"Omg! That book changed my life!"

[JuniperWoolf]

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.

Yeah, Conrad was a big one for me too. I've always thought that there was something inside of people that we didn't have a name for, and Heart of Darkness was the first time that I'd heard it mentioned in print (because how can you write about something that doesn't have a name?). That was probably the best book that I've read up until now concerning humanity itself.

I used to be aggressively liberal, but now I find myself agreeing with conservatives more and more. Greed is virtuous, and welfare is armed robbery. I can't argue with her there. Atlas Shrugged transformed me from a bright eyed anarcho communist, to a cynical anarcho-individualist.

Maybe you're just becoming an old man.

Just why will need to wait until I'm not so drunk.

[WICKES]

Philip Larkin's Collected Poems. In him I found someone expressing my own conclusions about life- made me feel less alone.

Aldous Huxley's early novels, especially Chrome Yellow and Those Barren Leaves. His descriptions of the ultra sophisticated, urbane English (or British) upper classes gave me a glimpse of truly sophisticated, civilised conversation.

Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. That was the first time I fell in love with the beauty of language and learnt to appreciate a novel for that alone.

[Emil Miller]

Maybe you're just becoming an old man.

Maybe he is but it's pretty much an accepted fact of life that that 'The older you get, the wiser you get.'

[Paulclem]

Maybe he is but it's pretty much an accepted fact of life that that 'The older you get, the wiser you get.'

So where does the phrase "no fool like an old fool" come from? You only have to look around to see plenty of old fools giving the young fools a run for their money.

[Manchegan]

Maybe you're just becoming an old man.

I freaking hope not. I'm much too young to be old.

...not that old folks are bad, but I was hoping I'd be at least 30 before anyone accused me of becoming an old man.

[susan_p]

Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. That was the first time I fell in love with the beauty of language and learnt to appreciate a novel for that alone.

I need to re-read this, it's been far too long!

[Paulclem]

I freaking hope not. I'm much too young to be old.

It's not looking good Manchegan, but at least you are using the word freakin'.That gives you yoof potential.

By the way, are you familiar with Victor Meldrew?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9cR8OTkcdo

[Emil Miller]

Maybe he is but it's pretty much an accepted fact of life that that 'The older you get, the wiser you get.'

So where does the phrase "no fool like an old fool" come from? You only have to look around to see plenty of old fools giving the young fools a run for their money.

The old fools are the exception that underline the rule. Hence the expression.

[Mr Endon]

The quiet madness of
Kafka's short stories and his novella The Metamorphosis
and
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Murphy and Watt
had quite an impact on me. Before that,
Orwell's 1984 (especially the appendix on 'Newspeak', for me the very best part of the novel)

[Paulclem]

The old fools are the exception that underline the rule. Hence the expression.

Good one.

[meh!]

I used to be aggressively liberal, but now I find myself agreeing with conservatives more and more. Greed is virtuous, and welfare is armed robbery. I can't argue with her there. Atlas Shrugged transformed me from a bright eyed anarcho communist, to a cynical anarcho-individualist.

So where wee you when I was being vilified on the Oxford-Cambridge thread... in spite of the fact that my own political views lean far more to the left than the right... for daring to suggest that there may be something inherently wrong with the notion that everyone is entitled to a share of what labor hard for? Further on this topic, my daughter in New York sent me the following:

Having an argument isn't vilification. Not to bring it up again though as apparently we're not allowed to discuss politics...




Anyway, book that changed my life...

hmm...

Gombrich's 'The story of art' if I'm honest. Picked it up randomly one day a couple of years ago and it literally opened up a whoe new world I hadn't even considered. Doing an english lit/history of art degree now. So yeah, that had a pretty lasting effect. Hah.

[mal4mac]

The Philosophy of Schopenhauer by Bryan Magee - and Schopenhauer's own works, but this is a good place to start. Also many writers in his vein, including Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Conrad, Hardy, stoics, Epicurus,...

[Homers_child]

Hmm. Can't really think of too many at the moment.

Macbeth by Shakespeare changed the way I looked at good literature. Meaning, I gained an appreciation for it. I no longer walked into the teen section in the bookstore because of it. Basically after my whole English Lit. class I felt sickened by the teen books that were on my shelf, I couldn't take the simplicity and cliches any longer. I just remember being blown away by that play.

Hmm... 1984 would be a biggie. It really changed my perception of the world around me. I'm a lot more attuned to what's controlled around me and the use of language by the government. Also made me a little paranoid.

[FoghornBellows]

I often hear an individual claim that a novel changed his or her life. However, he or she rarely explains how or why it changed his or her life.
What is a novel that "changed your life," why did it do so, and how?

[Red-Headed]

If I had to name one book that changed my life I would go for Dostoyevsky's Crime & Punishment. Why? Because it introduced me to that author & then years of studying him, his novels, his fascinating ideas & many other Russian novelists including Tolstoy, Turgenev & Gogol.