that makes sense to you -- anyway I am older and tireder now...
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Although my life path has taken me to so many different places, I'm not sure that I see them as "forks in the road" so much as just various places I stopped off and studied for awhile. I didn't exactly leave my "Chalice" days behind, I just absorbed what I had learned into myself and then encountered the next territory as my life moved me along.
Before DU was born, my online activism was totally involved in American Indian treaty rights and history and countering anti-American Indian prejudice and bigotry. I was a member of the same ListServe that Tim Wise and Robert Jensen used to post on. I was seriously involved in the push for clemency for Leonard Peltier in the final days of the Clinton presidency. (And I will NEVER forgive Bill Clinton for not doing so!)
Ironically, the Anishinaabe man who was my partner, and with whom I had been researching material for a book he wanted to write on treaty rights, died suddenly of a heart attack just 3 days before the 2000 presidential election. Grief-stricken, it was hard (to say the least) to give a damn about anything outside of my personal loss. Still, by the time the SCOTUS decision came down in December, awarding bush* the presidency, I was so appalled by what I saw as an extremely dark fate awaiting our country, that I moved out of my previous area of focus into national politics as a whole. And thence ended up on DU, some months before the 9/11 attacks.
So, here I remain, with my soul full of the many things which have fed it - all of which inform my view of the world.
hopemountain
(3,919 posts)scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)had been taken out of my body by C-section.
Thank you so much for the reminder!
hopemountain
(3,919 posts)i was a doula for a woman who accomplished the same you
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)having him by c-section. I was absolutely determined not to go through that again with my 2nd childbirth. And that 2nd birth was a fabulous, beautiful experience. I will be grateful for that experience for the rest of my life.
Coventina
(27,293 posts)along with the Women's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects.
They are among the top 10 of books I would rescue in a house fire.
Coventina
(27,293 posts)When God was a Woman, by Merlin Stone
The Spiral Dance, (and others) by Starhawk
The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries by Z. Budapest
Goddesses in Every Woman by Jean Shinoda
I read them all, and own most of them.
Read them as a young adult as a remedy & healing process for my fundamentalist childhood.
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)Five Smooth Stones - novel about the Civil Rights Movement
Tobacco Road - novel about the Great Depression
Johnny Got His Gun - novel that depicts the damages of war (this one still haunts me to this day)
randome
(34,845 posts)First read it in college. Discovered it years later at a book store in Columbia, MO.
It gave me a sense of wonder at the real -instead of the hypothetical- world.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)moriah
(8,312 posts)I've heard it's better than the original books.
madinmaryland
(64,939 posts)that I could recommend.
btrflykng9
(287 posts)I'd be interested in reading it.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know
http://www.amazon.com/War-Iraq-What-Team-Doesnt/dp/1893956385
btrflykng9
(287 posts)I'll get myself a copy.
yourout
(7,570 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)The Blue Flower
(5,475 posts)I know, but I was in 2nd grade, and it meant everything to me to read, "A person's a person no matter how small." A lesson for life that has carried through.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)With an honorable mention made for Catch-22 and The Gulag Archipelago.
On the Road
(20,783 posts)even though I don't believe in God. For example, I recently made a relatively major decision based largely on the Bible's very specific attitudes towards taking others to court to collect a debt.
catbyte
(34,705 posts)It taught me to read all of the other ones.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)Interestingly, my first favorite book was "Bible Stories." Well done, and led to a long interest in fantasy and science fiction.
--imm
CanonRay
(14,258 posts)Read it in eighth grade
A Little Weird
(1,754 posts)I'm not sure why it affected me so much.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)This is someone who I'm sure will elicit groaning noises, but I read Lee Iacocca's book Straight Talk when I was younger. I ended up interested in business. Though I don't agree with many of his ideas, I found the book interesting. After receiving my bachelor's degree, I went back to school and earned an MBA and am now working on a doctorate.
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)Pretty much read everything by Vonnegut after that. Big influence.
Didn't check out A People's History until I was in my thirties but it also was very influential.
MineralMan
(146,412 posts)That's mine.
