Open Culture - Latest Comments in Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

G Hamilton — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 02:36:01 -0000

I would suggest:
Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift); Alice Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carol)and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams; as books that work on different levels simultaneously.
Gulliver's Travels is a scathing diatribe on the human condition; a political satire and a tale of adventure all in one book.
Other books have shaped my; view of: Life the Universe and Everything:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)
The Illuminate Papers
(Robert Anton Wilson)
1984
(George Orwell)
..... to name but a few.

I believe the Scottish Philosopher, David Hume, was correct when he said "Reason should be the slave of passion".

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Rach — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 22:48:00 -0000

The Bible - stands alone and above. I ploughed through the existentialists, Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, studied Buddhism, check out new age, got into r.d. Laing and thought Jung was getting close to something... Avoided the bible as anything worthwhile, read it and concluded Jesus was the perfect man but that miracle stuff I just didn't get. One day I surrendered and said, ok, I'm not running from You anymore. You can have my life to do Your will. nLife is bigger, wider, more peaceful and free than I imagined, in my Jesus.nSo, the Bible. Start with the book of John. Love.....

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Micayla vranic — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 18:55:00 -0000

A tree grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, is a life-changing, simply beautiful read.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

nathaniel dionysus — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 21:59:00 -0000

Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars changed my life.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Fergus Quinlan — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 07:58:00 -0000

The Selfish Gene: by Richard Dawkins.n The most challenging book I have read since Bertrand Russel. Looking at the world through the eyes of the gene it is inspiring and more than a little unsettling. Are we just the survival machines and replicators of our our drawing and specification. Or can we take control with our new found cognisnce? A masterpiece of science writing

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Paul Dulaney — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 19:55:00 -0000

Come to the fountain of living water, taste it -- but do not drink.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Kilar B Vijaykumar — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 05:35:00 -0000

Celestine Prophesy by James Redfiedl

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

David M. Brown — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:01:00 -0000

Terribly Anglo-Saxon and lit biased? What does this even mean? The list is a compilation of testimony from readers pointing to books that have had an impact on them. It would be biased of a respondent to ignore the books that actually did influence him and cite other volumes instead in order to satisfy the criterion of someone who wants random inclusiveness, not honest reporting of influence. nnAnd how is a friend or cashier any kind of book? Those are persons. A book, when printed, is a generally an oblong bound object with black type. It is not alive. A person, by contrast, is alive and has arms and legs and eyes. A person is not a book.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Hefforama — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 17:14:00 -0000

aka A Guide for Suicide Bombers

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

BurakKumuk — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 18:47:00 -0000

Zorba by far is the greatest life changing book ever. Especially if you are older than 30 and male....

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Melissa — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 13:27:00 -0000

Darkness Visible by William Styron!

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Angela Minton — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 03:18:00 -0000

I must agree with the suggestion to add "To Kill a Mockingbird" to this list. Harper Lee's book, written from a child's view point, scratches at the simplest yet, darkest parts of all of us, while at the same time showing us that we can, in the end, triumph over our universal tendency toward hatred and intolerance. The book is timeless.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Kevin Lynn Helmick — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 23:53:00 -0000

As a writer, To Have and Have Not, probably made the most influence on me. I was around 17 and been taught by my teachers this idea a novel must be linear.n I read Hemingway's Key West tale and thought, 'what the hell's he doing, switching pov like that. He's just doing whatever he want's.' Then I read it a couple more times cuz I was fascinated by how it just worked. That was about 30 some years ago, still a favorite book, and have always since wrote whatever and however the hell I wanted as long I thought it was working. It showed me there was more than one way to skin a story.nZ&AMM blew me away too.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Erin — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 20:04:51 -0000

As a kid, The Outsiders. As a teenager, Manchild in the Promised Land. As an adult, The Fountainhead. Would love to read Manchild and the Outsiders again...as for the Fountainhead...fascinating philosophy. I read and re-read Roark's speech in court. I ignore Rand's followers. Her philosophy, to me, is very personal and about one's creativity; one's goals as a human being. Nothing is more personal that one's own creativity and goals.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Kristen — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 04:22:21 -0000

i have sooo much reading to do!
life changing can be so many different things. but for me (aside from many already listed):
Gould- The Mismeasure of Man
Dawkins- The Magic of Reality
Adler- Six Great Ideas
McCullers- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
*this last one i stumbled across at a book sale when i was young. thought i had this great find ...little did i know it was already loved by many!

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Mike — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 17:39:54 -0000

- The Snake That Went To School (4th grade: discovered the pleasure of reading)
- Over the Fence Is Out (ditto)
- On The Road (14 yrs)
- Really The Blues (13 or 14yro)
- Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (27 yro)

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Ted Brown — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 22:09:30 -0000

Despite its controversies, Kosinki's The Painted Bird stands out. When I was 16, it was simply like nothing I had ever read before. I remember reading it alone and not talking about it that much to others, almost like I'd get in trouble in the same way I'd hide a Black Sabbath album.
I liked Tolkien's stuff too. Weird, at times annoying, but beautiful and sad. Try to find the John Gardner review of the Silmarillion. Spot on.
Finally, John Fowles, the Magus, which I read as a freshman in college on afternoons out on the bluffs at UC Santa Barbara. A cold beer, a good novel, and the setting sun. I felt, well, grown-up.
Non-assigned reading makes life livable.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

ed y. — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:48:00 -0000

all of them

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

[url=http://inner-light-in.com — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:05:45 -0000

You should have included "Bhagvad Gita" in the list. That is an all time great classic highly praised by many.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Santiago Jiménez — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:25:59 -0000

Guns, Germs & Steel: the fates of human societies by Jared Diamond. A magnificent way of learning how where and why ancient cultures managed to grow, establish, survive and trascend.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

P. Jamison — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:16:24 -0000

Bradbury's 451 has been mentioned, as has been Rand, Shakespeare (and even Salinger and Bach - less important but distinctive in ways). I'd add West With The Night by Beryl Markham (and her short story collection The Splendid Outcast), plus The Great Pierpont Morgan (the best look at his life I've seen so far). In autobiography, Snakes And Ladders by Dirk Bogarde is also very high-quality.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Abdul Gani — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 03:46:11 -0000

All these books are not of much use. Just read one book and it would suffice - The Holy Kuran. You need nothing else.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

syam — Wed, 29 May 2013 18:34:39 -0000

I am a farmer. I love this book so much! The One Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Karen Kowalski — Tue, 28 May 2013 01:13:25 -0000

The Kitab-I-Iqan, or in English: The Book of Certitude. The book was written by Baha'u'llah, and as the title suggests imparts certitude in the reader. Essentially, a summary of humanity's experience of religion throughout the ages.

Re: Life-Changing Books: Your Picks

Aarti Rani — Mon, 27 May 2013 14:28:29 -0000

plz... send me some interesting life changing books.