SHARE the name of the book or author that changed your life to the greatest degree

For me, it's no contest.

This man, and this specific edition:

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http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Writings-Emerson-Signet-Classics/dp/0451529073/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0213733-2159951?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194404542&sr=1-1

Getting my B.A. in English at San Jose State was a long, tough road...many books, may essays, many cups of coffee. It was all worth it because of my study of the Transcendentalists, particularly Emerson.

Why this edition? Simple. All of the key essays are here, but you also get an amazing selection from his letters and journals that you won't find elsewhere. Some of Emerson's one or two sentence musings are just as potent as his full-length essays.

OK...now tell me about YOUR book.

:toast:

"Wherever You Go, There You are" by Jon Kabat-Zinn

"Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer

I read Singer a long, long time ago. Kind of stuck it in the back of my head, I think.

I had a sort of "awakening" that I attribute to a spark generated by Adam Yauch. That led me to read a multitude of works by HHDL, Chopra, etc. Kabat-Zinn's work really drew me in. I got it.

Oh, and the third author, Yauch...basically everything he wrote for "Ill Communication"

You'll have to look that one up.

:toast:

"Boss: Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago" by Mike Royko
First political book I ever read for extra credit. It cemented my interest in politics.

"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
My favorite novel of all-time, and the best illustration of the insanity of war for me, a non-veteran.

"All The President's Men" by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
I was fully immersed in Watergate in my senior year of High School. At that time I was a staunch
conservative. This book started my turn to the left.

1. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

2. Alcoholics Anonymous

3. Sermon on the Mount, Emmett Fox

I can't recall the author but there is another good one out there called something like What's so Great About Grace.

An obvious one, I know, but before I happened to read it I was as apolitical and intellectually incurious as one gets.

It completely shifted my world view, almost over night.

Thank you, Professor Zinn.

to pop up in this thread. And, I'll second that choice. :hi:

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From Library Journal
Girard, professor of French language, literature, and civilization at Stanford, builds on his notable previous anthropological and literary examinations of myth and ritual in human society. Here he applies his appraisals of Freud and Levi-Strauss to demonstrate how religion functions to keep violence outside society by deflecting it onto a scapegoat whose sacrifice restores the social order. Using a rich variety of resources from Greek to biblical, primitive to modern, he cites the Gospel Passion as a myth with the power to break the evil of collective violence and the corporate murder it conceals. Girard's use of structuralism to analyze biblical texts will stir much discussion, and the book as a whole is bound to be considered provocative by specialists. Murray L. Wagner, Bethany Theological Seminary, Oakbrook, Ill.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

" methods of extrapolating to find cultural history behind myths, and of reading hidden verification through silence, are worthy enrichments of the critic's arsenal." -- John Yoder, Religion and Literature

on edit: Maybe a little Hermann Hesse thrown in

I have read and reread it many times since the first time 10 years ago.

"Jonathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach and "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran.

Then I turned 15.

x( I still have my copy of The Prophet right here in my living room.

Or even three... I feel like books can steer my interests, my curiosity, my thoughts and feelings. But to pick one with the greatest influence? Too hard.

Some of the language is dated, but the message is timeless and remarkably simple.

http://freespace.virgin.net/sarah.peter.nelson/lazyman/lazyman.html

Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence" and Castaneda's "Don Juan: A Jaqui Way of Knowledge"

Both touched on the ultimate nature of reality.

Pirsig's pursuit of the definition of quality and Castaneda's questioning of the consensus reality hit me hard.

That just about did it.

I re-read it this year; it's still refreshing.

It had just come out. Read it again the very same day and on that day I went from a brainwashed fundie to... well, not very enlightened but it opened the door to begin seeking answers/paths/thought processes outside of my rigid cult.

I've read a lot more important, interesting, provocative books since Richard Bach's Illusions but none that evoked such a sea change as that one. It was the right book at the right time.

People of the Lie:

The book begins by telling in detail the story of one of his patients who seemed to be a happy man leading a very normal and healthy life. However, as he carries on, we start realizing along with Dr. Peck that evil was staring the man in every corner of his life, hiding in his problems and even among his family members! It is by the end of the story we realize that this normal person literally did sell his soul to the devil!

How did this happen? How can one sell his soul to the devil? Does the devil even exist? With these questions Dr. Peck dives into the study of evil in human beings. Dr. Peck claims that evil does exist, but it's neither incurable nor unavoidable! And the only way to combat evil is to admit to its existence and to recognize its danger. How can you fight something that you don't even believe is true, he says.