Journeyman
(15,078 posts)I carry it with me all the time so that, in those moments when I find myself waiting somewhere I'll always have Thoreau to help me "rob my creditors of an hour."
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)Last edited Mon Jun 16, 2014, 10:52 PM - Edit history (1)
So I'm not even going to try. Some books which have had a big effect on me:
"The Tao Of Pooh" & "The Te Of Piglet" by Hoffman & Shepphard (explain Taoism through teh Winnie the Pooh books, beloved children's character here).
"The Devil's Apocrypha" by John deVito (my beliefs were mostly formed when I read this but it's the single best primer on Luciferian thought I've found)
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, especially "Pyramids" and teh Death books
"Wrestling Reality" by Chris Kanyon & ghostwriter (chronicles Kanyon's struggle toward self-acceptance as a wrestler and a gay man; he died before it's publication)
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury (second part of my username is from that)
Wounded Bear
(59,046 posts)really shows how the world treats people and how they can suffer through things like the dust bowl and Depression.
roody
(10,849 posts)Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)JohnnyRingo
(18,816 posts)..there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on every beach on Earth.
That blew my mind 30-some years ago, and it made me view my existance in another dimension.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)To name a few...
lark
(23,360 posts)such a work of genuis, love it, love it.
For a bookworm like myself, this is a great thread and trip down memory lane.
Tikki
(14,586 posts)Plus anything about Pacific Island and Pacific Coastal cultures. I, also, read Geology books, texts.
Tikki
Texasgal
(17,061 posts)Absolutely!
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)Stryst
(714 posts)Is 66 books, 39 old testiment and 27 new testiment. Is there a specificbook in tue bible that particularly inspired you, like one of he gosples?
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)I was more or less flipping through one night, I always intended to read the bible start to finish but that has never happened, stumbled upon Stephens story and it really stuck with me. I think that what it was that even facing certain death he would not reject or denounce his claims to the Sanhedrin. I do not pretend to be a biblical scholar, I am awful at using the correct terms and citing chapters and verses but this one in particular moved me deeply.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)It's changed over time. Back in my early years, probably 'The Jargoon Pard' by Andre Norton, one of the books that got me hooked on reading in general. Then on to 'Dune', which started shaping my views on politics, ecology, and cynicism. Four a four year period PETA's 'The Compassionate Cook', while I was steadfastly vegetarian. Siddhartha to teach me about materialism and self-indulgence. Later, the Terry Pratchett books for all sorts of eternal truths wrapped up in wacky fantasy fun, and the LE Modesitt Recluce series for thoughts on good and evil, seeing things from different viewpoints, balance, trade, and purpose.
Oh, and throw in a couple of Bibles along the way - the C/C++ Programmer's Bible and the Vegetable Bible.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)I can't deny the influence of the Bible, as I was church raised, but as far as consciousness expanding, probably Alan Watts, The Book.
TBF
(32,305 posts)I read it as a teenager and was delighted to find out others thought capitalism was a crock as well.
H2O Man
(73,995 posts)bigmonkey
(1,798 posts)Objectively, other books may have influenced me more. This one, though, was so intense, unexpected, and wide-ranging in its effect on the "young me" that I wonder what I would have been like had I never encountered it.
RandySF
(61,469 posts)Benton D Struckcheon
(2,347 posts)which clued me in to what a total disaster WWI had been, and what a total waste war in general is.
Others along the same lines: 365 Days, on Vietnam, a very close runner up which makes the same point in its own way.
War, by Gwynne Dyer, makes the same point by means of a very factual historical survey.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Gemini Cat
(2,820 posts)This book changed my life.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Autumn
(45,147 posts)I knew the story from my Parents and Grandparents from when I was a child and they would talk. They lived it. I still read it a couple of times a year and I know much of it by heart.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)1945
"The way of life that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and is reported to have roasted alive a million people in Tokyo overnight is international and dominates every nation of the world, but we live in the United States, so our struggle is here. With this way of life, death would be more appropriate. There could be no truce or quarter. The prejudices of patriotism, the pressures of our friends and fear of unpopularity and death should not hold us back any longer. It should be total war against the economic and political and social system which is dominant in this country. The American system has been destroying human life in peace and in war, at home and abroad for decades. Now it has produced the growing infamy of atom bombing. The besides the brutal facts, the tidbits of democracy mean nothing. Henceforth, no decent citizen owes one scrap of allegiance if he did to American law, American custom or American institutions".
