Kevin's Watch

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.-jay

I haven't read too many "life changing" books so I'll have to say
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and
1984 by George Orwell

Oh man... I don't know about literally life changing, but so many of the books I've read have had an impact on me that I'd be hard pressed to list even most of them. Still, here's a list of some of the ones that really stick out:

Illusions -- Richard Bach
The Prophet -- Kahlil Gibran
Zen Without Zen Masters -- Camden Benares
The Principia Discordia -- Kerry Thornly and Greg Hill
The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell -- Aldous Huxley
The Politics of Ecstacy -- Timothy Leary

Uh, I'm gonna stop there for now.

--Avatar

kevinswatch wrote:One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.-jay

A Classic!!

Possibley To Kill a Mokingbird--was able to learn what blind hatred really was.

On South Mountain was a Non-Fiction that really hit home

Avatar wrote:The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell -- Aldous Huxley--Avatar

That book is amazing, and evne more so if you can understand the references to William Blake and are well read with his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Worth checking out if you think that Aldous Huxley made an impact. Blake is a brilliant satirist, cheers.

Like Avatar, many of the books I read have had an influence on me. I can't remember all of them to name them, but here are a few fiction and non-fiction books that have had a real or emotional impact, in no particular order:

Thomas Covenant

The Gap Cycle

Harry Potter (Go ahead, laugh. If you knew the number of hours I've wasted online because of these books, and the things I've gotten involved with... Definitely a life-changer).

The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

The King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry (a children's book)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Chesapeake by James A. Michener

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

The Body Language of Horses by Tom Ainslie and Bonnie Ledbetter (this became the foundation of how I interact with horses)

The Man Who Listens to Horses by Monty Roberts (the second half of my foundation)

The only life-changing books that I can think of were all in school...

Math, geography, science, and Charlotte's Web!

2 books I read as a child:

Beautiful Joe. About a big, ugly dog that had been abused. It opened my eyes to animal cruelty and ever since, this has been the "issue" I am most passionate about. The charities I donate to on a regular basis are all related to animal welfare in one, way, shape or form. I especially have a soft spot for dogs. The bigger and uglier the better!

Shadow Castle. Some would, I suppose, call it a "fairy tale" but I prefer to think of it more as a fantasy for children. One of the main characters is a shy and gentle dragon named Bramstookah. I've had a fascination with dragons and the mythology of dragons ever since. There are dragons all over my house! It set the tone for my reading preferences. Without Shadow Castle, I may not have found Covenant! I may not have ever read Anne McCaffrey.

As an adult. Anne Mcaffrey's Pern novels, simply because they tie into my meeting my husband.

White Fang
Death Be Not Proud
A Seperate Peace
Johnny Got His Gun
Sirens of Titan
Doors of Perception
Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Inverted World
The Chronices of Thomas Covenant
Dune
Siddartha
A Confederate General at Big Sur
A Seperate Reality-the Teachings of Don Juan
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Illuminatus!
Schroedenger's Cat
The Mind's Eye
Startide Rising
Still Life With a Wood Pecker
It's All in the Playing
Neverness
The Broken God
All the Pretty Horses
A Clash of Kings
Shadow of the Torturer

FizbansTalking_Hat wrote:That book is amazing, and evne more so if you can understand the references to William Blake and are well read with his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

Very familiar with Blake as it happens.

Aah, and so many others mentioned here that I didn't include, especially by Danlo. Like Siddartha and The Glass Bead Game by Hesse, oh hell, i'm not even gonna try...suffice it to say, in fact, that most of the books I've read have impacted on me in some way. It may only have been a single line. But it's impact nonetheless.

--A

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Interview with the Vampire
Titus Groan

Those are all books that have permanently affected my perspective or the way I think/feel.

In a very real sense, Knights of Dark Renown changed my life, because it was primarily that book that got me reading fantasy.

The Velveteen Rabbit

The Hobbit

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Last Battle

(and all the books in the series between the two above)

The Screwtape Letters

Pretty much any of the early stuff written by Robert Heinlein

Macbeth

Hamlet

Pretty much everything written for young adults by
Madeline L'Engel

Shaping much of my political thought--especially my DEEP distrust of governments was 1984

Then there was it's companion piece, which also led me to question following anyone in power like a sheep--and drowsing my way through better living through chemicals...Brave New World

Oh, and one of my ultimate favorites:

The Vision of Stephen

cheval wrote:The only life-changing books that I can think of were all in school...

Math, geography, science, and Charlotte's Web!

But on a more serious note:
Just about any "real" Martial Art book.
(Not adventure books or the like, but manuals and study books.
Been learning Kung-Fu since 1979.)

ChoChiyo wrote:Macbeth

That too.

FizbansTalking_Hat wrote:

Avatar wrote:The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell -- Aldous Huxley--Avatar

That book is amazing, and evne more so if you can understand the references to William Blake and are well read with his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Worth checking out if you think that Aldous Huxley made an impact. Blake is a brilliant satirist, cheers.

If you are a fan of Blake and Songs of Innocence and Experience, I urge you with the strongest possible words to track down the CD from Naxos of William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience, where the composer has set those poems to music. It is a masterpiece, and somehow pulls all sorts of music into an organic whole...its amazing, truly amazing.

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Bhagavad Gita
TCTC
Conversations with God - Neale Donald Walsch
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Earthsea series - Ursula K. Le Guin
Fools Crow: Wisdom and Power - Thomas Mails
Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield
The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse
Illusions - Richard Bach
The Neverness series - David Zindell
The Ninja - Eric Lustbader
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
Tao Te Ching
Upanishads
A Wrinkle in Time - Madelyn L'Engle
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
Zen in the Art of Archery - Eugen Herrigel


Technically, Gates didn't change my life. I read it too recently for that. But it's certainly among the most powerful books I've ever read, and would have had a huge influence on me if I had read it years ago. The Neverness books are sort of in the same boat, except parts of them were new to me, so they changed me to some degree.

Now I'll just wait to remember something hugely important to me that just isn't coming to mind now, so I can smack myself in the head.

duchess of malfi wrote:If you are a fan of Blake and Songs of Innocence and Experience, I urge you with the strongest possible words to track down the CD from Naxos of William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience, where the composer has set those poems to music. It is a masterpiece, and somehow pulls all sorts of music into an organic whole...its amazing, truly amazing.

Thanks Duchess. I'll definitely keep an eye out for it.

--A

Physics by Halliday and Resnick.
Nothing else comes close.
But for fiction, Mother Night by Vonnegut.

Two I forgot:

Go Dog Go! (of course)

and the amazing:

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstader

[and I agree w/ZatAoMM Fist! ]