Books which Changed your Life

These book are the ones that changed my life, but in a less dramatic way. They were the ones that showed me as a child that I should prefer reading over television or video games.

The Animorphs Series - K. A. Applegate

Star Man's Son by Andre Norton
An anthology of classic horror short stories, title long forgotten
Alfred Hitchcock's Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV
Conan of Cimmeria by Robert E. Howard
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Education of Henry Adams
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

Interesting question. I should probably think before responding but....

Wild Animals I Have Known - Ernest Thompson Seton
White Fang - Jack London
All the Thornton W. Burgess books.
Swiss Family Robinson - Johann Davis Wyss
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B - J.P. Donleavy
Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick
Slaughterhouse Five (and pretty much any book by) Kurt Vonnegut
The Deed of Paksenarrion - Elizabeth Moon

There's a whole bunch of honourable mentions including books by Larry McMurtry, Elmore Leonard, Rex Stout, Tad Williams, Jerzy Kosinski and many others.

Peter Freuchen's Book of the Seven Seas
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Real Magic by Wayne Dyer
Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra
Out on a Limb by Shirley Maclain

Hard to say that any one book ever "changed my life," but Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke made quite an impression on me. Looking back, that book may have started me moving toward atheism.

When I was a kid, Edgar Rice Burroughs made me a voracious reader. But I was pretty avid even before that.

The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch
Christina's Ghost by Betty Ren Wright
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

Nothing much makes a lasting impression on me but there are two that made a longer lasting impression than others

Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maughan.

I was devastated when i read that book. I was about 16 or 17 I think. I couldn't read for months. I tried to read it again about a year ago and it just wasn't doing it for me. lol

Over The Edge, Suzanne Brockmann.

A romantic suspense, but it got me writing again. The way she wrote POV was the way I wanted to do it, really tight, totally in the head without actually being 1st person. I loved it. It absolutely devastates me that I hated her last book so much i had to force myself to finish it.

ETA hmmm devastated seems to be my keyword this week. oh well, that's how i felt.

from a writing perspective (and a random sample)

A Moveable Feast - Hemingway (It inspired a novel for me. Simple words/complex ideas/true, declarative sentences)
The Great Gatsby -Fitzgerald (poetry in prose)
The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger (voice/perspective)
Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut (pace, voice, humor, social context)
Tuesdays with Morrie - Albom (moral)
It - King (characterization/high emotion/experimentation with language)
Still Life with Woodpecker - Robbins (suspension of disbelief)
Pride and Prejudice (complex characters and the importance of subplots linking into the main plot)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Diaz (voice voice voice, the power of poetry in prose, gorgeous lyrical words)
A Walk in the Woods - Bryson (humor and truth in small things. If you can write the truest sentence - the truest version - you will touch people)
Leaves of Grass - Whitman (isn't "Whitman" a good enough reason?)
Peter Pan - Barrie (to stay young in perspective is a glorious thing/nto to be afraid of where imagination takes you - get on that bus and ride, even if it's headed for a cliff.)
And I learn more and more with each great book I read.

You know, there's another thread on almost this: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64931


Perhaps a modly type could do a merge. And maybe a sticky.

Mostly...any Roald Dahl book. He began my love of words. Well, Dr. Seuss began it really...but Dahl made me want to spend my life with words.


A Movable Feast - Hemingway
The Great Gatsby -Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
Franny & Zooey - Salinger
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
Great Expectations - Dickens
A Separate Peace - Knowles
The Chrysalids - Wyndham
The Innocents Abroad - Twain

All the above books really solidified my love of story and made me want to chase the written word.

robeiae said:

You know, there's another thread on almost this: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64931


Perhaps a modly type could do a merge. And maybe a sticky.

Click to expand...

but. but. but. that's non-fiction.

KTC said:

but. but. but. that's non-fiction.

Click to expand...

That's why I said "almost." This thread is both, right? Still, it all makes an excellent reading list.

I'm just trying to help. As usual.

You are right, my good man. they are almost alike. And yes, it is your wont to help.

I forgot To Kill A Mockingbird - Lee

I can't think of them all, but Fight Club by Chuck Palahnuik has to be up there.

When I was 12 or 13 I read Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

Until that point in my life, I had never seen someone treat words like that. It opened up my world.

The novelization of The 10th Kingdom mini-series. It was so bad, I finished it and said to myself, "I can write better than that." I've been trying to write ever since.

His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Candide by Voltaire
The Trial by Franz Kafka
1984 by George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I'd say that all of these have had some impact on my outlook on life. So have a number of non-fiction books.

I answered this question a long time ago:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1007627&postcount=2

Atonement by Ian McEwan is the one that springs to mind right away. The movie too. So intense and heartbreaking.

An excellent topic. I should give this more thought, but heck with it. Off the top of my head:

All the Tarzan books - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton
Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Magick - Aleister Crowley
The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
The Collected Works of Freiderich Nietsche
The Collected Works of William Blake
The Confessions of Aleister Crowley

I'm missing something important, I'm sure...

Lord of the Rings
My first Victoria Holt novel (can't remember what it was called)
Jane Eyre
Persuasion
And Quiet Flows the Don
The Don Flows Home to the Sea