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Last edited Wed Jun 18, 2014, 02:58 PM - Edit history (1)
blue neen
(12,349 posts)It's effect on how I view others was profound.
sufrommich
(22,871 posts)book,she made me a reader because not reading her books as a child would have been unthinkable.God I loved those books.
betsuni
(26,227 posts)I wore my hair in braids and taught myself to sew and knit and bake bread when I was twelve. I'd never seen a prairie before. Those books made me interested in the history of the West, Aaron Copland was my favorite composer ("Billy the Kid" "The Red Pony" "Rodeo" . A couple years ago I read "The Long Winter" again and enjoyed it just as much as I did as a child.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)1984 should be self evident.
Atlas Shrugged. I have read this a good dozen times and spent literally hundreds of hours considering what Rand was trying to explain. I consider this to be one of the more important books of the last hundred years.
Starship Troopers. Great fun and interesting ideas.
The Jungle. Holy hell did this blow my mind. Still does.
Winning Through Intimidation. Obviously Ringer is a hard core right wing nut these days, maybe he always has been, but this book was eye opening.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)but Atlas Shrugged is one of the most sophomoric books of the 20th century. Reading it just one time was a WASTE of my time. I would not recommend it to anyone. There is NOTHING of practical importance in it and it is laughable as a novel.
The only effect it had on me was a resolution never to waste another second on anything Ayn Rand produced.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)As a Novel it's marginal at best, nor is it any better when viewed (as Republicans love to do) as some kind of sales brochure for a capitalist utopia. It's not a sermon or story or sales pitch. Rather, it was Rand's failed effort to provide an easy to read, step-by-step guide to understanding an extremely complex topic: an internally consistent moral code founded upon the rights and life of the individual.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,216 posts)I'm not afraid of the scowling PC crowd.
While now at this stage in my life I understand more about the woman and her whacked out libertarian beliefs, and the icon of Republicans she has become, and I'd never waste time reading any more of her works.
But back in my teens, I knew nothing about that. I wasn't even very politically aware. I only was curious about the book because it and Atlas Shrugged were books that seemed to show up everywhere and seemed to be regarded in great acclaim. I never could get through Atlas Shrugged though.
The story of Fountainhead did seem simplistic to me, even back then, but what I got out of it, being a budding young art student, was the message of not compromising on your work. Always stand by what you do, even if it means going alone and working outside the norm to achieve it. That's what I got out of it as a young person back then anyways. I thought it had a very powerful positive message for me in that stage in my life.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)You wont automatically become a libertarian if you read the book, and you will get a great insight into what we are up against.
oldhippie
(3,249 posts)... To reading Ayn Rand. Or Ringer. Won't that get you banned?
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Then this is no place I would want to waste my time.
JVS
(61,935 posts)But at the time I purchased it I needed something for a very long train ride.
Journeyman
(15,078 posts)It was the first book I checked out on my own from a library and it began my lifelong involvement with books and knowledge. What, besides love, could possibly influence me more? . . .
KG
(28,755 posts)Stryst
(714 posts)The Chronicals of Thomas Covenant is one of my favorite series.
Lil Missy
(17,865 posts)farmbo
(3,124 posts)The first for its exploratory style of fiction, and the second as a poetic homage to nature.
elias49
(4,259 posts)esp "The Art of Dreaming"
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)It totally changed how I viewed history and why a person's generational place matters. It came out in 1992 and is still completely valid.
gwheezie
(3,580 posts)The autobiography of Malcolm x
The art of loving
A woman on the edge of time
Throd
(7,208 posts)WCLinolVir
(951 posts)kentauros
(29,414 posts)Other than that, some cookbooks, and New Age spiritual books. I'm too tired to figure out which ones.
