which book influenced you greatly?

[kathy]

sometimes there are always a series of books influenced us.among the books what you have read which book is the best ?what did you learn from the book?

The book of Gone with the Wind incluenced me so much that i cann't forget how Scarllet fought the adverse surroundings.aside from it the great love Scarllet showed to Ashley did also impress me deeply.

[Morgan]

I think the book that most influenced me was "Narziss and Goldmund" by Hermann Hesse. It's strinking how little i knew about the human nature, anf then how all of the sudden it all made sense...
:)

[Eric, son of Chuck]

The Analects by Confucius. So, I don't know, apt, I suppose.

[Vronaqueen]

F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby had such an impact on my life. The sudden tragedy and the unhappiness that Gatsby felt without his love and then dying alone, incredibly horrible. But it made me realize that money can in no way buy you happiness, but neither can poverty unfortunatly :-?

[SirStefan32]

Bible.

[Edmond]

The novel "Les Miserables", I finished the book in the 8th grade, it greatly impacted on me, it has changed my view of morality, it made me judge people differently, it lead me to adulthood.

[nixnox]

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Definitely not a conventional view on morality and the self.

[DaScouser]

Quite simply I began to realise how easily one could consciously reinterpret the world upon its completion.

[neva]

"The sound and the fury" by W. Faulkner was, definetely, the book that influenced me much. Thanks to it my way of understand literature changed, and, I think, it improved.

[MarsMonster]

hm i ve never been really influenced by a book
more like this: every book leaves me in a different mood that can last up to say.....ten days.

let's see.... well: hazarski rechnik (which you woulden t have heard of), the island of the day before, then.......hm. ex ponto.

and that's all folks!

[Phil]

I must say that Walden by Thoreau is for sure on of these books by which a person can be influenced. All the books by Ayn Rand have also had an influence on me. This year I have been reading a lot of Victor Hugo and his books are simply ''incroyable''. I especially like his last novel, '93.

[Lucius]

I don't think I've been the same person as I was before reading "Night", by Elie Wiesel. For those of you who don't know, the book chronicals the author's time as a 14 year old boy in Birkenau, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald.

[AquaQuorum]

Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse

[jamesting]

All of Tolkien's writings. One cannot remain unchanged after having read LOTR. There is something divine in it, almost like the bible.

[Fernie]

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath, and Portrait of a Lady - Henry James influenced me greatly.

[hieronymous]

"The Outsider" by Colin Wilson. It really gave me the feeling that it was about me, and it gave some insight of problems which I was facing at that time.

[Zooey]

Other than the the Bible, there has been nothing that has been able to really grab me emotionally and overwhelm me on the same level Tennessee Williams did in A Streetcar Named Desire and most especially Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

As a little kid, when I read more than I do now (:oops:), the Boxcar Children series really meant a lot to me during some tough years in my life. And to this day, Sadiko and the Thousand Paper Crains remains the only piece of art (whether it be film, writing, music) that has made me cry (I was about ten years old). I suppose you could argue that meant it had an impact on me! ;)

I seem to be more impacted by movies. Mysteries, which I have devoured for so long, I guess have failed to have much true impact on my life.

[icenspize]

The Christ-Centred Marriage - published by Freedom Ministries and written by whom, I-dont-know. :D
The effect this book has on me is really impressive.
You can double-check with my husband! ;)

[Robert E Lee]

Jack Kerouac's The Town and the City
Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

[didiervg]

Don't know where to begin really but these spring to mind:
Moby-Dick, H. Melville
The court physician's visit (Per Olov Enquist)
Lord of the Rings (you know by whom)
Patrick O'Brians Aubrey-Maturin series
Dorothy Dunnett's historical novels
The house of sleep (Jonathan Coe)
Casanova (Andrew Miller)

[jayanti]

Tragedies have somehow influenced me more than anything else...... not those dramatic ones... but those which have a sense of unfulfillment running throughout the book.
Madame Bovary
Tess
1984
Return Of the Native
We the living
are my all time favorites...

