What novel blew your mind?

Pete Benchley's The Island was a total sleeper hit for me. It was full of authentic pirate research, and had a humorous irony to it.

The Hobbit just blew me way in all the right senses.

tri

When I first read Brave New World it blew my mind. So awesome, it just made me re-think so many things.

profen4 said:

You would fit in quite well with everyone I know. I can't put my finger on exactly why I enjoyed it so much, but I just ate it up.

Click to expand...

Hmm, fit in with other people? That would be a new experience!

If you can't tell from my username, mine was War and Peace. I read it January-February of this year for a class. The intro described Tolstoy as a writer whose writing was life, as if he had captured life in his hands and transcribed it perfectly onto the page, every feeling, every interaction, every nuanced characteristic of a person. I thought, "Pfft, okay. We'll see about that."

Boy, was the intro right.

The Brothers Karamazov. I have a limit on how many times I can read it, only once every five years. It sends me into a depression each time...the only book that has ever affected me deeply. I had such a hard time reading it the first time, at 16, I had a notebook to keep all the characters names straight. It's just magnificent to me.

Winters Bone. I haven't even finished it. I don't want to. I just want to always have it to read...I read like a line at a time. It's the first time I've ever read a book the spoke so beautifully about things I was so familiar with and thought I was the only one who found them beautiful enough to write about.

Dune by Frank Herbert

Came at a time in my life that completely changed how I viewed Science Fiction reading. Plus, I really glommed onto the Bene Gesserit.

Bushrat said:

The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

Non-fiction:

Anne Frank's diary
Grizzly Heart by Charlie Russell

Click to expand...

Oh yeah The Bone People! The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was six lol and THe Magician's Nephew. Wished the other books in the series lived up to those two but they don't really.
The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin and Orx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King! Tess of d'Urbervilles. The World According to Garp (when I was 12) To the Island by Janet Frame. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver...it's not the most amazing book in literature, but it just struck something in me. I think it was the first book I had to read for school that I truly enjoyed. It blew me away.

Wasn't quite a novel, but I remember being blown away by Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, it really changed how I saw the world. Also, The Adventures of Augie March was an amazing book. The Great Gatsby was another. Too many to name, really.

Bushrat said:

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

Click to expand...

This is next up on my TBR shelf. Glad to hear it was good!

I have more--books that I not only loved, but which I loved much more than I thought I would:

Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (I'd heard so much about Margaret Atwood, being Canadian, that I was sure I wouldn't like her)
The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov-- I'd never heard of it, but was intrigued by the blurb... and wow, what a book, should be much more famous than it is!

profen4 said:

People? Who said anything about people? Everyone I know is imaginary

Click to expand...

Even me? *sniffle* And I thought I was a REAL sqrl!

Stephen King - It.

My favourite novel.

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. It's about the life of a woman (from childhood until her death) in medieval Norway. I read it when I was in my 20s and have reread it many times since then. The characters are so real, with such psychological depth, that reading the novel made me feel like I was living in the Middle Ages.

Atonement by Ian McEwan. Although I knew the characters were imaginary, I cared so much about what happened to them that when I got to the end I went back to the beginning to try to make the story turn out differently.

And more recently, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. I learned so much about telling an exciting story from reading this book.

profen4 said:

There's a thread for overrated novels, and there's a thread for books that you pitched across the room. But I'm really interested in the opposite. What books have you read that just blew your mind?

For me, the answer is simple: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I had very little expectations for this novel, and it just left me gasping. It has maintained its spot as my favorite novel for years.

Click to expand...

My favorite book and movie.

L.A. Confidential- made me want to read everything Ellroy's done, such a great novel in its complexity & range of characters

A Storm of Swords- WOW, went places I never expected

Catcher in the Rye- loved it in high school

AshleyEpidemic said:

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I read it when I was 13 and it left me in awe. It is still one of my favorite books. It also solidified my draw to books that are dark.

Click to expand...

Really? It left me cold. Different strokes.

Books that really made an impression on me, in no particular order:

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
The Amnesiac by Sam Taylor
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'engle

I want to point out A Wrinkle in Time, though as one of my all-time favorite books, and the one that really "blew my mind" the most. I was about eleven when I read it, and when they got to the part about taking the string and folding it to show how there can be a a shorter distance between two points than just a straight line. My little eleven year old mind was like I actually credit this book with getting me really interested in science and philosophy, as it was the first time I felt a feeling of awe and wonder at a scientific concept.
(Note: I don't necessarily know the scientific validity of the ideas in the book, it's more like it sparked in me a curiosity about natural phenomenon, and a feeling of 'Everything in the physical world isn't as straightforward as it seems')

Books that blew me away

I have a few in my history that were eye-opening.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - My teenage self was so overwhelmed by the combination of hilarity and intelligence.

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King - Also a book from my adolescence. This is book 2 in the Gunslinger series but it was the first one I read. I immediately sought out the first book after being transported by this visceral story.

Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin - Im constantly frustrated by the ever increasing interval between novels in the series, but I fell in love with the character and style of this epic from the start.

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut - I am almost ashamed to say it was only this year when I finally read this book. It was a transformative experience for me. The masterful rejection of what a novel (or even a plot) is supposed to be. The tender and simultaneously brutal treatment of every character connected with me.

SAppleyard said:

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver...it's not the most amazing book in literature, but it just struck something in me. I think it was the first book I had to read for school that I truly enjoyed. It blew me away.

Click to expand...

Gosh, the reminds me of The Poisonwood Bible! How could I have forgotten it? Really, truly blew me away. I read it in high school, and I went to a private Southern Baptist high school. I had a lot in common with Adah Price.

bearilou said:

Dune by Frank Herbert

Came at a time in my life that completely changed how I viewed Science Fiction reading. Plus, I really glommed onto the Bene Gesserit.

Click to expand...

Oh, gosh. How could I forget Dune?

I read it as a teenager and it blew my mind away about what SF could do.

elindsen said:

Warm Bodies was AMAZING!

Click to expand...

Which one? this is the one I remember... as the only RD Condensed Book I found too boring to read at all when I was 6 or 7 and read any words in sight.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000O00CW2/?tag=absowrit-20

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I found it incredibly emotional, especially having a young son. I really related to that story, protecting your son under any and all circumstances. Beautiful book in all ways.

The Magus by John Fowles - blew my mind at the time, the entire book was a like a magic trick when I look back.

Birdsong by Sabastian Faulks was the kind of book where I had to hold my hand over th right hand page if I was reading the left, to stop my eye from jumping across and finding out something too early. I had no idea whether the main character would survive or not, and the suspense was dreadful/wonderful
Others that had a deep impact and now have become favourites:
The Body by Richard Ben Sapir
Faucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Misery by Stephen King
Ferny by James Long