A book that changed your life.

[Jeff Jones]

I was about 18 and picked up The Inimitable Jeeves off the shelf at home, and having nothing else to do I sat down and read it. I went straight back to the start when I'd finished and read it again. It changed my life because for the next few years I searched bookshops for every PG Wodehouse book I could find and ended up with about fifty.

I still read that book occasionally and it's well worn over 50 years later.

 

[Eggs]

I'm sure we read that in school. The film is great

...the film is fantastic, Gregory Peck won the Oscar for his performance.

 

[ilikecheese]

The One Minute Manager.

It was cumpulsory reading at the company I was employed at my late teens/early 20's.
This guy I worked for at the same time lived by the book. He mastered the philosophy...and developed me.

It helped me to be a successful manager of people in the long run.

 

[Walken]

the ragged trousered philanthropist, my grandad whom I never knew had it as his favourite book and it helped me to adopt a similar ethos from him despite never having met him.

Also 'to kill a mocking bird', the quiet bravery of attius finch and his moral code had a big effect on me

 

[Walken]

Geesh that is a good, but extraordinarily verbose read.

Appropriate for GOT as well, melville was homoerotic before the lisbon was even a thing

 

[chrismpw]

I'm afraid I respectfully disagree:

"Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I?"

Basically the crux of the book, chapter 132 (of 135 admittedly. Sorry, but I love this book, even though I do skip the chapters on the minutiae of whaling when I occasionally re-read it)

I'm being harsh really. It is a great great story, just such heavy going, and I'm a slow reader, I don't skim. I enjoyed the technical details of whaling and life aboard. From memory though I could have done without the first quarter (seemingly) of the book being a discription of Ishmael's bedroom.

Near the end then

 

[Billy Dean]

Kid = Danny the Champion of the World. Started me off on a love for reading

Teen = Catch 22. It was almost like magic that you could do something like this with a book. A precursor to Pulp Fiction.

Adult = 100 Years of Solitude. Not sure if I have the guile to describe it. Pure enrapture.

Catch 22 and 100 years of solitude are probably my 2 favourite fiction books

 

[lichfieldblue]

Lord of the Flies is the one that stuck with me from school.

 

[anjelikaferrett]

Long story...

I was hitting on a girl and she quoted his book at me. I factually rebutted an opinion from it (It was 0200 and everybody was drunk so the factual element is still up for debate). She was a PHD in conflict studies and I had lent her the Gilbert book I mentioned in my last post.

Anyway, I told her I thought Fisk was being disingenuous so she called him, told him what I said and gave me the phone. We had a proper stramash for 5 minutes, told each other to Feck off and hung up.

In hindsight, I was really amazed that he has a network of acolytes around the world who, even at 2 in the morning, will report back to him when people say bad things about his work. I still find that 1) Startlingly arrogant and 2) A bit creepy.

Still a great writer, who I respect and disagree with in equal measure.

What a great story!

 

[neil999]

1984

 

[anjelikaferrett]

As a child the Narnia books set me on the way to a lifelong love of reading. If there are some mystical creatures thrown in so much the better! You can 100% tell that CS Lewis and Tolkein were mates when you compare Narnia and Lord of The Rings. JK Rowling definitely got some of her inspiration from Narnia. Favourite one of the series? Tough call - Possibly a dead heat between The Magician's Nephew and Prince Caspian.

As a young adult Animal Farm changed my life and turned me into the cynic that says all politicians ( and quite a few Union leaders) are in it for their own benefits and will ultimately become corrupted. It definitely shaped my political views and also caused to read everything by George Orwell.

Just as an aside -1984 isn't the scenario we need to be scared of. Read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. That is happening now. .