While She Knits - Books that Have Changed You

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

There was an article in the Guardian about stories that have changed you - how you think, how you feel, how you live your life.

the very idea of a novel changing hearts and minds on a massive scale is rather shocking. Stories are no longer the sacred cultural treasuries they once were. Books have become unholy, cheap and familiar. You've read the seven plots again and again; you've ploughed through Proust with the same blasé greed with which you ploughed through the trash on the front of the mag. You may have cried, and laughed, and shaken your head at the terrible ways of men, but when did a novel last actually change what you think and what you do?

I need to think a bit to come up with a novel that meets the criteria (although I know they exist, in my attic or on a bookshelf), but what comes first to mind is that after reading Stiff, a book about happens to a body after a person has died, I've never been able to think about having Rice Krispies for breakfast, or chicken soup for lunch, in quite the same way.   And I Wanna Be Sedated ("30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers") left me much more tolerant of various parenting styles and teen behaviour.

How about it, Sounis? What have your read that changed how you view some aspect of the world? altered the course of your life, either a little or a lot? As the Guardian article finishes, "be it in a serious or frivolous way, for good or for bad – what was the last story that really changed you?"

Comments

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Of course I have how mention how Queen's Thief changed my perceptions...

Before I read Mrs. Tuners work, I did not have a profound understanding of political intrigue and how it ties in with human nature. After I finished "The King of Attolia" for the first time, the courts of Elizabeth I, Henry II, and Catherine de Medici suddenly came to life for me. I did not expect to deepen my understanding with a novel, and I'm quite thrilled that it happened. That understanding proved to be very important concerning the quality of my historical studies, and I have to thank Mrs. Turner for it.

[rosalui.livejournal.com]

'Harry Potter 7' made me feel better about death. :)

'What Happened To Lani Garver?' made me think about angels;
'After' scared the bejeezus out of me, made me think of escape plans, and made me glad I wasn't in school;
'Shiva's Fire' forever changed the way I think about dance;
Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy made me believe, just a little, in Myrddin Emrys. :D

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy made me believe, just a little, in Myrddin Emrys.

*seconds this*

For me, her Merlin trilogy was the first to take the Arthur story out of fantasy and put it into a plausible historical fiction.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

"Liberating Paris" gave me a glimpse, as a youngish teen, of what adult life was like.
"Keturah and Lord Death" gave me a perspective on all the things I have to offer.
"Mrs Dalloway" made me feel better about life, and friendship, and growing older.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Lord of the Flies, which I read at 13 or so, gave me an over-pessimistic view of human nature which took me many years to shake off.

Reading Simon (Rosemary Sutcliff) and The Children of the New Forest at around 8 sparked a huge enthusiasm in the English Civil War, which led to a huge enthusiasm in history in general, which ultimately led me to study history at university.

Reading The Lord of the Rings and Roger Lancelyn Green's Arthurian legend retellings as a child ultimately led me to joining my university's Tolkien Society and Arthurian Society ten years later. Twenty years on from that, I still meet up with friends from those societies several times a year, go on holiday with them, interact with them every day on LJ... and have been married to one of them for 15 years. :-)

More recently, Watching the English by Kate Fox has made me look at the people around me - crowds, queues etc. - in a very different way, and has turned me into a Watching the English bore. :-)

I'm not sure what is responsible for my over-long answers to questions, but it was probably a book. ;-)

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid the way history was taught in my school was too awful for me ever to consider history at uni, but reading Simon as a child made such a strong impression on me that with essentially no further reading/learning on the subject I was able to recognise the flagrantly inaccurate presentation of the Civil War in I, Coriander over 35 years later. Which is less impressive than its leading me to study the subject at third-level, but still something!

[openedlocket.livejournal.com]

"My Sister's Keeper"- a very touching book, made me cry in the end
"QT Series"- helped me better understand politics

last but not the least...

the Bible- I haven't exactly finished it but the bits I have read changed me, a lot. No more needs to be said

[coyul.livejournal.com]

My Sister's Keeper was such a good book. It made me wonder if I would do the same if I were in that same situation. I know I'd feel just as resentful. I forget her name, but the main girl reminds me of me in how she felt about it.

