My mother introduced me to The Hobbit when I was about 10. I've read that and the Lord of the Rings about once a year ever since (we won't mention exactly how many years that is). At one time I could quote at least the first chapter by heart. The library copy of the last book of the trilogy was missing some pages from near the end, so it was years before I got to read exactly how Sam and Frodo got off of Mount Doom. My best Christmas present - a boxed set of the series of my very own.
I don't know that it has changed who I am, but it definitely has left a mark.
Stranger in a Strange Land. The concept that waiting more quickly is entirely more efficient than rushing is one that I still try to apply in my life.
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
My mother's house never lacked for books. She had Jane Austin, Louisa May Alcott, Orwell, Updike, Shakespear, Card and many art books. This one probobly came into her collection by some book club featured selection she got on accident. What a happy accident though. I never looked at the universe the same way again. The simplicity Stephen Hawking presented the ideas of physics with blew my little twelve year old mind. And the fact that this mans genious was so strong it broke through his ALS blew my mind even more.
I read that book so many times, the spine cracked. For Christmas one year, my mother bought me the updated and illustrated version.
It was the best present ever.
Books? Hmmm. I don't think these three have "changed" me, but rather have confirmed things I'd been feeling. Let's start from gentle to fierce. "The Little Prince." 'Nuff said. Richard Feynman's "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" (Marlene, you might really like this one!) And the last is one I doubt I'd recommend to anyone, but as a college kid it "confirmed" (confirmation bias is in) my opinions about social injustice when I felt I was a lone outsider in a very posh and conservative college. Jeffrey H. Reiman's "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice." 20 years after graduation, my beat up, scrawled in paperback remains on the bedroom bookshelf! I know, some people do Laura Ashley prints and accessories....Lene, that quote-- Whow! More another day.
The Count of Monte Cristo. Not only is the main character named Edmund Dantes (Ed Ames' real name, and boy,howdy did he have an effect on me!) it was the first "difficult" book I read (at the age of 12, unabridged) and it left me completely fearless. I can read anything, nothing was (or is) too challengening. I may need a dictionary, encyclopedia, and the net to find out all the background of a book, but if I could read 1,000 pages (with asides in seveal languages) at 12 ,I can read anything!
The Lion, by Joseph Kessel (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EEN5LI/sr=8-
2/qid=1153938506/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-6183929-4443902?
ie=UTF
... I was probably 10 the first time I read it... and at 30, it still makes me cry, but for different reasons. As I matured, as a person and a reader, I figured different ways of reading it and it never stopped to amazed me. Next time you feel like a it of anthropology, or for a taste of Africa, try it out... it's a very special story.
Anything I say is going to sound like I'm crapping on books, which is absolutely NOT my intention. All my life, I have been blessed with a knack for the English language, and, when I was very young, started reading well beyond my years (at least, that's what the 'experts' said). Suddenly, everything in my world went blurry. My vision got very bad, and it seemed that every time I'd read something, my vision would worsen. For a kid who loved to read and loved to learn, it seemed very unfair. So, books took a backseat to music, movies, and other forms of art that didn't put a strain on my eyes. I've now got 'laser eye vision', which is probably the best vision that I've ever had in my life (somewhere around 20/10 - not too shabby), but since I never before made time in my life for books, I don't make time for them now. However, as much as many who love to read books may feel I've been robbed of a great experience, I don't feel my life has lacked anything. Again, not to disparage the world of books and reading. I hope to write one someday. However, I also know there might be a few little boys and girls out there who may relate the loss of their eyesight early in life to reading, and I won't hold it against them if they don't read my book.
The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. Amazing trilogy that drew me in and made me want to be the main character, or at least a participant in her world. I talked for months about how much I wanted my own daemon.
Another is Holes by Louis Sachar. All of these books are targeted to "young adult" readers, but the way that the story line in Holes wraps around itself and ties everything together at the end was amazing. I haven't stopped talking about that one since 98 when I first read it.
Mister God, This Is Anna, a short, about fifth-grade (if that) reading level book that I read in college. Before reading it, I didn't believe in God; afterward I did. I still don't know if it was the book or something inside me that needed something like that book to crack it open.