But really, they all had a combined influence on me that is best left uncategorized
KaryninMiami
(3,073 posts)Changed my entire perception of life. Read it in 1974 (high school).
PADemD
(4,482 posts)The Seth Material
Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul
The Nature of Personal Reality
The "Unknown" Reality Vol. 1
The "Unknown" Reality Vol. 2
The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression
The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events
Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment
joshcryer
(62,297 posts)jmowreader
(50,709 posts)It was the first Thompson book I read.
Bettie
(16,234 posts)Yeah, weird choices maybe, but one shows the value of unconditional love and gratitude, the other shows us both sides of the coin in terms of what humanity is capable of.
That's the quick version, I have to run my kids to their summer College 4 Kids classes.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)career teaching British Lit.
Next most, all as a child:
"Kon-Tiki." Finally got to see it in Oslo.
"Witness for the Prosecution." Began my love of all things Agatha Christie plus a cherished trip to London to see "The Mousetrap."
"Swiss Family Robinson."
deutsey
(20,166 posts)I read it when I was 16. Not only did Vonnegut's writing style deeply influence my own, the worldview underlying this incredible book had a huge impact on the way I see the world.
However, there are so many other books that have deeply influenced me (many of them listed in this thread), I can't possibly begin to name them all.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)I found Catch 22, still have a copy, I still read it every few years.
and a permanent place on my bookshelf for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
scheming daemons
(25,487 posts)Changed my world view.
ladjf
(17,320 posts)RoverSuswade
(641 posts)by Eugene Burdick
JCMach1
(27,606 posts)ummm just kidding (although I did read it)...
Probably would be
Sartre, 'Existentialism and Human Emotions'
Foucault, 'Discipline and Punish'
pure literature... probably would be
Garcia Marquez, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'
Skinner
(63,645 posts)Reading this book was like an epiphany for me. It totally changed the way I viewed the world.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)But if I had to go way back and choose the very first book that had a huge influence on me, it was "Harry The Dirty Dog", which I read when I was maybe six.
First book I was allowed to borrow from the library.
It hurt me to have to return it when I was done. I loved the feel of it...the smell...everything.
It started off a lifelong passion for reading.
When I was a teenager, the next two books were, "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl", and "Territorial Imperative" by Robert Ardrey.
Still later, I read "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl.
I'm sure there are tons more I can't recall right now. I can't even imagine someone having just one book that had a huge influence on him or her.
RobinA
(9,958 posts)of my head:
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson, a story that haunts me still, 40 years after it was read to my 7th grade class
Catcher in the Rye - I was not alone
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Diary of Anne Frank - scares me more now than it did in 6th grade
The Bell Jar
Looking at this list, i can see why I wasn't a happy kid!
DFW
(54,895 posts)I thought it was a short story, not a book, but I remember being blown away by it, too.
DFW
(54,895 posts)Both humorous, although the second not obviously.
The first, because it reminded me that it really is OK to be a little bit crazy, even if no one else thinks so.
The second because it reminded me that it really is OK to be yourself, even if no one else thinks so.
*The Time Cellar (will be published shortly, not out yet) -- for a combination of the above two reasons.
hopemountain
(3,919 posts)wisdoms from tom robbins
DFW
(54,895 posts)"It is said that anticipation of sexual activity makes a man's facial hair grow faster. In fact Alobar may need a shave before the bottom of this page............"
Or something like that. I was in stitches a couple of dozen times while reading Jitterbug Perfume: "The next time you hear of the Bandaloop, it will be a dance craze in Argentina in 1986"
0rganism
(24,084 posts)The GEB got me thinking a lot about computational theory back in the '80s, even though I didn't know that's what it was doing at the time.
There were several others i'd call out as major influences.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
the Foundation series by Asimov (it was a trilogy when i encountered it)
the Illuminatus and Schrodinger's Cat trilogies by Robert Anton Wilson
a bunch of technical books that mainly influenced my engineering career but wouldn't count as literature
oh, and the Bible, always the Bible. No single book has been a greater inspiration for my current spiritual melange of agnosticism/paganism/atheism than the Bible.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)I've tried to explain it to other people, but it never does GEB justice. It really is a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Because that is when its existence becomes justified.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy.