[sgwordy.livejournal.com]

When I was younger:
Jonathon Livingston Seagull
Stranger in a Strange Land
Great Expectations

More recently:
Life of Pi

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

When I was 12, and had just finished The Lord of the Rings for the first of many times, I picked up a copy of Paul Kocher's Master of Middle-Earth and my life was never the same afterward. That was my first experience of literary criticism and it blew me away to realize that people didn't just write books -- they also wrote books about books, metabooks, that took stories apart and showed you all the fascinating mechanics of how they worked and what they could mean. Twenty years later I took my doctorate in English literature, and that's why.

In college, I was unexpectedly bowled over by Dorothy Sayers's Gaudy Night -- I was groping toward an understanding of my own identity as a woman and an intellectual, and reading a well-written story about a sympathetic character doing the same threw a raking light across my own struggles. Unfortunately, I wasn't hanging out with anyone as compelling as Lord Peter Wimsey, so there was a certain amount of vicarious wish-fulfillment involved :-), but I reread that book a lot because it spoke to my fledgling social/intellectual integration in a way that no other feminist text did.

Most recently, I read The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris and developed an interest in Benedictine spirituality. I'd been surrounded by friends who came up in the Ignatian tradition, but it was The Rule of Benedict that really spoke to me once I'd rediscovered it (sorry, Holy Cross people!). Norris's poetic evocation of the seasons of the church year made me want to pay more attention to the spiritual rhythm of my own life. I haven't always been successful, but I return to this book whenever I need to reinvigorate my commitment.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Have you read Madeleine L'Engle's The Irrational Season? It's a long time since I've read it, but I found a lot of L'Engle's non-fiction very powerful.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Too many to name them all, but here's a sampling: Middlemarch. Cyrano de Bergerac. The Lady's Not for Burning and The Dark Is Light Enough. The White Darkness. The Ear, The Eye and The Arm. TT, QoA, KoA.

For nonfiction, this will sound odd, but I was really affected, positively, by How We Die, by Sherwin Nuland. It describes exactly what happens to the body in various death scenarios, but the main point is that we don't choose this, there is not something wrong with us if we don't get the "perfect death" where we lie peacefully in bed and bestow our blessings on our offspring -- because almost no one gets that, and we shouldn't feel "cheated" if it doesn't happen that way. His conclusion is that we can only control how we live, and that, as my great-grandmother once said, the day of a person's death is NOT the most important day in his life.

[sandtree.livejournal.com]

'The Secret Garden' - Frances Hodgson Burnett
'A Wrinkle in Time' and 'A Swiftly Tilting Planet' - Madeleine L'Engle
'The Language of God' - Francis S. Collins
'The Good Girl Revolution' - Wendy Shalit

Books I first read when I was younger than had a huge effect on shaping my life/interests/the person I became would probably be... Little House on the Prairie (all of them), Pride and Prejudice, and Harry Potter. Oh, and Lord of the Rings, of course.

[willow-41z.livejournal.com]

Is The Good Girl Revolution her third book? I've read Girls Gone Mild and A Return to Modesty (I thought GGM was very good and ARtM was so-so).

[9mil.livejournal.com]

After first reading Chuck Palahniuk's 'Fight Club' and then 'Choke,' my writing was forever changed in a way that no other book or author has altered me. Reading him helped me find my correct voice.

It was either 'Fahrenheit 451' or 'Brave New World' that changed what I read and write about and ultimately given me something I want to my schooling for.

And, though it's not a book, T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" has inexplicably grabbed me and shaken me. I love this poem and everything it does or could represent.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

I always feel a bit inadequate when people talk about how books they read as children changed how they view the world, as I can't remember more than loving them and occasionally wanting very much to be in them. (The silly wishing for living in the past - most often Elizabethan or Regency times - was grown out of eventually!)