The book is simplistic, facile, even banal in spots, and I feel a bit like I just got up in a gourmet-cooking class and said I really liked peanut-butter sandwiches. But truth is truth.
Hmmm, so very many books that left lasting impressions on me. Clan of the Cave Bear was a good one, but not as important to me as Vampire Lestat, probably because of the same reasons you stated. The thought of immortality and unwavering strength is a very interesting one. Yeah, the blood drinking part is pretty awful, but would I pay that price for the benefits?
I loved anything by Ray Bradbury while growing up, probably because my father loved to read his short stories, although they are very good even without his approval.
Robert Heinlein was a favorite author, and I also loved Stranger in a Strange Land, but his "The Door into Summer" impressed me the most, maybe because he put a cat's thoughts to paper in a believable manner.
I've always loved Stephen King; I read "Carrie" while pregnant, and have read all of his works since then. My favorite is "The Stand" which I have read at least 5 times. It never fails to thrill me.
Brooke mentioned Phillip Pullman. I devoured his trilogy, then read it again, then ordered copies for several friends so they could share. I guess you could say I liked those alot.
I can still sit down and read Edgar Allen Poe or Mark Twain or Arthur Conan Doyle and enjoy their stories, which meant so much to me while growing up. I have tried to share these with my granddaughter but I think the language has changed so much that she has difficulty reading them... then again, maybe it's because she's 10.
My dad bought me Kubler-Ross's To Live Until We Say Goodbye when I was 16 and it helped me through a very difficult patch. More importantly, it is a symbol to me of how much my dad loved me. He had no idea why on earth I wanted this book so much, but he bought it for me anyway.
He's been gone for nearly 20 years now and I still remember the books he'd send me when I lived in Cambridge. The bookstore he would used has long since closed,but the manager is now the librarian at my local library and every time I see her I think of my dad.
I really don't know that any book has changed me.
A book that really moved me, as a child, then a teen, is Charlotte's Web. I'm pretty sure it's the only book that has made me cry. In fact, I haven't read it since then, for that very reason.
It's interesting how many "children's" books are being named.
The first book I devoured was
The Shining by Stephen King.
I stayed up all night and
read it straight through. I
think it was grade 6. It
was something like an out of
body experience where I completely
and absolutely lost track of
myself.
Like Ken, it was Stranger in a Strange Land for me, though unlike Ken...it was the "Fair Witness" part that changed me. Whenever I feel myself beginning to leap, I always remember the part where they ask the Fair Witness what colour the barn on the hill is.
She replies "It's red on this side."
Curious, Lene. I had a favorite old book around age 10 or so that had been saved from my mother's childhood--and it was about a black stallion named Prince who went through all forms of hell to come to old age at last in a place where he was loved and treasured, when he was no longer able to perform his heroic tasks of the past.
The books that changed me were Rachel Remen's "My Grandfather's Blessings" and "Kitchen Table Wisdom." I went to her booksigning--she lives about an hour away--and told her what she'd done for me. She tells in one of her deeply insightful stories from medicine of a physician mourning to her that when they make a difference to someone's life and outcome, "The patients never tell you."
So--and this helped get me started giving away my knitting without fear to people I don't know well, but who deserve it--I knit a merino wedding-ring shawl for the wife of a doctor who had made a profound difference to me, and wrote him and her a letter thanking him, and thanking her for the man her husband had become in the 17 years I'd been going to that clinic.
And then, since I never would have done such a thing had I not read those books, I told Dr. Remen, "You gave me my voice," and sat down.
That doctor and his wife, I should add, cried reading the letter, left for a second honeymoon to France the very next day, taking it with them, and the radiance and gratitude in him every time I've seen him since! I like to think I helped him see all his patients more positively.
I don't think it changed my life, but Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters (published in 1915) was the first book that made me really appreciate poetry/litterature. I read it 50 years ago for the first time.
I have always had a fascination with graveyards or rather the people inhabiting them and the stories they tell, and this book speaks for all of these people and their lives and deaths. It is very well written and makes me both smile and cry.