Dr. Peck explains why scientists dismiss the idea of the existence of evil and how that is caused by their limited perception of what science stands for. He then carries on by giving examples of some of the cases he had to deal with where he allegedly met with the human evil. And in one chapter he dedicates it wholly to one story of one of his clients whom he failed to heal after more than 5 years of therapy because he didn't have the knowledge or the courage to admit that it was evil that she was suffering from. Later on he explains a different manifestation of evil that he terms as "The group evil." He explains that evil can be present in a group even if all of its members were not individually evil!

The end of the book talks about the dangers and the hopes of creating a science that studies evil. Once I finished the book, I had even more respect for Dr. Peck than I ended up with after reading his first book. Dr. Peck's writing style is pleasant and easy to comprehend. And his story telling techniques are exciting as well as thought provoking. By reading this book you will definitely have so many thoughts to ponder on for many days whether you agree with the author's findings or not. By reading this book you will definitely add intellectual, and possibly moral, value to yourself, and will probably find it highly entertaining at the same time.

Morgan Scott Peck (22 May 1936 – 25 September 2005) was an American psychiatrist and best-selling author. He earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, did premedical studies at Columbia University in New York City, and received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He served in the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. His Army assignments included stints as chief of psychology at the Army Medical Center in Okinawa, Japan, and assistant chief of psychiatry and neurology in the office of the surgeon general in Washington.

more at link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck

And our library has it. Looks kinda scary. Maybe I should read his other book which I just put on hold...first. (?)

It will bolster you up so that you can deal with the the liars...there are many. I can spot a liar a mile away. It is not an easy life to live. You have to learn that you can't call everyone on their lies. It really pisses them off.

That "group evil" chapter seems interesting. When you think of the Nazi's and the white house admin...evil as whole. Expect for Cheney, he's evil just by himself. Some of these Nazi guys you read about who loved their children and friends yet were caught up in that web of evil.

After you read them, pm me, if you would like to discuss anything. I would be interested in your thoughts. Thanks and Good Luck to you.

I'm reading a ship sinking disaster book now.

"On The Road" by Jack Kerouac, and "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller. Both have lead me to uncover so much about myself and the world, and in two very, very different ways. They might be my two all-time favorite novels.

Christ demystified

First bit of lesbian fiction I read with a happy ending.

I was 16. :D

And then read pretty much everything else she wrote for the next 10 yrs.

Bound For Glory

"Slaughterhouse Five" and "Cat's Cradle". I didn't know anyone else had my skewed view of American culture.

And I was crazy about Sherlock Holmes as a child. I loved how he made logic and science interesting. I never knew his creator was a gullible loon - Conan Doyle made Shirley McClain look like James Randi. What did I know? I was eight years old

Besides Slaughterhouse, I loved Mother Night and The Sirens of Titan

Two others that really touched me were East of Eden (Steinbeck - some strange similarities to events in my life) and A River Runs Through It (Norman MacLean)

I read "Cat's Cradle" in the eighth grade and I haven't been worth a damn since...

The cat in the hat...

Because it taught me early that there is no such thing as an easy fix...

A Tale of Two Cities....and.... Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?



Tikki

And, "The Hunchback of Notre Damn" is just splendid, and very funny at times, like when the lanky guy ends up in the quirky side of town and gets teased to no end.

Desolation Angels - Jack Kerouac
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

He profiled James Talley in his book Lost Highways. I went to see James Talley and bought a CD from him. Talley showed me how to use your fingernail on the hinge of the CD to remove the plastic.

by Lao Tzu

When I read it, I felt that someone understood me.

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On Edit:
I think I was 19 or 20...

It helped me a lot.

He changed the way I view the world.

Perhaps he was Palmer Eldritch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Out_of_Joint

I don't know why.

I MARVEL at the mind of that man.

Personally my favorite was A Maze of Death.

I had no idea he wrote so many others.

"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane", by Philip K. Dick.

Is a PKD character/alter-ego.

I think it was key to some social and spiritual changes in me.

and Spiral Dance by Starhawk. Reading the first made me realize that I was really not a (believe it or not) speaking-in-tongues Catholic charismatic but rather a pagan. Reading the second, taught me how to do circle, ritual and magic.

The Temple of My Familiar is her best book to me. I also would put Audre Lorde and June Jordan in my top three.

Reading her essays made me a more honest person.
She gave me permission somehow.

by J.M. & Van Ness, H.C. Smith

By J.D. Salinger.

