Books which gave you advice in a time of need.

[Zee.]

I often find that books, rather than people in my life, give me better advice when I need it.
Either through the characters or through the author themselves.


Has there ever been a time in your life where you were caught in some toxic, yucky, nasty, tangled mess - or maybe a time when you just got your foot caught when heading out the door - which required advice that could only be sought through a particular book?

Share. :]

[JBI]

T.S. Eliot in a strange way - though I find myself a lot more pessimistic than the Four Quartets. Generally, I turn to Leopardi - but that isn't recommended - that can turn one depressed if one isn't careful:

Stato che sia, dentro covile o cuna,
È funesto a chi nasce il dì natale.

But still, he in many ways is my poetic idol - I don't know why really - something about him just sort of stuck, it's rather strange, he has that peculiar quality of being so terrible, yet so incredibly memorable and interesting - there is an essay on the edition I have of his (in Italian) on the subject, but the scholar didn't seem to come to a conclusion, though I'm sure there has been extensive scholarship on the subject.

Also Jane Austen, on the other side of the spectrum, is very interesting, in terms of what it teaches you. Oh, and when I am trying to forge a personality for myself I read parts of Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, and imitate Gabriel Oak - the perfect model for a false public persona.

[Pecksie]

Poetry has always been helpful for me --- John Donne helped me through some difficult times :), both through his poems and his sermons. He seems to have something for every anguish and every sorrow.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I often find that books, rather than people in my life, give me better advice when I need it.
Either through the characters or through the author themselves.


Yes that is probably true.


T.S. Eliot in a strange way - though I find myself a lot more pessimistic than the Four Quartets. Generally, I turn to Leopardi - but that isn't recommended - that can turn one depressed if one isn't careful:


Hell yeah, join the pessimistic club my friend!

Good question I think. Initially it was Wilde that I turned to when I needed advice about this crazy world, usually to be found in the artistic example that he gained from the likes of Ruskin. Though for a long time now I am out of favour with Wilde in many ways, I still respect and appreciate the influence he has had on my life though.

In the recent past I was more likely to turn to the thoughts of Epicurus or the Buddhist philosophy (though I would never say I was a “Buddhist” at all, I merely use its philosophy as I can or see fit). At times I have also turned to Wordsworth at his very best, and I can’t forget Marx, though seeing the world in Marxist terms only makes me angry - it’s not much help!

Today, I am more likely to retreat into Hardy, Milton and Shakespeare and live for the power and beauty of the literature they created. Any problems I may have had seem to soon evaporate after spending time reading the likes of them.

[Mag Master 21]

Thus Spoke Zarathustra... I have never read anything that helped out a funk more than it has.

[mayneverhave]

Anytime I read from Wittgenstein's Tractatus, I always leave with a feeling of extreme confidence and optimism in my own intellectual abilities, and that I can solve any problem that comes my way.

In the realm of fiction, I would say most likely Proust as a writer from whom I draw a sort of melancholy happiness. This odd bringing together of attitudes is one I find in a great many writers - that sense of a very moving and irresistible sadness that makes pessimism so attractive. I'm not talking Edgar Allan Poe-style gloom, but more like a reflection on the past in relation to the present.

[WICKES]

P G Wodehouse is a great antidote to depression: light, funny, exquisitely written (reading him is like 'swimming in Champagne' as someone once said).

Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall and Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim always make me laugh as well.

Aldous Huxley- his early books are full of highly sophisticated, polished upper class intellectuals and aesthetes revelling in ideas, good conversation and language. Huxley is endlessly stimulating and you come away feeling you've only scratched the surface.

Robert Graves' I Claudius: great to escape from ugly modern life into a world of togas, marble floors and olive trees. Graves has a cheerfulness to his writing too.

C S Lewis always cheers me up- for his awesome learning, his effortless brilliance as a writer, his humour, his exuberant love of good food and tobacco and his faith in the world of myth and imagination- in the other world.