Pride and Prejudice was very important though. I read it first when quite young, after my mother recommended it, saying it was 'about 5 girls looking for husbands'. When I studied English Lit on my second go-round with university, P&P was the first text in the first module that was solely literature. I was a bit nervous, but the realisation that I could love and enjoy it as a comedy of manners romance *and* also love and enjoy it as a realist novel with appreciation of what that meant, was a very joyful one.

And then there's Howl's Moving Castle, which, through a variety of twisty paths, led me to start that English Lit degree. If I could just get the seven-league boots from that book, it would be a huge help for me and my long-distance sweetie, whom I met through another bunch of twisty paths involving Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret!

[katewaits.livejournal.com]

I love "Howl's Moving Castle"! I'd seen the movie first and then reading the book made me so angry at Miyazaki for changing such a great story and making so many people think THAT was what HMC was about. Grrr. I still think it's beautiful animation, but I have to pretend it's a totally different source. I love the book too much.

And, yes, seven-league boots would be awesome. *nods*

[annikah.livejournal.com]

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell revolutionized how I approach science fiction and faith and anthropology and life in general. I was practically raised on sci-fi, but something about The Sparrow is... different. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's a very emotionally exhausting book and I waver between recommending it everyone and to no one.

I'm a closet fan of political philosophy, but it wasn't until I read The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin that I realized I'm probably an anarchist at heart. The Dispossessed is an example of an anarchist society that actually works, albeit in very special circumstances. It also has some very poignant digressions on time, relationships, and one's place in society.

And, I suppose if I never read my uncle's copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales however many summers ago, I would not have chosen to write my undergrad thesis on Chaucer, or go on to grad school in medieval literature.

[styromgalleries.livejournal.com]

I'm a closet fan of political philosophy, but it wasn't until I read The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin that I realized I'm probably an anarchist at heart.
I'm interested in political philosophy, too. I've never read this book by Le Guin (I've only read her Earthsea Cycle, though this sounds like it might be my kind of book) but I was just wondering if you've heard of/read anything by Murray Rothbard or connected perhaps to the Mises Institute? A lot of it revolves around the Austrian School of Economics, but many of their texts are about libertarian principles, and at least a few of the fellows at the Institute would describe themselves as anarchists.

[philippas.livejournal.com]

I'm sure a lot of books have changed me in ways I don't even realize, but I always think first of The Chronicles of Lymond, which both blew the borders off my ideas about how big a story could be, and began to show me just how deep redemption can go.

[filkferengi]

Have you read Lois McMaster Bujold yet? If you enjoy those themes, what a lot of treats you have in store! As a bonus, LMB & mwt recommend each other all the time.

[sun-bird-498.livejournal.com]

The Book Thief completely changed my perspective on human relationships and their dynamics. I suppose the QT books helped with this, but The Book Thief goes beyond even that. It also convinced me that I want to major in something English related.

[katewaits.livejournal.com]

"Harold and the Purple Crayon". Not kidding. It sparked my imagination like nothing ever had. I know I was just a kid at the time, but I count it as an ongoing influence since I still have that very tattered book I read so many years ago, and I still look at it for inspiration from time-to-time.

"The Hobbit". My mother gave this to me when I was eleven or twelve and told me she thought I might like it. I can't see her ever reading a book like that, so I don't know how she knew, but she was right. It was great fantasy, both dark and light in one book, and it had a profound effect on my standards.

"To Kill a Mockingbird". Again, my mother gave me this one and told me I might like it. She couldn't have been more right. It remains my favorite book of all time. I was young enough to understand it but not old enough to find the kids 'cute'. It was the first book that included 'serious' matters that I could relate to. And I developed a wicked crush on Jem. ;D

"A Confederacy of Dunces". This book made me look at character creation in a different way. There was not one cliched or 'typical' character in the whole bunch, and yet they all touched on enough that was familiar to me that they came to life.

And, of course, the Queen's Thief series. Raised my expectations of YA and surprised me more than any reading had in years. I hadn't realized how 'meh' I'd gotten toward plot until I was escorted into such a masterful one.

[twtd]

Not a novel, but Jihad vs. McWorld completely changed how I looked at the world and the purpose of democracy (particularly the American form). A Problem From Hell did the same thing.