[Damian Reyna]

I was gretly influenced by The Biography of Walter Payton, the greatest football player who ever lived. It is a classic case of rags to riches and deserves a place among trhe world of biographies. ;) :P

[Schiller]

Great influences to me
Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (imagine a world without books and without freedom!)
Nikos Kazantsakis Zorbas-The Greek (A Book about Life and Death, Love and Hate, about everything that's important in life)
Ernest Hemingway The old man and the sea (the struggle against nature and against oneself)

[Koa]

A lot of books have meant something -or a lot- to me, but the one that really influenced and somehow changed my life is The Demons by Dostoevskij. Since then, i've read mostly Russian stuff, and most of all the atmosphere of this book made me choose to study Russian language and literature at University. If this is not influence... ;)

[Shea]

Above all else, of course the Bible. But if we're talking secular here...

Gone With the Wind and Night are also two book that influenced me greatly. Growing up I was taught more to respect the northern view of the American Civil War, but after GWtheW, I've come to respect the southern views too. Though neither side was really all wrong or right.

Night showed me brutality in man that I never realized existed. It also showed me the fragility of cultural groups. 9-11 impacted me just as much as any other American, but I think Night sort of prepared me to handle it.

[plea4peace]

The Catcher in the Rye is my favorite and really influenced me. I really identified with Holden Caulfield, and it helped me get through high school.

[hadji9]

'Finnegans Wake' is an extreeeeemmmmmmeeeeely important book, for what novel can make you laugh out loud on nearly every page? And yet, the last page is perhaps the most eloquent peice of prosody in the English literature:

"I am passing out. O bitter ending! I'll slip away before they're up. They'll never see. Nor know. Nor miss me. And it's old and old it's sad and old it's sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad feary father, till the near sight of the mere size of him, the moyles and moyles of it, moananoaning, makes me seasilt saltsick and I rush, my only, into your arms. I see them rising! Save me from those therrble prongs! Two more. Onetwo moremens more. So. Avelaval. My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I'll bear it on me. To remind me of. Lff! So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he'd come from Arkangels, I sink I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There's where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thous-endsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the"
Paris
1922-39

[waxmephilosophical]

The Bible...other than that, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I don't think I'll ever forget reading that book.

[xkatiex]

the little prince by antoine de saint-exupery.

it changes my life every time i read it.

[Kahll]

Oh Gawd....tough question but I would say anything by Truman Capote so....."A Capote Reader".

[Ickmeister]

Wild at Heart helped me so much... I am a completely diferent person.

And the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings

[rex_yuan]

Especially by Confucius, Laozi,and Sakyamuni.

[Arteum]

All the books by John Fowles:
"The Aristos"
"The Magus"
"The Collector"
"A Maggot"

Many Shakespeare's plays but especially:
"Othello"
"Hamlet"
"King John"

W. Somereset Maugham:
"Of Human Bondage"

Charles Dickens
"Great Expectations"

Agatha Christie
"The Mystery of King's Abbot" ("The Murder of Roger Ackroyd")

E.L. Doctorow
"Ragtime"

William Makepeace Thackeray,
"Vanity Fair"

John Updike
"Couples"

Lawrence Sterne
"The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman"

[Eloise]

Other than the Bible, Jane Eyre, in particular Jane's independance and sense of her own identity were really important for me at the time I first read it.

[enemy]

the bible? are you people insane???

books-

the catcher in the rye
animal farm
the odyssey

[Munro]

Even though I'm not religious, let alone Christian, I can see what importance and influence the Bible as a text would have in a religious person's life. The Bible to a Christian is like the Complete Works of William Shakespeare to a lover of literature, at least that's how I think so.

[Munro]

It'd be okay to choose the Bible as a book that influenced one greatly, as opposed to the Bible as the greatest work of literature ever written?
Apparently it's a pretty good read, as well.

[Shea]

Thank you Munro! As a christian, the Bible is the number one book in my life and it is "a pretty good read." Song of Soloman is probably the most beautiful love poem I have ever read, and the book of Job is an amazing story of faithfullness no matter what happens. (I couldn't imagine going through what Job went through!)

