"Omg! That book changed my life!"

Has there ever been a book you read that gave you a new outlook on something? Tell us about it here!


I just finished reading Drowning Anna it was a very sad book that made me cry so much:bawling: ! I was about a new girl in school and how quite bullying and touture lead to a beautiful smart girl attempting to kill herself. It is bery sad but a great book that tells the story from the point of view of the diary of Anna , her bestfriend, and the narrator. I think anyone should read this moving book!:)

The Best Little Boy In The World

It's a "coming out" book about how a man comes to terms with his homosexuality, how he tells his friends and family, how he makes his way in the world.

For me it removed that "I'm all alone in the world" feeling.

OOh, Bib I think I read a similar book called Dream Boy, I cried for hours!


Anyway, the book that changed my life was Ender's Game, It inspired me to write (and yes, i also cried.)

I never had a book that changed my life. But when people do I think its great!

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Originally Posted by hockeychick8792

Has there ever been a book you read that gave you a new outlook on something? Tell us about it here!


I just finished reading Drowning Anna it was a very sad book that made me cry so much:bawling: ! I was about a new girl in school and how quite bullying and touture lead to a beautiful smart girl attempting to kill herself. It is bery sad but a great book that tells the story from the point of view of the diary of Anna , her bestfriend, and the narrator. I think anyone should read this moving book!:)

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I couldn't read this book...my name is Ana and it made me sad to think that someone would do this kind of stuff. I still have it, so maybe I should read it.

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Originally Posted by THX-1138

i would have to say 1984 by george orwell,not that it changed my life just it had a huge impression on the way i think.

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I feel the same way about 1984. I only read it recently, but it definitely impacted me greatly. There are just some writers who are able to capture what you are thinking, and can articulate it so well. I think there are some truths that we know or have known deep within us, but it takes someone else to come along and put them into words.

I know it's a lightweight book but, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

When I was a boy, an aunt gave me a little book I still own. It was a copy of Rudyard Kipling's epic poem "If". That little book had a great influence of my life and continues to be read when I am down, though I could probably quote it by heart now.

harry potter books changed my life , living with those beautiful charecters :)
thanks for the thread!

Now generally speaking I belive that everything you read leaves some kind of mark on who you are but there are books that you read that for some often unclear reason just change a part of who you are, how you see yourself and the world around you forever. Sometimes it is some big important work and yet sometimes it the silliest books that does it. Has anyone else ever had one of these? Can you remember exactly which book it was and why?
And more importantly would you go back and reread the book?

Besides the Bible, there are two in particular which I'll read again and again.
1. Lord of the Rings. The heroism and altruism in it has just imprinted on me and has inspired me even more to be loyal and true.

2. the Lord Peter mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers. Lots of fun and whimsy with just the right amount of brains and gallantry and a whole lot of references to Homer equals Lord Peter. Not to mention that every time I read it I get more out of it.

I will surely read some classics again in 10 years, but until then, Brothers Karamazov once per year is a must read. I am really fascinated with that book, questions of life, love, faith, religion and family.
There are many books which I've read in childhood for 5 times at least but those were all books for kids, I am not sure now.

humm...not quite my question... take me the 2 books that really stand out in my mindas dramatically altering the way I think or feel about something were strangley 2 children/teenage novels....A ring of Endless light by Madeleine L'Engle and A Tree grows in Brooklyn By Betty Smith. Both of them changed me definetly how I look at death anyway and something else although I couldnt pinpoint it. Now I have the chance to reread them but Im scared that if I do they wont be as amazing as I rember them being and Ill wind up hating the books.....

see the dilemma?


:D

Besides the Bible I would have to say I was most deeply influenced by The Last Temptation of Christ and Steppenwolf. I get someting new out of either one each time I pick them up. There are so many fine sentiments embedded in the text that I can open them at random and read an awe-inspiring quote for the day every time.



The Last Temptation of Christ-Nikos Kazantzakis
Steppenwolf-Hermann Hesse

i had never aspired to be writer until i had read the mayor of casterbridge by thomas hardy.

as for rereading it, i don't think i will as the cat's already out of the bag as they say.

I have never re-read a book, but I have read some really impactful pieces of literature, some of which include:
Crime and Punishment
Cat's Cradle
Nineteen Eighty Four
Catcher in the Rye
Macbeth
Hamlet

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (the first HP book that I read)
Siddhartha
Sons and Lovers
Midnight's Children

I enjoy rereading Notes from underground various platonic dialogues

The Crucible

I cannot even describe what that play did to me.

Ender's Game. It got me into futuristic literature. And Twenty Questions, which turned my into a philosopher :D (Curse Nietzche!)

I re-read the first one, and flip around the second, aimlessly.

I also loved the Book Thief, an amazing book I got from the library and will buy soon.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit
The Stand
1984
Animal Farm

I re-read these books several times and will continue to read them. I get something new out of them everytime I do read them. The first two are about heros, good overcoming evil even within ourselves. The second two are to keep me aware that bad thing can and do happen if we let them and follow the herd.

