What books have changed your life?

TadW · 06-27-2008, 05:05 AM

Technologist Kevin Kelly:

I don't mean merely great books, or memorable ones, or favorite ones. I mean books that altered your behavior, changed your mind, redirected the course of your life. Books as levers.

Let's put them down here in this thread, the books that have been levers for us, and changed our life and way of thinking.

My list:

- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

- Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

- My first C++ textbook (dunno the title, but I think it was from O'Reilly)

Over · 06-27-2008, 09:05 AM

- The Bible
- The Physician, by Noah Gordon

WDecraene · 06-27-2008, 09:54 AM

- 1984
- Kassandra (Christa Wolf)
- The Illuminatus Trilogy (RA Wilson)
- Catch 22 (Heller)

pshrynk · 06-27-2008, 10:37 AM

Stranger in a Strange Land
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Ervserver · 06-27-2008, 10:50 AM

Women for Dummies

tirsales · 06-27-2008, 01:29 PM

Really hard to say.

* "Lord of the Rings" - it introduced a world of fantasy and I am eternally grateful to J.R.R. Tolkien for that.

* "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams) Discworld-seroes (Terry Pratchett) - Fantasy/SciFi can be funny but still deeply philosophical

* Last of their kind (Douglas Adams) and later "Selmon in doubt" (Douglas Adams) - Life is much too short

* "In 300 Jahren vielleicht" (Tillmann Röhrig) (I dont think there is an english version, but the title translates to 'Perhaps in 300 years') - it was the first book I cried over. Story: 5 days in a little village during the Thirty Years' War in Europe. I was 12 when I read it, and it moved me deeply.

RWood · 06-27-2008, 02:25 PM

Made life:

The Bible

Changed life:

The Medium is the Message

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Eclipse of the Intellectual

Time Enough for Love

vivaldirules · 06-28-2008, 12:08 AM

Great question. It's the main reason I read anything at all. I'd say in rough order of influence and importance to me:

An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa, and most other writings by Mohandis K. Gandhi
Demian and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other books by Joseph Campbell
Unto This Last by John Ruskin
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Clayborne Carson
The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski
Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnnegut
Lying Awake by Mark Salzman
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Sorry for listing so many. And I have so much more to read that I hope will be of equal importance to me.

JSWolf · 06-28-2008, 08:26 AM

I would have to say that the books that changed my life were the Star trek books by James Blish. Those were the first science fiction books I read that I can recall. They were given to me in a box of books someone was getting rid of and now I do read a lot of science fiction & fantasy type books.

astra · 06-28-2008, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tirsales

"Lord of the Rings" - it introduced a world of fantasy and I am eternally grateful to J.R.R. Tolkien for that.

Ditto. I have nothing to add.

slayda · 06-28-2008, 01:49 PM

All of Robert Heinlein's books together but particularly "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress", "Time Enough For Love", "Fear No Evil", "Friday", and "Starman Jones".

Also Andre Norton's "Daybreak 2250 AD", Jerry Pournelle/Larry Niven/Steven Barnes' "The Legacy of Heorot", C.J. Cherryh's "Cuckoo's Egg", and especially Jack Chalkers "Soul Rider" series.

basschick · 06-28-2008, 05:08 PM

the books that changed my life are actually books i read as a child. they helped form my view of the world. i'd say the edward eager books - particularly maybe magic and the well wishers - lloyd alexander's book of 3 series and a book called why not join the giraffes by hope campbell. while there are many, many books that have influenced me, these helped define the way i look at the world even all these years later

RickyMaveety · 06-28-2008, 09:35 PM

Andre Norton's "Star Man's Son" (which might have been a retitling of Daybreak 2250) ... that got me hooked on Science Fiction in a big way.

The Bible ... which after I read and studied it convinced me that I had no business calling myself a Christian and led me towards Buddhism.

Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, which changed the way I thought about how the world works.

Heinlein's Lazarous Long series of books because they made me consider the perspective of people who were of a different sexual orientation than I.

Larry Niven's series leading up to "Ringworld" which made me consider the theory of panspermia from a different point of view.

Lord of the Rings, which gave me a better lesson on the battle of good versus evil than the Bible ever could (and no one was demanding that I actually believe in the literal truth of LotR which was a big plus for me).