[Ammaria]

The books that influenced me most were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and My Antonia by Willa Cather. And I can't forget The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein which was one of my favorites as a kid.[/u]

[Laur-n]

The Left Behind series influenced me greatly in all ways of life. I'm a Christian, but this series isn't just for religious readers. It has a lot of suspense and it took up my time, in a good way, for a while since there are, I think, 10 books in the series. I strongly recommend reading them. The first book in the series is called Left Behind and the authors are Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.;) :)

[Aurica]

The Outcast (L'Etranger) by Albert Camus. I read it when I was 19, perhaps that was too early.

Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis".

I also like "The Simple Soul" by Flaubert. I don't know why.

Recently - "April Witch" by Majgull Axelsson (Sweden).

[Phoenix_Tears]

a book that has greatly influenced my life? There is only one book like that for me, one which has changed who i am inside, that i believe would be called "The Wounded Spirit"- By Frank Peretti . It brought me to tears, not only because of the cruelty depicted, but because it was a true story.
~T.Phoenix

[imthefoolonthehill]

All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren and Catch-22 have greatly influenced me. I love both the books and would recommend them to nearly anyone.

Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms and Black Hawk Down have mildly inflenced me...

Fathers and Sons and Crime and PUnishment nearly made me nausiated of reading to the point of abandoning it... but I got over it.

[ajoe]

For me it's actually The Diary of Anne Frank. I was Anne's age when I first read it, and maybe that's why it left such a mark in me. It's one of the few books I actually own. (I don't buy books when I can check it out for free from the library. :p) It's also one book I would reread and reread again. (I'm being redundant, but oh well.)

[Lothwen]

"The Lord of the Rings"
fairy-tales written by Andersen
"1984"
"The Waves"
and many poems :)

[seed]

:rolleyes: I think the most influential book to me is Fairy Tales Of Anderson.
I read this book when I was very young, and I still think it's great now.
:) wish you all like it too.

[chrisvosje]

W. Faulkner, 'The Sound and the Fury'
L.P. Boon, 'De paradijsvogel', 'Mijn kleine oorlog', 'Het Geuzenboek' (I don't know about English translations, but these are litteral translations of those titles: 'The Bird of Paradise', 'My Little War', 'The Book of Gueux' - I don't know how to translate this last one: it's about the protestant uprising in Flanders in the 2nd half of the 16th Century)
H. Claus, 'De verwondering' (the wonder, or the amazement, something like that)
Paul de Wispelaere, 'Het verkoolde alfabet' (the charred alphabet, a journal)
W. Shakespeare, 'Hamlet'

and so much more

[pritey]

i think that the book thay influanced me
pride and prejudice by jane Austen ;)

[ihrocks]

There have been so many over the years that I'll probably have to come back and edit this later because I'll have left one or two out, but for starters...

"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton, read way back when I was about 11 or 12. Cried my eyes out, but it opened my mind to the idea of writing. I've been keeping a journal ever since and, though I did write the Great American Novel, I do make a living through writing (technical stuff, not very creative).

"Absalom, Absalom" by William Faulkner. Faulkner is one of my favorites, and race relations is the great shame of our country. Faulkner shows how our fate will forever be tied to our inability to eradicate racism.

"Ulysses" by James Joyce. This was like turning a fire hose on my ego and all my aspirations of being a writer. It was so beyond anything I had read to that point. It was writing beyond storytelling, writing beyond the beauty of language, or the revelation of truth. Joyce kicked my butt!

A Remarkable Book I will have to come back and name later (please no comments about my age!) Anyway, it's an oral history of the civil rights movement in American from the death of Emmett Til up to what was then the present day (1980s). True stories of people putting their lives on the line.

"Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller. Words that leap from the page, pulsing with life, while writing about the breakdown of civilization in depression-era Paris. Not all of Miller's work is that vivid, some of it downright awful, but ToC is an ode to life -- flawed, tragic, comic, imperfect life.

I'm leaving far too many out, but I'm out of time.

ihrocks

[ihrocks]

There have been so many over the years that I'll probably have to come back and edit this later because I'll have left one or two out, but for starters...