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Originally Posted by Nightshade

Now generally speaking I belive that everything you read leaves some kind of mark on who you are but there are books that you read that for some often unclear reason just change a part of who you are, how you see yourself and the world around you forever. Sometimes it is some big important work and yet sometimes it the silliest books that does it. Has anyone else ever had one of these? Can you remember exactly which book it was and why?
And more importantly would you go back and reread the book?

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I don't really get what you mean! Quote back on here!:confused:

When you need help with a word who do you ask? Ask that person how they know what that word means. I bet they're going to say either I've been there done that, I had to look up words in a dictionary or, they asked someone when they were younger. Well what are you waiting for?

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Originally Posted by Saynotodrugs

I don't really get what you mean! Quote back on here!:confused:

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What I meant to say is would you if you could reread a book that on first reading influenced you deeply?

I read some books again and again if they are very good books and if the message I get from them are important to me. Also, I read books that I've read because I've forgotten that I've read them! I'll start and things seem familiar then realize I've read it. Usually, if it's interesting I'll finish. There was a time I would read 4 to 6 books a week so it's easy for me to forget if I've read something or not. It's the important (to me) books I seem to remember.

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Originally Posted by Saynotodrugs

When you need help with a word who do you ask? Ask that person how they know what that word means. I bet they're going to say either I've been there done that, I had to look up words in a dictionary or, they asked someone when they were younger. Well what are you waiting for?

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I just look it up in the dictionary myself.

I can't think of any books that have had a profound effect on me.:(

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Originally Posted by papayahed

I can't think of any books that have had a profound effect on me.:(

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me neither. but maybe that's a good thing :) shows we're immune against propaganda and brainwashing.
hahah, I don't mean to say that books are propaganda, of course.

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Originally Posted by SleepyWitch

shows we're immune against propaganda and brainwashing.
hahah, I don't mean to say that books are propaganda, of course.

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interesting thought, but does it also mean that you're immune to insight? I obviously don't mean to offend, but I think the point of a book is not to sway the reader to the author's opinion, but offer insight into the author's mind and therefore the mind of another human being, and isn't that what everyone wants? To know how others think and feel?

heehee, yep, I guess I'm pretty immune to insight :) I'm still as arrogant and self-centred as I was the day I was born :)

haahaahaa. nah, seriously, when it comes to books, I can identify with almost any character.. at least I don't have any major trouble accepting them even if I don't understand them 100%. so probably I've had some insights but I didn't realize it myself :)

Very few books make the sort of impression on me that you have in mind. In that very limited list I would include the "Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" by Robert Tressell. It is a book that is stunning in its simplicity and profoundity. I would also add "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" to be read back-to-back with "De Profundis" by Oscar Wilde. Never has despair been so eloquently described.

There are two books that told and still tell me something (or everything?) about the innermost part of the human being:
"Notes from the underground" by Dostoyevsky - a very terrifying look into the mirror.
"In Searching for Lost Time" by Proust - in my point of view the best substitute for a whole study of psychology.;)

An another very important book for me is "Walden" by Thoreau - I learned that life could be really precious and everyone can chose his/hers own way of living.

There are lots of other books and authors that impressed me (e.g. Emerson, Sartre, H. Miller), but I think these three are the most important.

Greetings

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Originally Posted by SleepyWitch

heehee, yep, I guess I'm pretty immune to insight :) I'm still as arrogant and self-centred as I was the day I was born :)

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Haha Sleepy. You don't strike me as self-centred at all.

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Originally Posted by papayahed

I just look it up in the dictionary myself.

I can't think of any books that have had a profound effect on me.:(

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Have you read: The Book Thief? Or Night? Or Dawn?

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Originally Posted by Bakiryu

Have you read: The Book Thief? Or Night? Or Dawn?

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Nope. Perhaps that's why.

Don't get me wrong, there have been books that made me think, even broaden my horizons but nothing that has made me change my views.

The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
Although I do not, at this moment, practice one faith over another...
this book really makes me think...:)

Siddhartha by Hermann Hess

As much as I've read I can't say any single book has changed my life. I will say that Faulkner has been very profound to me, and D.H. Lawrence somewhat, and perhaps Joseph Conrad.

i've mentioned my favorites elsewhere so no sense in repeating them here. others that come to mind are:

Drinking the Rain, Alix Kates Shulman
Eric Sloane books, esp. The Diary of Noah
House by the Sea, May Sarton
On Grammatology/Dissemination, J. Derrida
Empathy, Edith Stein
The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt
Nature & Spirit, Robert Corrington

Have you read a book which changed your life, and if so, why?

For me, it's Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis. This book made me really aware of the destruction and downfall of society around me. Clay (the protagonist) is my anti-hero and embodies so much of how I too feel and think.

Also, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk; for the simple reason I could not relate to the protagonists in both of these novels (Esther Greenwood and Shannon McFarland) if I tried.

One book that changed my view of life was To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. It was the stream of consciousness that gave a new template to the internal dialogue. It seemed to be a more authentic representation of the inner workings of an individual.

The Shack, by William P. Young.
I was very deeply moved, there has been no other book that has changed my life so much. I would recommend it to everyone.