This book explained to me that resources, location, guns v. butter spending, strength relative to other nations, national politics and priorities, expansion, and ascendancy/decline of power (military, economic, social, etc.) are consistently malleable, and must be considered in any discussions regarding the nation-state in the here and now as we know it.
Atman
(31,464 posts)When I was younger, 'The 21 Balloons' was mesmerizing. I think I read the whole book in just a couple of sittings. Totally sparked the imagination. It was about a group of people stranded on an island before Krakatoa erupted, like a communal sort of thing. Each was named after a letter of the alphabet so that names did not infer any status. Very cool.
Then, in Jr. High it was James Leo Herlihy's 'Season of the Witch.' Herlihy is more famous for 'Midnight Cowboy.'
Both of these books were loaded with humor and imagination, and greatly influenced my creative view.
Of course, can't leave out 'Breakfast of Champions.' I even wound up having a cat named Kilgore.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)he has a rare but memorable role in Arthur Penn's flawed by grossly underappreciated movie, Four Friends.
DesertDiamond
(1,616 posts)As for me, as I was without a TV growing up I read a lot of books, will try to think of "that one."
Quixote1818
(29,221 posts)raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)They all started me on a love affair with the authors and all of them have lead to my own personal development in many ways.
alfredo
(60,090 posts)"On The Road" gave me permission to find my own path. Both reinforced my anti establishment, and authoritarian tendencies.
"Stranger in a Strange Land" was the point of no return.
panader0
(25,816 posts)I kept wondering when someone would mention Kerouac's 'On The Road'.
I went on to read all the beats, now reading Bukowski.
alfredo
(60,090 posts)I give "On The Road" as a graduation gift to family members.
stranger81
(2,345 posts)Fantastic book that really crystallized a lot of the struggles I was having at the time in terms of my philosophical perspective on life.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)freebrew
(1,917 posts)hard to pick just 3.
Frankenstein
We
Player Piano
come to mind.
Sagan's Cosmos....I just can't do it....
RedSpartan
(1,693 posts)"That's the kind of crap people always try to lay on me!"
LeftInTX
(26,270 posts)Required reading in history class in 1972 when I was 16. Opened my eyes to the need for organized labor.
Johnny Got His Gun was another required book that affected me on an emotional level.
shenmue
(38,512 posts)I love that book. Read it when I was around 13. It shocked the heck out of me.
I also will never forget 'The Lord of the Rings.' I used to reread it every six months. Maybe I should go back to that.
DFW
(54,895 posts)I love that book, too.
lark
(23,360 posts)Babba Ram Dass
arthritisR_US
(7,306 posts)deathrind
(1,786 posts)exboyfil
(17,880 posts)Fueled my interest in science fiction which was a constant companion of mine from the 6th grade to about age 30. I know Tarzan was only marginally science fiction, but it led to other works like John Carter and other writers like P.J. Farmer, Robert Heinlein, Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock to just name a few.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)It was the first serious exploration as to what makes mass movements tick.
It was all nice and theory back in 1985 or so. These days, my copy is extremely well eared.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)Not only were these my introduction to two of the giants of modern Western literature, but Faulkner and Kafka were both huge early influences on my own fiction writing. Yeah, maybe I'm a little pretentious, oh well...
Probably also 'Johnny Got His Gun' for solidifying my lifelong abhorrence of war and blind patriotism.
LuvNewcastle
(16,899 posts)I appreciated Faulkner's writing on a different level than most people. He was from Mississippi just like I am, and one thing I got from his writing is that you can make the most epic, complex thing out of the totally ordinary and seemingly trivial events that you experience every day. It made me have a greater appreciation for the mundane, which is quite a gift to give someone who lives in a rather boring place; at least most people would say it's boring. Some might say that my interest in the run-of-the-mill details of life is a manifestation of mental illness, but I think my world is fascinating and just as meaningful as life for an active New Yorker.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)Faulkner completely exploded my concept of what you could do with a fictional narrative - so did David Lynch especially with "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive."