"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton, read way back when I was about 11 or 12. Cried my eyes out, but it opened my mind to the idea of writing. I've been keeping a journal ever since and, though I did write the Great American Novel, I do make a living through writing (technical stuff, not very creative).

"Absalom, Absalom" by William Faulkner. Faulkner is one of my favorites, and race relations is the great shame of our country. Faulkner shows how our fate will forever be tied to our inability to eradicate racism.

"Ulysses" by James Joyce. This was like turning a fire hose on my ego and all my aspirations of being a writer. It was so beyond anything I had read to that point. It was writing beyond storytelling, writing beyond the beauty of language, or the revelation of truth. Joyce kicked my butt!

"Voices of Freedom," an oral history of the civil rights movement in American from the death of Emmett Til up to what was then the present day (1980s). True stories of people putting their lives on the line.

"Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller. Words that leap from the page, pulsing with life, while writing about the breakdown of civilization in depression-era Paris. Not all of Miller's work is that vivid, some of it downright awful, but ToC is an ode to life -- flawed, tragic, comic, imperfect life.

I'm leaving far too many out, but I'm out of time.

ihrocks

[AbdoRinbo]

You do have good taste in literature, though. The Outsiders wasn't anything extraordinary, but Hinton did write it when she was in high school (which I thought was very impressive).

You can't go wrong with James Joyce, either. Each page of Ulysses was a captivating little view of the human spirit (sometimes overwhelming). I don't like to break it down too much, though. It is enjoyable even at face value (the rhythm and the diction, for example).

I think I'm too young for Faulkner, though, because I'm still not mature enough to understand what 'true' suffering is. But I'll give it a couple more years and then see what has transpired in my life (but, then, why am I wishing that on myself?).

It's good to have you here, if I didn't say it before.

[ihrocks]

Thanks for the welcome!

I'm sure if I went back now and re-read "The Outsiders" I'd cringe, but I have to say that 30 years of journaling, a degree in communications, five years writing for a newspaper, and even my present humble situation all started with that little book.

Also, I didn't give props to Dylan Thomas or D.H. Lawrence because neither wrote a specific book that influenced me, but their collective writings are among my favorites.

Yes, that was what was so awe-inspiring about "Ulysses." It works at every level, and the more you dig into it, the more you find, and the more satisfying you find it. There is a theory that all literature either leads up to, or away from, that one book. I'm not sure I buy into it, but it is an amazing piece work.

Oh, and did I mention, "As I Lay Dying"? Another fantastic bit from Mr. Faulkner.

ihrocks

[Munro]

I think I'm too young for Faulkner, though, because I'm still not mature enough to understand what 'true' suffering is. But I'll give it a couple more years and then see what has transpired in my life (but, then, why am I wishing that on myself?).

Interesting. Are there any other particular writers that you plan to keep for later in life? I've never thought of authors like that, but it makes a lot of sense.

[AbdoRinbo]

Well, for different reasons. By the time I was a junior in high school, I'd read almost every Kurt Vonnegut novel ever written, so I forced myself to stop that way I would have something new to look forward to later on in life (as opposed to just re-reading all of his novels, which wouldn't be as nostalgic, I think).

On the contrary, I probably started reading Arthur Rimbaud too soon (I couldn't write a line of poetry after reading him, he was so pure). He abandoned poetry at the age of 19 to pursue different interests (ultimately he would wind up in Africa to partake in the 19th-century colonial trading circuit after wandering back and forth between his home in France and parts of Sothern and Eastern Europe). He died very young, too. Personally, I don't know of many artists who lived as tragic and mythic a life as Rimbaud did. I was simply overwhelmed by him, if anything else, and I may never fully recover. It's strange to think that literature can have that sort of power over you.

[leonthepupil]

"dream of the red chamber " by Cao Xueqin
which offers me a soul journey to Chinese culture and human's destiny
And builds up my sensitivity .

"Illiad" and "Odyssey"Show me a totally new magical world

"Les Miserables"teaches me to love people.

Hans Andersen ,Borther Grimm and Oscar Wilde's Fairy tales provide for me a land to dream,to smile and to reserve truth,kindness and beauty.

[zheng89120]

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

I found a majesty in his language that got me into literature.