Anne of Green Gables was my favorite childhood book and I still reread it periodically. I cannot read about Matthew's death without crying. He reminds me so much of my grandfather. My great-aunt gave my mother her original hardcover copies of almost all L.M. Montgomery's books and they were the first books I really treasured having in my own house. I was proud too that the author was Canadian, and went on to read CanLit voraciously through high school and university.
Alistair Macleod's No Great Mischief really affected me too. The area where the main character worked in the mines is familiar to me and his description is perfect. The sense of clan is something I relate to as well. There is something very special about reading our own stories and knowing our literature is world class.
The non-fiction book which sticks with me the most is When Elephants Weep; The Emotional Lives of Animals, by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy. How could anyone read this book and not feel more closely connected to the other creatures with whom we share this planet?
I have read many of the books that others have mentioned and loved them as well. Reading in general has made me who I am. It makes me more knowledgeable, more imaginative, and more empathetic.
Oh, there are many things in Stranger in a Strange Land that changed me, including Anne, the Fair Witness (pretty sure it was Anne). Just about any time Jubal Harshaw opened his mouth I changed.
As a child, I never witnessed my parents reading anything but they made sure I had books, books and more books.
Anne of Green Gables series. Mathew's death and Gilbert's illness made me cry.
The Narnia Series. The Magician's Nephew prelude to the Lion White Wardrobe was amazing. Hopefully, more children will discover the "other" Narnia books as well.
Hardy Boys. I thought Nancy Drew was somewhat lacking in excitement. I bought a book a week as a reward for chores.
The Little House on the Prairie Series.
E.B. White stories: The Trumpet of the Swan, Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web...
Jonathon Livingston Seagull, The Little Prince, Watership Down...
My room was filled with books. Unfortunately, these books were lost during my parent's divorce and subsquent moves. It's a shame. Those books were my friends.
My children love to read. My teenage son seems to have fallen by the wayside thanks to msn, x-box etc.
I thank my children for introducing me to Harry Potter, Shel Silverstein, Robert Munch and so on...
As to changing me, I found that each story I read gave me an adventure that I may not experience in real life.
I have always been a voracious reader and have read most of the books mentioned by others. I found it interesting and amazing that no one mentioned the Bible. If any book can change someone (for the better) that is the one--and it has certainly changed me. After over 40 years of reading it I still find something new every time. But for me, as a devout Christian, that's kind of the copout answer.
As I child I read "My Side of the Mountain" and believed from that point on that I could do anything and survive anything. Since then I have prided myself on my resourcefulness.
The Narnia series made me believe that magic could be lurking anywhere, and just knowing that made the whole world seem more magical to me.
Anne of Green Gables also has a special place in my heart. I identified so strongly with her imagination and positive outlook.
Lord of the Rings taught me that you have to do the right thing, even if you truly believe you have no hope of success.
And Les Miserables taught me that true saintliness puts the welfare and happiness of others before one's own, even if it means giving up one's last little luxury! All my children have to read that book before I will graduate them from my home school!
There have been so many important books (remember as a young adult you wandered the aisles of the library and you kept coming across books you'd already read as a child?). So many have turned, shifted, changed me. Then there was all that junk fiction...
The one series of books that I know shifted my adult life was Doris Lessing's "Children of Violence" series. Martha Quest was a huge influence on me. Partly because so much of her relationship to her family mirrored my own troubled relationship with my own. I reread COV every 5 or 10 years and it still has a huge punch. The political sections were my least favorite but now I can see how they fit in as our world gets more and more complicated from differing factions.
There are many books that I pick up now and again to read bits and pieces of, or all the way through: Harriet the Spy, A Year in Provence, Sophie's World, A Nervous Splendor, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, Good Omens, The Bubble Reputation, Postcards from the Edge, anything by Dave Barry, Douglas Adams, or P.J. O'Rourke, but the line that has struck me the most is from the last essay in a book I go back to the most: Fraud by David Rakoff, because that was the only thing to get the message through that too much self-protection in the search for joy and love is more damaging than any hurt you could have gone through.
"What remains of your past if you didn't allow yourself to feel it when it happened?"
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