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)lives are.
malthaussen
(17,307 posts)I remember my school bus driver telling me it was "trash." He didn't offer any explanation of his judgement. But I never even attempted Atlas Shrugged, since I had tried Fountainhead already and couldn't get even halfway through. That was a few years later, I had cronies in high school who though Rand was a goddess.
-- Mal
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)I think I saw the film first.
On Atlas Shrugged, I skipped/skimmed a lot of boring, dreary crud. That was at least 90% of the book, maybe more.
secondvariety
(1,245 posts)Agony
(2,605 posts)Hannah Holmes "Dust coalesced billions of years ago to form the first stars"
from the cosmos to your kitchen...
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)Has anyone read it? I've never met another person that has read it.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)It didn't engage me very well. But, I have heard very good things about Godel Escher Bach and the only reason why I haven't read it is that my must-read list is already too damn long.
I've even had the window to the Amazon page for GEB open in my browser for at least two months.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)You should read GEB first. Seriously, you should read Gödel, Escher, Bach.
malthaussen
(17,307 posts)Not recommended reading for a 12-year-old. However, around the same time, I also read Griffin's Black Like Me, and I'd say that had a pretty profound influence also. Most of the books I read around that time made serious impacts, no doubt because I was still pretty innocent in those bygone days. Honorable mention to the Apology of Plato and Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. 1968 was a big year for for influential reading for me.
-- Mal
Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)It may not be a popular choice here, but the Bible has influenced me a lot. The rants of the Hebrew prophets against income inequality, the words of Jesus about "blessed are the poor" and "do this for the least of these," the commandment to "love they neighbor as thyself," all these have shaped my politics.
As a child, I read To Kill a Mockingbird, and it changed my life. Also Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country.
As an academic, the Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the writings of liberation and feminist theologians, the teachings of Gandhi...how to choose just one?
Stryst
(714 posts)"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Stranger in a Strange Land", both by Robert Heinlein.
bananas
(27,509 posts)3catwoman3
(24,336 posts)I love to read, and I love words and especially exquisitely precise use of words. Because of that, I was thinking of Roget's Thesaurus, but thought that would sound kind of crazy. Reading thru this thread, I was relieved to see that one other DUer had made the same choice.
I can still remember spending quite a long time on a high school writing assignment, searching for just the right word to explain how an author had given qualities to one of the characters. I debated the shades of meaning of endow, imbue, endue, and indue, and ended up choosing indue. This would have been in 1968, and I no longer remember the book nor the author, but I remember the joy of finding just the right word.
It is an exercise I still relish.
I also enjoy re-reading books I have loved, often just to enjoy once again a particular author's skill with word use.
antiGOPin294
(53 posts)His books are truly prophetic. The ideas presented in 1984 are becoming more and more realistic in today's society, especially in light of the recent NSA scandals.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)Roger Zelazny-Lord Of Light
Heinlein-The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
elzenmahn
(904 posts)In no particular order...
1. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass;
2. Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges;
3. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges;
4. The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann;
5. People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn;
6. ...and many, many others...
WCLinolVir
(951 posts)I really liked The Double, by Dostoyevsky, that and Notes From Underground. Kafka, and for perspective John Bergers' Ways Of Seeing. Poetry-Neruda, the best.
I just have to give a shout out to Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Fahrenheit 451. One of my absolute favorite writers.
betsuni
(26,227 posts)And fun to parody, like Woody Allen did with "Notes from the Overfed." I was just thinking that it's time to find my copy of Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine." The perfect book for summer, I never tire of reading it, never will. Rich delicious writing.
WCLinolVir
(951 posts)LiberalLovinLug
(14,216 posts)Where I first was introduced to the idea that life was just one big joke, sometimes cruel, sometimes deep, sometimes whacky
Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse:
(repeating myself from a previous post)....Learning to appreciate.....period. Music, life, people.... no matter how it comes to you.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig:
Drove home the value of QUALITY in life. To be able to recognize it and appreciate it. Not even material things (although that is also important), but quality in how you recognize and value the quality in the people and time and places you find along the way.