[KLO]

#1 has already been mentioned--Night by Elie Wiesel--it set me on my course of study of literature of victims of genocidal oppression.

#2 is not actually a book but a novella--"The Bear" by William Faulkner--it was my first exposure to Faulkner and it has continued to carry me through my dissertation and inspire my publishing career.

#3--Tracks by Louise Erdrich--it furthered me on my course of study and led me to my first academic conference paper and my first professional publication.

[jesse sutton]

All of Tolkien's writings. One cannot remain unchanged after having read LOTR. There is something divine in it, almost like the bible.

I couldnt agree more. It was if some new dimension opened into my brain. I was completely a different person from that point on.

I must give credit to the pre-LOTR, the Hobbit. Its simplicity of depth is rivaled only by The Old Man And The Sea, which is my second favourite book. Both gave me goosebumps and after finishing these, i started right over from the beginning, and continued.

[Isagel]

"The man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Oliver Sacks.
Essays about people Sacks has met during his work as a neurologist. His thoughts about body and mind, brain and soul and the way he writes about his patients was a true inspiration when I started to study.

My fathers says that I´m also shaped by the Pippi Longstocking books he read to me when I was a child.

[Bittersweet]

:o Little Women :o

why shocked??? I loved the book so much. lol
Its one of my favorite. I watched the movie (the new version) several times. It is great as well


Be back soon with my favorite books.
have a nice day everyone :D

[irapass]

<Edited>

[SAILORMOO]

:D

Perhaps the most influential author in my reading life has been Ayn Rand, both "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." Why? Because she sees man as the supreme rational being when not fettered by "requirements" of self-sacrifice and living for other people. Her characters of Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead" and John Galt and Dagney Taggert in "Atlas Shrugged" show the way people ought to live --- by thinking with his own brain, using his own talents and determining his own destiny as far as possible and not being OBLIGATED to give anything of himself to anyone else.

I find myself thinking alot about Ayn Rand lately because things she predicted 40 and 50 years ago when these 2 masterpieces were published are coming true. So what has been delightful albeit frightening fiction is quickly becoming truth and if that continues, then God Help Us!

[fayefaye]

*laughs at name sailormoo* D

[Sindhu]

SOMETHING which I don't know has ket me from reading Ann ryand. I plan to,i even take the book from the library and then somehow I return it pristine and unread. I really don't know why! Well, this time it's going to bedifferent- I swear I'm going to read Atlas Shrugged within a month.

[Cartier789]

A streetcar named desire, i know its not really a book, its a play, but I love how you can see why Blanche is the way she is and how each character is so extreme in a way.

[Jolly McJollyso]

Ulysses

[Eeyore]

Rouse up O Young Men of the New Age, and A Personal Matter. It's no stretch to say that both of these books changed my life.

[Dante Wodehouse]

Walden shakes your view of wealth greatly. However, I must say that the Jeeves books by P.G. Wodehouse has changed the way I write. I now can't resist a jibe or chance of irreverant wit at my subject matter, completely revamping my somewhat formal style.

[Bakiryu]

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and The poems of edgar allen poe

[NickAdams]

I read 1984 when I was eighteen and it had such an impact on me. It inspired me to become a writer. I read my first Hemingway story when I was twenty-one, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. I was influenced by Orwell's content, but the fashion in which Hemingway told his story amazed me.

Funny enough, it was a book for children that influenced me most. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein has shaped the way I interact with people. I have a great deal of empathy and I owe it to this book.

(I would like to mention the Lorax.)

[Mortis Anarchy]

1984 and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Also Night and Slaughterhouse Five...someother book also but I can't remember...its really popular too.

[lcy11]

Enthralled with Grimms fairy tales and just about anything written by Roald Dahl as a child.

East of Eden, Of Mice and Men- Steinbeck
Of Human Bondage- Somerset Maughan
Invisible Man- Ralph Ellison (poignant account of something I cannot ever fully grasp as a white female)

[emmsi_*tobyrox*]

Growing up, Goodnight Mr Tom made me realise how powerful a story can be, i cried! But lately i have to say that Austen novels influence my liking for all things regency and so i have started to read around her era. Tis good.