Jerzy Kozinski's "The Painted Bird" which made me vow to protect the rights of the disenfranchised for the rest of my days, and which might have been the trigger that sent me to law school.

I think that's most or all of them. I'll probably think of something in the middle of the night, and wake up out of a dead sleep feeling like a complete idiot for leaving it out.

RCR · 06-29-2008, 05:07 AM

"Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse: a gentle, simple story of the journey of a great and wise man. I read it when I was a teenager. It kick-started my spiritual beliefs.

"Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb and "Misbehaviour of Markets" by Benoit Mandelbrot: I read these much more recently and they changed the way I look at the world. Where I once saw significance, I now see randomness.

My belief in an Intelligent Designer has given way to a belief that everything is just happenstance.

spooky69 · 06-29-2008, 05:53 AM

Slaughterhouse-Five. I took too many mushrooms and extrapolated a plot of my own life out in a tangentially related way to the 2/3 of the book that I had read at the point when I tripped. Anyway, I kinda became convinced that I was in an experiment or at least something analogous to a perfectly complex computer system run by aliens, basically, and those aliens being something pretty far beyond humans (and maybe even humans themselves doing kind of a generational loop which actually acts in its own name and does something with quantum faggot physics or something, right?). I also became convinced that I was god, which is something that will hit you pretty hard for a while until you give up the ghost on that bullshit (it's not a philosophically productive line of thought, nor is it science). And, so, this is mostly to blame on Kurt Vonnegut, basically.

06-27-2008, 05:05 AM	#1
TadW Uebermensch Posts: 2,583 Karma: 1094606 Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Italy Device: Kindle	What books have changed your life? Technologist Kevin Kelly: I don't mean merely great books, or memorable ones, or favorite ones. I mean books that altered your behavior, changed your mind, redirected the course of your life. Books as levers. Let's put them down here in this thread, the books that have been levers for us, and changed our life and way of thinking. My list: - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - Siddhartha by Herman Hesse - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell - My first C++ textbook (dunno the title, but I think it was from O'Reilly)

06-27-2008, 02:25 PM	#7
RWood Technogeezer Posts: 7,233 Karma: 1601464 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Virginia, USA Device: Sony PRS-500	Made life: The Bible Changed life: The Medium is the Message Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Eclipse of the Intellectual Time Enough for Love

06-28-2008, 01:49 PM	#11
slayda Retired & reading more! Posts: 2,764 Karma: 1884247 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: North Alabama, USA Device: Kindle 1, iPad Air 2, iPhone 6S+, Kobo Aura One	All of Robert Heinlein's books together but particularly "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress", "Time Enough For Love", "Fear No Evil", "Friday", and "Starman Jones". Also Andre Norton's "Daybreak 2250 AD", Jerry Pournelle/Larry Niven/Steven Barnes' "The Legacy of Heorot", C.J. Cherryh's "Cuckoo's Egg", and especially Jack Chalkers "Soul Rider" series. Last edited by slayda; 06-28-2008 at 01:53 PM.

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06-27-2008, 09:05 AM	#2
Over Wizard Posts: 1,462 Karma: 6061516 Join Date: May 2008 Location: Cascais, Portugal Device: Kindle PW, Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2", OnePlus 6	- The Bible - The Physician, by Noah Gordon

06-27-2008, 09:54 AM	#3
WDecraene Zealot Posts: 114 Karma: 597 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Belgistan Device: A FREE (!!!) replacement cybook gen 3	- 1984 - Kassandra (Christa Wolf) - The Illuminatus Trilogy (RA Wilson) - Catch 22 (Heller)

06-27-2008, 10:37 AM	#4
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06-27-2008, 10:50 AM	#5
Ervserver Wizard Posts: 2,624 Karma: 1008294 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Iowa, USA Device: Nook Simple Touch	Women for Dummies

06-27-2008, 01:29 PM	#6
tirsales MIA ... but returning som Posts: 1,600 Karma: 511342 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Germany Device: PRS-505 and Really not owning a PRS-700	Really hard to say. * "Lord of the Rings" - it introduced a world of fantasy and I am eternally grateful to J.R.R. Tolkien for that. * "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams) Discworld-seroes (Terry Pratchett) - Fantasy/SciFi can be funny but still deeply philosophical * Last of their kind (Douglas Adams) and later "Selmon in doubt" (Douglas Adams) - Life is much too short * "In 300 Jahren vielleicht" (Tillmann Röhrig) (I dont think there is an english version, but the title translates to 'Perhaps in 300 years') - it was the first book I cried over. Story: 5 days in a little village during the Thirty Years' War in Europe. I was 12 when I read it, and it moved me deeply.