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)The Metta Sutta being my favorite.
Midnight Writer
(22,112 posts)Brainy, nerdy high school kid develops incredible super powers overnight. Now, what does he do with them? Peter Parker wants to do the right thing and use his powers for good, but discovers that: one, doing what you think is right is not easy and may hurt you and people you love, and two, "With great power comes great responsibility".
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)snot
(10,556 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,899 posts)One book that my mind returns to when I think of big influences on my life is a book called "Irrational Man." I don't know if it's still in print, and I lost my copy of it long ago. I was in high school when I read it, and I remember it as being a very dense book. It took me a while to get through it. It kept me in the library looking up words and sources. Hell, for all I know, it might have been a book made of someone's masters or doctoral thesis. It might have been re-edited and released as another book or, as I said, could be out of print.
Due to the book's density, I can't call it a very well-written book, although I wasn't a very well-read teenager at the time, and I might not find it dense at all if I read it today. Anyway, it was about existential philosophy, something that was very hard for me to grasp at the time. It reminds me of what I think about string theory today: I'm leaning about it and I can tell you a lot about the concept, but I still don't have the subject down in my mind.
The most important thing the book did was introduce me to a lot of authors: Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Sartre, Shakespeare, and a lot of other European writers in particular. I also began to look at literature much more as fun instead of as a chore to be read for a class. I started seeing it in a brand new light, as something I could learn from and apply to my real life. That was revolutionary for me, and that's why I think it was an important book in my life.
That's also an important lesson about books. Good books teach you something unexpected about another subject besides the subject written about in the book. It's always fun to sit and think about what that thing might be. If a book doesn't teach you anything besides its subject, it's no better than a how-to manual.
Godot51
(239 posts)... I was 6 or 7 and we were riding the train from San Diego to Washington D.C. and my sister and i had a stack of comics along for the ride, including some of those "Classic" Comics and that was the first time I learned of such injustice and Jean Valjean became so real to me. I've read and reread the actual novel ever since.
Of course there were those magical moments when I read books for the first time that I sometimes wish I could read them again.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)"I know Why the Caged Bird Sings"
And also "The Bell Jar"
I read both as a young teenager in rural America. Opened my eyes to things I never thought of.
eShirl
(18,532 posts)RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)I read literally hundreds of "difficult" books each year, but that one children's book has done more than any to define my world view.
Among its lessons are the absurdity of using our differences as a wedge and how opportunists capitalize on this divide and conquer strategy.
It also addresses the pitfalls of irrational fears and the pointlessness of obstinance (as well as the danger of having 26 boys and naming them all "Dave"!)
panader0
(25,816 posts)angel823
(409 posts)Sent me down a path to read all his books, and pretty much sealed the deal on my attitudes toward society.
Angel In Texas
bowens43
(16,064 posts)Petrushka
(3,709 posts)Reviews --- From the inside flap:
In this brilliant and profound study the distinguished American anthropologist Marvin Harris shows how the endless varieties of cultural behavior -- often so puzzling at first glance -- can be explained as adaptations to particular ecological conditions. His aim is to account for the evolution of cultural forms as Darwin accounted for the evolution of biological forms: to show how cultures adopt their characteristic forms in response to changing ecological modes.
"[A] magisterial interpretation of the rise and fall of human cultures and societies."
-- Robert Lekachman, Washington Post Book World
"Its persuasive arguments asserting the primacy of cultural rather than genetic or psychological factors in human life deserve the widest possible audience."
-- Gloria Levitas The New Leader
"[An] original and...urgent theory about the nature of man and at the reason that human cultures take so many diverse shapes."
-- The New Yorker
http://www.amazon.com/dp/067972849X/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3522187618&ref=pd_sl_yx7dj7b55_pp
betsuni
(26,227 posts)Somebody make that happen. My first was "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches." I still have copies of "Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture," "Why Nothing Works," and "Our Kind." I bought a signed copy (signed on July 1, 1969) of his "The Rise of Anthropological Theory" in a used book store, but that's a real textbook and stays on the shelf. Harris is to anthropology what Sagan is that science stuff.
toby jo
(1,269 posts)On the nature and conversations of the nature spirits. #1 absolutely.