Basic premise -- the universe is a living entity evolving toward consciousness. This was written in 1937 and it influence other writers, Arthur C. Clarke, Brian Aldiss, Stanislaw Lem and C. S. Lewis. It also inspired the concept of the Dyson Sphere.

I read it o/a mid fifties and it blew my mind. I understood it only in part, but it became the basis of my life view. The astronomy, of course, is completely out of date; however, it still has the power to move and shake.

blew my mind in middle school... and now i'm a conservation biologist

that book! Didn't read it until first year of college and it was a sociology assignment. I have bought numerous copies of it over the years as gifts. Wonderful book!

A friend got me a copy autographed by DQ when he saw him speak... pretty neat. I like his other books too, but none of them "got" me the way Ishmael did. I had never really thought about any of that before. That's neat you read it in college -- did you have to write a response, or discuss it? Did other people enjoy it as much as you did? I always wondered if it would have made as much of an impression if i'd read it later in life -- 13 is a very impressionable age! :)

Helped me understand women better and changed my whole way of thinking about homosexuals.

and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes".

The sources of my life-long interest in politics, ancient civilizations, British history, and detective fiction.

It taught me to look for happiness within, not without.

that I couldn't name all that have inspired me.

I can, however, name a few that have recently caused a significant change in my worldview,

"River out of Eden" - Richard Dawkins
"The Blind Watchmaker" - Richard Dawkins
"Unweaving the Rainbow" - Richard Dawkins

and finally,
"The God Delusion" - Richard Dawkins

by Betty Friedan

I was young and needing an anchor. June Cleaver just didn't do it for me. Mary Richards was more like it, but the book certainly gave me reassurance it wasn't just me, but many of my contemporaries.

Actually, forgot another book that influenced me a lot: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. I cried and cried and cried.

was one that forever altered my life. "In and Out Of the Garbage Pail" by Fritz Perls was another.

"The Golden Notebook" and "Jane" also influenced me.

When I read this with my young mind, I knew there was something else out there. That it was okay to be weird and freaky. I have read this book at least 50 times and have (had) become friends with a good number of the people in the book.

I alos got into Kerouak through this book, the Beats, like Ginsberg and Brautigan through this one book.

It had a very profound effect on my musical tastes too.

There are a lot of books that influenced me as child - the Bible was a biggie back then.

As an adult - wow! so many facets of my personality have been influenced by so many authors - how do you pick one as more important than another. So in no particular order, off the top of my head...

-Hannah Arendt's books are always thought provoking, especially about fascism.
-Ceremony by Leslie Silko. The first book I ever read about PTSD AND the first book that treated Native Americans with real dignity.
-The Things They Carried. A classic Vietnam book about soldiers in theater. I couldn't put it down and continue to give this book as a gift at least twice/year.
-Our Bodies, Our Selves. Geraldine Santoro - need I say more? :cry: She may have been why I bought it but I fell in love with the rest of it as soon as I actually read it.
-Brothers Karamozov. I am in love with classic Russian lit. I read Anna Karenina as a 15 year old....
-On Walden Pond. So cool - this book set me on my course towards sustainable agriculture and independent living.
-Centered Riding. The first book (for me) that addressed riding as a mental challenge instead of just riding exercises.
-Romeo and Juliet. The best romance evah! Read this in high school and have gone back to it many times over the years.
-Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Just look at the problem upside down and it's possible. Opened up all sorts of creative outlets for me and my overly critical side.
-Romantic Massage. Heh. :blush: My first experience with foreplay with a guy... This section could also include Joy of Sex.
-Canterbury Tales. One of the best observers of humanity on the planet, in any era. I love Chaucer's sly wit and acerbic sarcasm.
-Chalice and the Blade. The first intellectual "feminist" book I read during college that provoked my life long questioning of what's real vs. what's just been accepted as fact.
-Toni Morrison's books, especially Beloved. Cause I just love a great author.
-Call of the Wild.
-Foxfire series

Okay, shit, I need to stop... I could go on all night. How does anyone just pick one dammit? Impossible..... Books. are. meant. to. change. you.

It's not just a history book, it stunned me in capturing the human spirit - noble, abysmal, suffering, joyous, quiet, common.

I became a Civil War buff because of it, but also a better writer, and a better person. Thank you, Bruce Catton.

- though I've come a long way since then, but at the time it had a great impact on me and still does in some ways.

"Of Mice and Men" - closer to where I am now

"Metaphysical Club" by Louis Menand - Frankly much of this was and still is over my head. I nearly didn't make it through but I could never quiet make myself put it down and it really had an impact on me, this was only a few years ago.