For novels, I reread Contact at least once a year because it so profoundly affected how I look at the world and my views on science and faith.

There have been others, but I can't think of them off of the top of my head.

[(Anonymous)]

1984

I was about 11 and it was the first Orwell that I ever read. To this day, I'm a massive fan. I guess it was the first political book I read too so it had a profound impact on me. Whenever I read about totalitarian/police states I always relate it back.

~crazyviolin

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

As a teen, Dandelion Wine made me look for and appreciate the beauty in all the small, ordinary things in life. The writing in Slaughterhouse Five stunned me. The Attolia books have stayed with me more than any others have. More recently, The Alchemist made me really think about my life.

[styromgalleries.livejournal.com]

Is that The Alchemist by Paul Coelho? I've had it sitting on my shelf for years--whoa, deja vu moment; I feel like I've said that to someone around here recently. Anyway, yeah, I've had it sitting around and I've just never been able to make myself pick it up.

[(Anonymous)]

I have read so many books that I imagine many of them have changed me and shaped me in ways I don't even realize. The one that comes to mind right now is The Bridge to Terebithia... maybe the first book that ever made me cry. I finally realized that despite our best efforts, life isn't always as perfect as we wish it would be, not everybody gets a happy ending, and sometimes good kids die. It's best lesson: life isn't easy, and it's not fair, but it's well worth the hard job of living. Kind of like Gen's story :)

[traboule.livejournal.com]

What you said!

Strangely enough, I had an unplanned run-in with "Jacob Have I Loved" a few hours before this thread went up and started getting weepy from the first few lines in. I'm not sure how Katherine Patterson changed me, but I think that she did, in some deep and fundamental way, teach me about how unfair life can be and how you live around that. JHIL always got me more than "Bridge to Terebithia," but that one had me in tears as well.

[mycenaeth.livejournal.com]

'Little Brother' by Cory Doctorow. Review here (http://feastonbooks.blogspot.com/2009/04/little-brother-by-cory-doctorow.html). Tied together my geekiness with a sense of civic duty towards protecting privacy.

And this might sound cheesy, but The Thief, because it made me really want to be Gen and I would sit in my room and do 'limbering exercises' for my hands like Gen, and braid my hair like Gen, etc... In fact, I still braid my hair because it reminds me of those books. haha...

[mycenaeth.livejournal.com]

Also, almost anything by Ursula LeGuin. She has such a wonderful outlook on women, and minorities, and I love that her books aren't whitewashed. In fact, I read a collection of her short stories about a society where the darker your skin was, the more rank you held and the palest of skin meant you were a slave and it was such an interesting outlook on slavery and racism, which have their roots in power and not in your appearance.

Also Frank Herbert's Dune series, because it was the greatest universe building I had read outside of the LotR and it inspired me to create my own world as well.

I'll just keep adding to this as I think of more. =p

[styromgalleries.livejournal.com]

One of the books that has had the greatest impact on me is The Lord of the Rings.

I've always loved to read and to write, but Tolkien's world and his characters just inspired me in a way nothing ever had before or really has since. I went through a phase where I wanted to be Tolkien, you know? I wanted to build worlds, and write languages, and sit in a pub with a really cool circle of writing buddies (and I still kind of do).

It's not just the story or the characters, it's his observations on life and human nature and good and evil through the story and the characters. There is a passage that makes me want to live better, makes me want to change my attitude:
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

Those are some of the most wonderful words I've ever heard or read.

Tolkien also got me interested in the fantasy genre. I've always liked fairy tales and adventure stories, but I branched out and read some stuff I might not have otherwise.

[hapaxnym.livejournal.com]

@philippas -- that's interesting. I would say the Lymond Chronicles changed my life, too, because that's when I suddenly realized that no matter how "good" a book was, if it wasn't working for me, *I didn't have to finish it.* I have carted the whole set around with me for decades, through several moves, with that bookmark still placed halfway through the third book, just so I never forget that lesson.

Other than that -- as a teen, J.D. Salinger (especially FRANNY & ZOOEY), for managing to articulate all the inchoate longings and yearnings and discontent and dreams that I had been feeling but didn't know how to express.