[babyrey]

There have been so many over the years that I'll probably have to come back and edit this later because I'll have left one or two out, but for starters...

"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton, read way back when I was about 11 or 12. Cried my eyes out, but it opened my mind to the idea of writing. I've been keeping a journal ever since and, though I did write the Great American Novel, I do make a living through writing (technical stuff, not very creative).

ihrocks

I totally agree with you on this one. The Outsiders made my life different. I learned that what I was going though with cliques was normal, and even happened back when my parents were children. It made me realize people out there have it worse off then I do.

Karen Kingsbury & Gary Smalley's - The Redemtion Series.

This book just touched me in a way no other has.

Anything by Lurlene McDaniel

She has written some of the best works in my life. They show compassion, fear, love, and so much more all in one.

[Etienne]

Tolstoy's War and Peace, I didn't read so much before that, but this book immersed me in the beauty of literature.

[ivette]

Definitely H.Hesse's Steppenwolf, V.Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway and M. Cunningham's The Hours.
Also Crime and Punishment, because it talked about ideas I had never thought about before.
And S.Plath's poetry.

[blackbird_9]

<i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i> in third grade. I've been passionate about reading ever since.

[schau982]

The Chronicles Of Narnia

[rmd]

I notice two others have mentioned Thoreau's Walden as being most influential. I agree and would only add that his Resistance to Civil Government has also been a very strong influence on me.

[amalia1985]

Crime and Punishment, for numerous reasons.

[puffin]

You’re going to love this…

If I am honest I think the book that had the most powerful effect on my life was Shadow the Sheepdog by Enid Blyton. I was young enough when I read it and I really didn’t enjoy reading much up to them- I was always easily distracted when I had a book in hand. Shadow was the first book that I ‘fell into’ that overwhelmed me and created a world that I could actually see and feel and desperately wanted to be a part of. It was the first book I would forgo television for. Needless to say this was pretty damn life changing.

The best bit is, even though I am laughing out loud as I write this I STILL want a sheepdog and I still want to rampage over the woodlands/moors/fields having adventures with him.

[Dori]

This is a tough question (or statement, rather) to reply to, considering I haven't read much in the way of "good" literature (being only 16). However, I shall try my best.

The first book that influenced me was The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I've read it no less than three times. It introduced me to the realm of fantasy and fueled my imagination. I was also [somewhat] influenced by The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. My reasons are simple: it taught me that not everything read in school is boring (which, regretfully, was my thought at the time) and it led me to read more of Hawthorne's writing.

Currently, I've been exploring Russian literature. I have a feeling that I might be influenced by Dostoevsky. :)

Perhaps someday I can answer this question more thoroughly.

[J.KMcDaniel]

A Child Called it-
OMG It was so sad- sort though-but i cryed pg.1- to the end

[trippy star]

my top three would have to be,
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
Candide - Voltaire
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - Blake

[Atheorist]

The Fountainhead comes up a lot here.

I will never forget reading it. Sure I cheered on Roark, and pictured myself as that kind of guy with those kinds of stones.
Then, over the next few days came the realization that while we all have an inner Roark, and the occasional full Roark among us makes life interesting, a world where everyone took after Roark would be unworkable, uninhabitable. Could that have been the author's intended point? I checked. Sadly, no.

The thought of people out there zestfully believing that this book is the last word in how best to express our full human potential made my skin crawl. It still does. I guess you don't have to love a book to be influenced by it.

Influential books I love:
Huckleberry Finn
Go Down Moses
Walden

[TEND]

On the Road by Kerouac
Influenced me so much I couldn't even tell you. This book is like my bible, I've been obsessed with travelling and seeing the world since I was little and am now old enough to go and fulfill my dreams. This book encourages my attitude and makes me feel so right about what I want to do, reading about someone else doing this stuff....I can't describe how this book makes me feel, but the carefree attitude it's just beautiful.

[Bebbin]

As of now, it's among these three:

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
Demian by Herman Hesse
Moby Dick by Herman Melville (just recently finished this, and I was blown away!)

