A book that changed your life.

[Raindog]

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.

 

[Groucho]

Forgot that moby's surname was a poor language removed issue.... Please Mods don't ban me not this week please please no.

Sorry mate that’s you banned for a million years.

 

[Raindog]

@Disgruntledgoat just because you liked me, I'm a massive TP fan and Nightwatch is superb, maybe the last really good one. I might be between Reaper Man and Soul Music for my out and out favourite though, although ironically nostalgia may be a factor...

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

@Disgruntledgoat just because you liked me, I'm a massive TP fan and Nightwatch is superb, maybe the last really good one. I might be between Reaper Man and Soul Music for my out and out favourite though, although ironically nostalgia may be a factor...

Reaper Man is my favourite TP book. I read it on my family's first ever foreign holiday. We drove from Warrington to the south of Germany. I think I read that and Witches Abroad twice each in those 2 weeks.

I get more out of them now I'm nearly 40, but I still treasure those memories.

GNU Terry Pratchett

 

[summerisle]

The Faraway Tree

As a young school kid it was read to us as a class..... had me gripped on fantastical places and mythical characters.... loved books ever since.

There was another series in a similar vein about a magical wishing chair, including the casual racism that was prevalent in the books of Enid Blyton m

 

[evilwebby]

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.

Loved that book too. Fab tale.
I also absolutely loved Enid Blyton's books, especially the Ameila Jane series!

 

[MARK SMITH]

Reaper Man is my favourite TP book. I read it on my family's first ever foreign holiday. We drove from Warrington to the south of Germany. I think I read that and Witches Abroad twice each in those 2 weeks.

I get more out of them now I'm nearly 40, but I still treasure those memories.

GNU Terry Pratchett

Started with Making Movies, loved all the references to Hollywood, read the lot in order after that.
Brave New World was quite extraordinary as a teen, re-read Catch 22 a few years ago and still loved it.
Had the Hobbit read to us in 2nd year juniors, led to a love of fantasy,
Re Iain Banks, I preferred the Crow Road to Wasp Factory, but enjoyed them both.
Currently reading A Brief History of Time, think he's made a few mistakes there

 

[Kurt.]

There was another series in a similar vein about a magical wishing chair, including the casual racism that was prevalent in the books of Enid Blyton m

I vaguely remember the wishing chair too

 

[4737carlin]

....not sure about changing my life, but I loved ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ when I first read it, particularly it’s values of respect and decency. Glad to say it’s also a favourite of my daughter.

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

 

[Pistonbroke]

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull

 

[chrismpw]

Herman Melville's Moby [Poor language removed]

Geesh that is a good, but extraordinarily verbose read.

 

[Mo' Better Blues]

So many come to mind but I reckon ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ shaped my view of the world in my early teens, little bit later Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’ shaped my view of the spiritual world (as in there isn’t one) and in my very early 20’s Nikos Kazantzakis’ ‘Zorba the Greek’ made me try and laugh and dance in the absurdity, the beauty and the sadness of it all....

 

[chrismpw]

I bought lord of the rings on day 2 of my first honeymoon. It made the event.

Moby (richard contraction) taught me that if you persevere you can get to the end of an immensely waffly novel which could've been just a couple of chapters, but, you know , you have to carry on because it's the epitome of US culture and you have time give them a chance. Incidentally the worthehile quotations are all in the final chapter so just skip there after chapter one.

Watership down had me crying like a baby in front of my 12 year olf classmates and taught me retrospectively of the importance of a stiff upper lip.

Wilbur smith (any book) taught me that even the simplest plot can be beautifully and enthrallingly told.

The Haynes manual (1977 Mini Clubman estate) taught me that with perseverence any car can be taken apart and repaired.

The amateur's lathe .... just wow.

 

[dublinbluenose]

Probably more to do with the age I read it at but genuinely a seminal moment in my life reading this.

 

[Raindog]

I bought lord of the rings on day 2 of my first honeymoon. It made the event.

Moby (richard contraction) taught me that if you persevere you can get to the end of an immensely waffly novel which could've been just a couple of chapters, but, you know , you have to carry on because it's the epitome of US culture and you have time give them a chance. Incidentally the worthehile quotations are all in the final chapter so just skip there after chapter one.

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)