As an adult -- Oh, PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK, for teaching me how to *look*. And everything written by Anne Lamott, for teaching me how to *care*.

And can't recommend too highly THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE (ed. by Roxanne Coady) in which dozens of Real Live Writers contribute essays that answer just this question. Funny, inspiring, thought provoking, and a killer on the To Read List.

[philippas.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is a good lesson. I won't even act all shocked that you didn't make it through the series :) Frankly, no one I've recommended it to has even made it through book 1. (sighs) And I haven't reread it yet - it's kind of an exhausting series. I just reread my favorite scenes from book six over and over ...

But yeah, I've had that reaction with certain books and also quite frequently with literary criticism.

[traboule.livejournal.com]

Wow, I loved reading the responses on this one almost as much as I enjoyed thinking about it. I'm surprised there aren't more Harry Potter people here, but I guess we're all old enough that those confirmed fantasy readers were already confirmed by the time Harry came out...anyway,

The Chronicles of Narnia taught me what fantasy felt like and should be, and The Riddlemaster of Hed taught me what it looked like.

Possession taught me what imagination was, that English PhDs can be admirable people, and that it was possible to write an honest-to-god old-fashioned romance for and about over-educated cynics versed in Freud and casual (well, casual when compared to the 1860s) sex.

The Rest is Noise did what all of my high school history classes couldn't, and put me in touch with the enormous tragedy and changes of the 20th century. It also reminded me that non-fiction can do the same things as fiction.

[annikah.livejournal.com]

I thought about putting Harry Potter in the sense of it being a cultural/communal phenomenon. Only a few of my friends read as much as I do, but practically everyone has read Harry Potter. It's something most of us can connect with and talk about, even if we don't have many other book-worlds in common. I don't know how much I can say it changed my life, rather than it became a part of my life, because from beginning to end the Harry Potter era has lasted for longer than a decade.

I've never heard of Possession and The Rest is Noise... I may have to look into those.

[magicsandwiches.livejournal.com]

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was my first book obsession (2nd grade). It was the most magical thing I had ever encountered. The world of Narnia was my friend when I felt like nobody else was.

The Catcher in the Rye made me over-cognizant to phoniness. It affected the way I saw everyone. Franny and Zooey cured me completely. Haven't read it since high school (the language is atrocious), but I still think about it often, and the amazing ending, and how it absolutely does not matter if people act fake or phony, I still need to love them. And I do.

The Last Unicorn taught me to see the difference between real magic and fake magic and helped me decide which one I prefer.

Cheney Duvall, MD series actually prompted me to get on the internet and join a message board. I found some of my closest friends and greatest book recommendations because of it. Which leads me to....

The Queen's Thief series, which I actually like more than The Lymond Chronicles (they remind me strongly of each other). Queen's Thief reminded me that I don't like to be coddled as a reader, and what it's like to read a series over and over and still find new things.

And countless other books, but this list is too long already. :)

[(Anonymous)]

The King of Attolia.
Gaudy Night.
Littlejohn by Howard Owen.
And many more.
~Feir Dearig

[tearoha.livejournal.com]

Not a novel, but The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis. I read it for the first time, in one lump, on a 35-odd hr train trip with plenty of time to think. It changed the way I look at pretty much everything; coping with other people, inconvenience, lassitude, faith, sincerity, etc. Sometimes I love Lewis and want to cart his books around forever, and sometimes I want to throw them through a wall, but he always makes me think. I love Screwtape because it's solid philosophical/theological stuff with tongue firmly in cheek.
"My dear, my very dear Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie," - LOL

The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass made me laugh till I cried - the whole way through - and showed me the amusing side to the church when I very much needed to see it.

Gaudy Night made being adult (hasn't happened yet, might not ever) look a lot less intimidating, by taking me inside Harriet's head and showing that no-one, not even fictional characters, really gets it all figured out, and not everyone has to be the same!

Richard Adams' Watership Down changed the way I look at humans' impact on the environment, and left me shy of urban development ever since!

And everything else I have ever read, in some way, shape or form.