Be Here Now, by Ram Dass.
Somebody mentioned Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery, & her husband Steve wrote some pretty good books, too. The woman delivered my son in TN at The Farm, great people, those hippie type folks.
Castanadas' books, all of them, great reads.
Mister God, this is Anna. This little orphan girl lays it out on love and hypocrisy and how to live.
Maybe DU should get up a book read every few weeks or so
. great thread, Quixote.
Exposethefrauds
(531 posts)bobGandolf
(871 posts)One of my favorite memories, with my father, was him reading, and rereading the book for many nights, because it was the one we kept choosing.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)In their own wa,y both were about tension between the spiritual/emotional and imtellectual/classical sides of out natire, and how to reconcile them.
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)I know it's weird.. But it was the first "grown up" book I ever read. After little kids books, then The Outsiders and endless days reading Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators, Salems Lot opened a whole new world to me. After that I read everything I could get my hands on..
ismnotwasm
(42,082 posts)Hands down.
WatermelonRat
(340 posts)I read it when I was about eight, and it gave me a deep interest in environmentalism. It was this interest that eventually got me into politics in general.
kardonb
(777 posts)The works of Shakespeare , for showing me the beauty of the English language , and its richness .
devils chaplain
(602 posts)I got about 2/3 through Don Quixote and since have been stuck putting it off. It's entertaining but it isn't all I thought it would be.
Rozlee
(2,529 posts)It made me a sci-fi fan at an early age. I became so engrossed in the world of science fiction that I actually believed that we had already explored the most outermost reaches of space and broken the time barrier. I was outraged when the Apollo missions came around. You mean we hadn't even made it to the fucking moon? It was OK. I'd already blasted off with Tom, Roger and Astro all over the galaxy.
icarusxat
(403 posts)It made me rethink everything...Thanks Richard.
Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)by Dr. Leo Marvin.
giftedgirl77
(4,713 posts)I love that damn movie.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)rogerashton
(3,920 posts)Dad taught me how to "cheat" with logarithms. It was all downhill from there.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)KatyMan
(4,245 posts)As a young person, The Lord of the Rings was an influence on my point of view, mainly because of my readings about the author, then all that changed when I read Joseph Campbell. Campbell seriously influenced the person I am today. Also Marquez, Eliot and Hemingway. And, tho not via books, the Beatles
mockmonkey
(2,892 posts)I read it as a teen and learned not to use the vacuum cleaner for impure deeds because it might cause you to urinate and then you'll have to explain to your parents how you broke the vacuum.
Besides we had a Hoover Upright with a "beater bar" and no hose attachment so that in itself was a deterrent.
dem in texas
(2,674 posts)Way back in the late 1940's I was on Christmas vacation, about 9 years old. Bored and found an old copy of this book in the house. It was the first book I ever read without pictures and the writing was old fashioned and slow going, I had to go ask my mother for help with some of the words, but it was the first time that the words really spoke to me and let my mind take over and supply the images. I long regarded this book as the best I ever read, of course I know better know, but it was a real milestone in my reading.
My grandson was like me, didn't really like to read. Back when Jurassic Park was a best seller book, I thought he'd like the book, he was about 12 then. He read it and like me, it took him to a new place in his imagination. He became a confirmed bookworm, that summer, he went on a reading binge, reading one book after another.
Both me and my grandson are confirmed readers, I read every night. I no longer like fiction, just read the book about the Irish Potato Famine, everyone should read that, so many lessons about what happened then and how much things are still the same today. Also read the book about Michael Rockefeller going missing, a good read. Reading about the Lucchese boot family right now.
clarice
(5,504 posts)Coventina
(27,293 posts)As a young adult: The Spiral Dance by Starhawk
As a mature adult: The Outsider by Colin Wilson
Yeah, it's been a long, strange trip.....
No idea what the next chapter will bring....