which book influenced you greatly?

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.

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

The Chronicles Of Narnia

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.

Crime and Punishment, for numerous reasons.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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!)

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.

Qur'an...

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.