that one book that ultimately made you look at yourself and life differently...

ok i know you all have one... or two, or three.

please do tell.

for me it's:
Running Backwards Over Sand - Stephanie Dowrick
and
Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg

 

I think this is a great topic, it's unfortunate my responses won't be very interesting, because most of them I read when I was really, really young.


Dear Mom, You're Ruining My Life
The Pig Man
Handmaid's Tale-Margaret Atwood
Fences(play)- August Wilson

these are all weird b/c none of them are anything i've experienced but still they struck something in me that really made me look at myself.

 

The Bible..... duh!





ok.... now that my mum's not looking. It was most likely the Celestine Prophecy or Brave New World

 

Way of a Peaceful Warrior- Dan Millman
Great book. I started a thred about it on here once.
Everyone should read it!!!!!!!

peace ya'll

 

Actually, i have had so many of those... i think in some way, every book we read, indeed, everything we take in with our sense, changes our lives significantly, even if it is so subtle we fail to notice... but here are the ones of mine i can recall:

The Book Of Thoth by Aliester Crowley

The Gunslinger(and the rest of the dark tower series, but especially this one) by Stephen King

Otherland, the series by Tad Williams

A book on Zen Buddhism of which i can't now remember the title or author

and yesterday, i read a novella by Jose Luis Peixoto called Antidote which was a collaboration with a goth metal band, Moonspell, and came as digital media with their album... i strongly recomend this. it is truly like nothing i have ever before read. it's worth buying the album just to read that, in my opinion. i love the album too, but don't know that the style of music would be everyones' cup of tea... and, prepare to weep.

oh, and The Grandmaster by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran

Imajica by Clive Barker

The Barbie Murders, a collection of short stories by Jon Varney


alright, i should stop now. suffice it to say, i've spent a lot of time reading.

lol.

much love

 

I've got a bunch. Here are a few.

Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide by Aryeh Kaplan

 

i dont think any book made me look at myself and life differently, i did that....

 

This might sound kind of childish, but the book called To Kill a Mockingbird.
it really is good. Most people have probably already it or seen the movie. And also His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman...all 3 books. If I think of more I'll say, but I've read so many books.

 

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

I read it when I was very young and, years later, I read it several more times. It is a simple story with many layers and many lessons.

 

I'd have to add many of Hermann Hesse's works, as well as Kerouac.

 

oh geez there have been so many. i dont even know where to start.
siddhartha by herman hesse
steppenwolf by herman hesse
celestine prophesy
conversations w/ god by donald walsh
the da vinci code(not me, but the religious world)by dan brown
all the tom robbins books that i have read

 

Sweet. You're the first person that I know that knows about the Otherland series. I literally grabbed it off the shelf at the library by chance, and ended up loving it. I'm also a big fan of Clive Barker's, especially Imajica and Weaveworld. I admire the way he meshes reality with his brand of science fiction. It's mind-boggling.

A few of mine...

In the Absence of the Sacred by Scott Mutter
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan
Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis
The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper

 

Alice In Wonderland

 

other voices, other rooms truman capote
a prayer for owen meany john irving
siddhartha herman hesse

took what we lovingly called death lit sophmore year in high school. basically failed the class, but i think i got more out of it than most.
isn't it great how books always seem to have perfect timing?

 

The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet

Didn't convert me to Taoism, but provided an interesting perspective on life.

TTFN

Sage

 

The ones I can think of now are:

"I miss you, I miss you!" by Peter Pohl and Kinna Gieth

"Song for a Butterfly" by Maria Küchen

"The Little Prince" by Antoine Saint-Exupéry (no clue how to spell that name!)

"Wolfsaga" by Käthe Recheis

and others...

I only know the German titles of these books and translated them freely, so the "real" English titles might be different.

 

every kv book i've read to date

the phantom toll booth(as a child, this was my fav)

1984

The amazing adventers of Kavalier and Clay

And of course, a clockwork orange

 

A book that will make you look at your life and society itself differently is Days of War Nights of Love by CRIMETHINK FOR BEGINNERS.

 

the alchemist by paulo coulho
and the idiot, by fyodor dostskyevsky

 

The communist manifesto. It made me realize that we don't need money or class to be happy. We only need what is necesary and things to make us happy. It also made me realize that the rich and the poor need eachother to survive.