Shakespeare: The Tempest

...and, oddly, Philip Larkin's poetry. He is so despairing and contemptuous of life that it is somehow liberating- 'it is ok to think life is fundamentally awful'. If you can take Larkin you can take anything ( I find him more powerful and unnerving than Beckett).

In non fiction, Bertrand Russell is wise and good humoured. I also love Jung and re read his autobiography in particular.


Also, Tintin and Asterix comics!

[The Comedian]

When I worked for corporate American, every lunch hour I would drive a mile or two to a small reservoir and sit by the shore to read Walden and have lunch. I was dressed in full suit and tie.

:)

[subterranean]

The book of Proverbs, to name one. And, to some extend, I find The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and The Devil's Dictionary quite amusing.

[pagebypage]

In times when I sit wondering about life and its why, I usually take out my copy of Unamuno's The Tragic Sense of Life and read at random. Its taken quite a beating.

[Bumbeli]

Both The Idiot and The Brothers Karamasow by Dostoevsky and The Plague by Albert Camus.
And it's always motivation and reason I am seeking for :)

[bazarov]

Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, Don Quijote by Cervantes, Les Miserables by Hugo and especially Dervish and The Death by Selimovic, largely unknown author.

Sometimes you're reading it; and some line just tells you what you did suppose to do or you should do in some situation in your life.

Also (don't laugh); The Art of War by Sun Tzu. After all, life is a war.

[Zee.]

I've never read any work by Albus. Would love to though.

[manolia]

Also (don't laugh); The Art of War by Sun Tzu. After all, life is a war.

And considering your chosen profession life will definately be a war :lol:
Be sure to always wear your helmet (i know what i am talking about..you should be careful of clumsy workers and falling bricks :lol:) and always take safety measures :lol: :p

Hmmm not necessarily advice (i am sure you don't mean the safe help books, those are yuck :sick:) but certainly conversation topics :D

[bazarov]

I am talking generally, not only on construction yard :lol:

[PoeticPassions]

Most of Dostoevsky's works have changed my life. They have made me more self-analytical... made me ponder many philosophical questions.

Pablo Neruda has taught me how to feel

Kahlil Gibran has given me advice on the masks we wear... I know now that I can remove them.

Desmond Tutu's works have shown me the path of humility.

Steve Biko has shown me the path of revolution.

THE GREAT GATSBY has made me realize how dangerous and silly it is to chase the wrong dream...

Steppenwolf has shown me that I have so much to learn from others, and that suffering isn't always sublime.

Kundera's Life is Elswhere has been a guide to me... to the past, to the future; to the age of lyricism. And has given me advice on how to live more than one life... life is always elsewhere...


ahhh so many more, but I shall stop here. For now.

[manolia]

I know Baz :lol: but i couldn't resist..i had almost had my head split in two a while ago.. :lol:

[bazarov]

I know Baz :lol: but i couldn't resist..i had almost had my head split in two a while ago.. :lol:

Try to make a titanium helmet.

[Niamh]

This automaticly made me think if reading Yes Man by Danny Wallace in the way to Singapore and learning some very useful things before i got there. like chewing gum being banned. Got rid of mine as fast as i possibly could! If caught you can be fined. It is a "Fine" city after all! :D

[weltanschauung]

The Art of War by Sun Tzu. After all, life is a war.

amen, brother.
also, schopenhauer. and alice in wonderland, obviously.

[Ruslan]

Death of Ivan Illich (Tolstoy)

[*Classic*Charm*]

Great thread LJ!

I don't find so much that particular authors or works have really given me advice, though I've definitely come across characters that have really spoken to me at particular times. I sometimes see something of myself in them when that particular quality seems to be taking over me, and seems to act as a warning. It makes so much more sense when I can see things from an outsider's perspective.

There have been a number of characters about whom I've read, seen something of myself in them, and used that perspective to rein myself in.

Most recently, Kitty Scherbatsky in Anna Karenina.