[PabloQ]

The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss taught me to read and enjoy what I read.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - what this particular work had to say about the hazards of judging people (Scout's relationship with Boo Radley), racism (the trial of Tom Robinson, and the portrayal of what men should be both within a family and within the community in Atticus Finch. I read this on the heels of the racial riots in America in the late 1960s. It molded my view of race and my relationship to my fellow man. Huckleberry Finn contributed to that as well.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut - I grew up in the age where the U.S. and the USSR had enough nuclear weapons aimed at each other to incinerate the planet. This novel had the greatest effect in my anti-nuke, anti-war sentiments.

[muhsin]

Qur'an...

[J.D.]

St. Augustine's Confessions

I'm ninety-eight percent positive he's fudging on many of the details of his conversion, et cetera, but I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and Augustine has helped me reconcile my current self with that self. He reminded me of what it feels like, deep in your gut, when you are on the verge of an intense religious experience. I never got there, but I was on the verge many times.

For a long time after my beliefs changed I was bitter and condescending toward Pentecostals--and religion in general (and fundamentalist Christians in particular). Augustine helped me see their perspective in a way I hadn't in years. His ecstatic language helped me understand why someone might feel so intensely passionate.

[mayneverhave]

There are a few books that have inspired and influenced me greatly, but I would say the one key work is not a novel, but a poem.

E.E. Cumming's

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l

iness

I read that my freshman year of highschool. Before that, literature seemed two-dimensional, like everything written followed the same cookie-cutter format. Reading the poem, I realized that different ways of writing were out there, and that style could be fully utilized in writing. It was one of the contributing factors to my aspiring to be a writer.

[water song]

Thank you so much .You enable us to share our ideas and benefit from each other

[Janine]

Women In Love ~ D.H.Lawrence

I read this fine book when I was about 28 yrs old, and again this past year. On first reading, I was really excited about it. I felt my eyes had been opened to many truths about human beings and life. This novel transported me into deeper recesses of the human mind, giving me a greater understanding of relationships and how we all function, especially the complex interaction between man and woman. The book shows human beings as they really are, striving for ultimate personal truths, but not always finding what they are longing for. It also demonstrated how people react to each other, which is not always logical or predictable. This book made me think in entirely new realms and question many values in life.

[Remarkable]

The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.

I read this book some months before(I had only read Dubliners from Joyce) and I found it very useful in every aspect.It is,in the end,a religious manifesto,an aesthetic one,a political one and also an intellectual calling.It made me think about what we consider unthinkable and also realise that morality (of what kind it doesn't matter;it might be sexual,mental,spiritual or political) in not just one dimensional.Joyce is a man that in the beggining of last ceuntry thought like a global thinker does today.

[Virgil]

Good Lord, I can't even imagine how many novels influenced me. Here's a sampling:

The Illiad, Homer
The Aeneid, Virgil
The Divine Comedy
Shakespeare, All of it. Period.
Don Quixote (still reading it, but it is magnificent)
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Great Expectations, Dickens
The Death Of Ivan Ilych, Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov, Doestevsky
The Beast In The Jungle, James
Heart of Darkness, Conrad
Lord Jim Conrad
Nostromo, Conrad
The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway
The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
To The Lighthouse, Woolf
The Sound And The Fury, Faulkner
Light In August, Faulkner
Sons and Lovers, Lawrence
The Rainbow, Lawrence
Women In Love, Lawrence

[LadyWentworth]

Shakespeare, All of it. Period.
:thumbs_up I am the same with that!

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens
Ragtime - E.L. Soctorow
Persuasion - Austen

Probably some others that I can't think of right now because I never really realized that they did influence my life that much.

[Janine]

Les Miserables.....and so many others....

[Hira]

Lots.

Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I put them first coz these were the ones who brought me closer to books in the first place.
Silmarillion.
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
1984.
Animal Farm.
Oliver Twist.
Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Les Miserables.
The Age of Innocence.
The Great Gatsby.
Women in Love.
Sons and Lovers.
The Rainbow.
Kahlil Gibran's Works.
The Waves.
Mrs. Dalloway.
Anna Karenina.