06-28-2008, 12:08 AM	#8
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	Great question. It's the main reason I read anything at all. I'd say in rough order of influence and importance to me: An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa, and most other writings by Mohandis K. Gandhi Demian and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other books by Joseph Campbell Unto This Last by John Ruskin The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Clayborne Carson The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnnegut Lying Awake by Mark Salzman The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy Sorry for listing so many. And I have so much more to read that I hope will be of equal importance to me.

06-28-2008, 08:26 AM	#9
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 73,887 Karma: 128597114 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	I would have to say that the books that changed my life were the Star trek books by James Blish. Those were the first science fiction books I read that I can recall. They were given to me in a box of books someone was getting rid of and now I do read a lot of science fiction & fantasy type books.

06-28-2008, 05:08 PM	#12
basschick Wizard Posts: 1,096 Karma: 4695691 Join Date: May 2008 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	the books that changed my life are actually books i read as a child. they helped form my view of the world. i'd say the edward eager books - particularly maybe magic and the well wishers - lloyd alexander's book of 3 series and a book called why not join the giraffes by hope campbell. while there are many, many books that have influenced me, these helped define the way i look at the world even all these years later

06-28-2008, 09:35 PM	#13
RickyMaveety Holy S**T!!! Posts: 5,213 Karma: 108401 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: San Diego, California!! Device: Kindle and iPad	Andre Norton's "Star Man's Son" (which might have been a retitling of Daybreak 2250) ... that got me hooked on Science Fiction in a big way. The Bible ... which after I read and studied it convinced me that I had no business calling myself a Christian and led me towards Buddhism. Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, which changed the way I thought about how the world works. Heinlein's Lazarous Long series of books because they made me consider the perspective of people who were of a different sexual orientation than I. Larry Niven's series leading up to "Ringworld" which made me consider the theory of panspermia from a different point of view. Lord of the Rings, which gave me a better lesson on the battle of good versus evil than the Bible ever could (and no one was demanding that I actually believe in the literal truth of LotR which was a big plus for me). Jerzy Kozinski's "The Painted Bird" which made me vow to protect the rights of the disenfranchised for the rest of my days, and which might have been the trigger that sent me to law school. I think that's most or all of them. I'll probably think of something in the middle of the night, and wake up out of a dead sleep feeling like a complete idiot for leaving it out.

06-29-2008, 05:07 AM	#14
RCR Addict Posts: 334 Karma: 992487 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Melbourne, Australia Device: 2 x Sony 505, iPad, Samsung 7 Tablet, ASUS Transformer, Nexus 7	"Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse: a gentle, simple story of the journey of a great and wise man. I read it when I was a teenager. It kick-started my spiritual beliefs. "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb and "Misbehaviour of Markets" by Benoit Mandelbrot: I read these much more recently and they changed the way I look at the world. Where I once saw significance, I now see randomness. My belief in an Intelligent Designer has given way to a belief that everything is just happenstance.

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06-29-2008, 05:53 AM	#15
spooky69 Stats: Posts: 233 Karma: 1189 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: Sony PRS-505	Slaughterhouse-Five. I took too many mushrooms and extrapolated a plot of my own life out in a tangentially related way to the 2/3 of the book that I had read at the point when I tripped. Anyway, I kinda became convinced that I was in an experiment or at least something analogous to a perfectly complex computer system run by aliens, basically, and those aliens being something pretty far beyond humans (and maybe even humans themselves doing kind of a generational loop which actually acts in its own name and does something with quantum faggot physics or something, right?). I also became convinced that I was god, which is something that will hit you pretty hard for a while until you give up the ghost on that bullshit (it's not a philosophically productive line of thought, nor is it science). And, so, this is mostly to blame on Kurt Vonnegut, basically.