Castaneda, Herman Hesse, Twain and Thomas Wolfe.

Have to edit to include Bradbury

The Divine Comedy, by Dante. I was in the 9th grade.

His description of hell absolutely convinced me that hell did not exist. Such human conceit. Such dwelling on hideous torture as a way of redemption is ridiculous.

It also says something of the nature of humans--dwelling on torture and the suffering of others in minute detail is more interesting than the supposed "heaven" that is our goal.

I know that wasn't Dante's intention when he wrote the books, but damn--how many of you have read "Inferno," dabbled in "Purgatorio," and could not for the life of you get through "Paradiso?"

See what I mean? Before Dante wrote Inferno, there wasn't the concept of hell as he described it. The lakes of fire damnation descriptions descended from his writings, and those fools who believe it don't even know where it comes from. "It's in the Bible!" they scream. But where in the Bible are the minute descriptions of the seven levels and the City of Dis??

Hmph!

Brought together evolutionary biology and animal behavior, ecology, ranching and human psychology together in a way that made so much sense to me.

"Siddhartha" absolutely changed my life.

Shakespeare - all of his works have enchanted me since I was a little girl in Italy. Macbeth, especially, remains one of my favorites. I find it as much about ruthless ambition as anything else and I truly believe it features one of the best villainesses in print, Lady Macbeth.

Dante - I love love love the Inferno, especially in its original Italian.

Poe - I used to know The Raven by heart. His stories are still enjoyable to read to this day.

All three made me appreciate literature and the power of words not just as literary devices

We had to read it in high school. I had started it five times, the suddenly it clicked. Then I ate it up. I was a reader before then, but this hard wired me as well giving mean appreciation of literature. I've been afraid to revisiting it in fear of marring the memory.

go down the road in the book. I see shades of it in the current maladmin, with perpetual war.

Just on DU quickly today - everyone have a great day! :hi:

Olivia: My Life of Exile in Kalaupapa
by Olivia R. Breitha

I swear that if I hadn't seen / read Fight Club and Survivor, I probably would have become another mindless religious conservative robot / consumer bullshit / whatever.

GET THE BOOKS NOW, LOUNGERS. You'll walk away changed, too.

Carried a copy of it with me when I was in the service. From Grenada through Central America to the Iran-Iraq war. No longer have my original copy but, last year I purchased a new one from Amazon.

The Tin Drum--Gunter Grass
Master & Margharita--Mikhail Buglakov
One Hundred Years of Solitude--Garcia Marquez

Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse
A Gift from the Sea - Anne Morrow Lindberg

Still in print. Published in 1936 by the Chinese child of Christian missionaries. H rejected Christianity and quotes Confucius and lots of other sages.

Has a wonderful chapter called "Why I am a Pagan", which has my philosophy in it, in one sentence:

"All I know is that if God loves me half as much as my mother does, He will not send me to Hell."

the honest answer would have to be Atlas Shrugged. I read it when I was 15 and became a total convert for a year or two. The good thing is it got me out of being a Nixon Republican and out of the Catholic Church. I started college in 1969, and was a full-fledged hippie anarchist before Christmas break. Looking back, it's easy to see that Rand's philosophy had the same appeal as communism, fundamentalism (of any variety), or fascism; i.e., it answers every question so you basically abdicate any responsibility for your decisions. It's hard to believe there are educated adults who can still buy her program; most figure out that life is bit more complex and nuanced that the ideologues make it out to be.

I read this book as a senior in high school, and it totally opened my mind to the amazing things that could be done with a fictional narrative. Before that my preferred reading material was Stephen King, and my only exposure to "great literature" had been through high school English classes. Honestly, I'd have to credit my decision to major in creative writing in college to this book more than any other - it made me absolutely certain that I wanted to be a writer.

Quite simply, when I was a teenager at an extremely low point in my life, I discovered this book, and it introduced to me metaphysical concepts that were intriguing and compelling. This book saved my life in it's own quiet way, because it restored a quality of hope to my existence.

Illusions - Richard Bach.

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Wherever you go there you are - Jon Kabat-zinn

Alcoholics Anonymous - Bill W. (et. al.)

Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Love is a Dog From Hell - Charles Bukowski

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values - Robert M. Pirsig

Go, Dog. Go! - P. D. Eastman

RL

A Touch of Wonder by Arthur Gordon & Jonathon Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. (Yeah, I'm a sap)

1984 obligated me ask questions about my world.

and Go Ask Alice obliged my want to sample it.

:toast: