Favorite Book/Book that changed you

[BigGreen]

Okay, due to school, and despite the fact i'm studying primarily literature, it seems that an overwhelming majority of what i read is nonfiction. In fact, even outside of school most of my pleasure reading has become non-fiction - either essays, analyses, etc. The closest i came to reading good fiction is reading essays on the classics. So, i'm looking for some suggestions as to what works of FICTION have resonated with you in an especially meaning way. No James Joyce recommendations, though, for a variety of reasons. Whether it's a classic like the great gatsby or a book no one has really heard of, I'm open to any suggestions, as I desperately need something of value to stick on my reading list that doesn't come from the traditional avenues and channels (ie, my classes and professor suggestions).

[KeyMastur]

Great Expectations - just like the movie though, plus you might have read it in school already.

My all time favorite - Where the Red Fern Grows

[BigGreen]

I LOVE Where the Red Fern Grows!!!! That and "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" were my favorite books when i was a little kid. As far as great expectations goes, I actually haven't read it in some time, so it would make for a good read, but I just came off the pickwick papers and our mutual friend within the last few months, i kind of want to get away from Dickens, and I guess any and all british/european lit in general (also read High Fidelity and About a Boy, so i'm spent on England). I'm specifically hoping for a good american post-wwII novel...I read Joe College by the same dude who wrote election and LOVED it. Really, i'm hoping to find a diamond in the rough, so to speak.

[Decoder]

Any bruce lee book.

[kc]

I'm a huge Tom Clancy fan..if you're looking for a good read that actually uses your brain a little..he's great. If you haven't read him before...DON'T start with Hunt for Red October or Sum of All Fears...my fav so far is Without Remorse.

Happy Reading

kc

[Rich8888]

A book that can be viewed as a significant life transformation is "No Ordinary Moments" by Dan Millman. He has written others as well, however this one is a good start. If you like it you will read the others.

[tolinka]

The Wizard of OZ???

[FireFighter]

playboy

[Pheedno]

B.G., I normally don't like works of fiction. My primary reading is text books and non-fiction but there are a few that I would recommend

Cold Mountain- Charles Frazier-Beautifully written. This one was recommended to me by my Mother(who is an English professor). It's slow to start but well worth a read. The movie comes out next year I believe.
If your not familiar about the story. It's about a civil war deserter who is wounded and instead of healing and waiting to be sent back to the front, he deserts on the path to find his home and love in N. Carolina.

Metamorphoses-Ovid. Collection of poems/stories of the Roman Gods. I've mentioned before that I love anything about mythology. If your interested in mythology, then it's a good read.

The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold-(also recommended by my mother). Is about a 14 year old girl who is raped by her neighbor. The majority of the book is her perception and observation of her family, friends, and the neighbor who raped her as she grows. I just started this one and can already tell it will be powerfull.

American Gods-Neil Gaiman-On my list to read- About a man "Shadow" released from prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. Shadow gets involved with a mysterious character named Wednesday who turrns out to be an old god once known as Odin the All-father. Odin is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows to prepare for an epic battle against upstart deities.
This is a brief discription I got off a websight. I've heard nothing but great reviews of this book.

[palme]

Self biographys is always interesting to read, people from hells angels or other criminal elements.

I have "Essex Boys" on the way.

ESSEX BOYS A TERRIFYING EXPOSE OF THE BRITISH DRUGS SCENE UPDATED ED
by O'Mahoney, Bernard

Ive heard it´s a very good read. Ill let you know when im done with it.

[Red Ketchup]

Spider Robinson's "Callahan" stories were all awesome (xcept the last one, Callahans key, eep!)

Pick up "THE CALLAHAN CHRONICALS", it's an omnibus of his first three stories.

It's very mild sci-fi, and most of the action happens in Callahan's bar Good light reading which touched some folks so profoundly that it spun a whole subculture on the net. Just check out the alt.callahans newsgroup or the #callahans channel on any IRC network to see what I mean

You also can't go wrong with Orson Scott Card's "Ender" series... goood stuff!

Red

[FKITLETSGO]

I would have to say MAXIM wow do I get ass now!!!!!

[David B.]

Kurt Vonnegut "Breakfast of Champions"
Thomas Pynchon "The Crying of Lot 49"
Gabriel Garcia Marquez "One Hundred Years of Solitude"

--dnb

[clockworks]

i haven't read anything but text books and technical documentation for over 4 years...and i'm lovin it!! =)

hehe,
-- clocky baby

[Matt Foley]

the bible

[johnsomebody]

The Bible? He said FICTION!

I know this is from an old thread but my personal fave: SILENCE by Shusaku Endo, although it's based on historical fact. Really did change my life.

And if you've got a LOT of time, The Tale of Genji, by Mirasaki Shikibu, -the first novel ever written, and the author was a woman -1000 AD. Starts out rough but becomes totally engaging, though it wasn't life-changing.

I'm a fan of Japanese fiction, as you can tell.

[sd11]

The Catcher in the Rye
The Orchid Thief (sorry it's nonfiction, but it's the finest piece of nonfiction I've read in a very long time)
Heart of Darkness (inspiration for Apocalypse Now)

[Tock]

The Bible? He said FICTION!
=====================

It IS fiction . . .

I like the Sherlock Holmes stuff, Dickens, 19th century british stuff. But you wanna get away from that . . .
I read Voltaire's "Candide" every once in a while . . . not sure why, but there's something about it that I get a kick out of. Also his "Zadig" and "L'Ingenu" have a charm about 'em, sort of shows how the 18th century folks were are crazy as we are. Yah, for a quick read, it's "Candide."
To prepare you corporate life, see if you can dig up a copy of "Systemantics." I have a paperback of this somewhere . . . Some guy came up with a funny cynical explaination of how and why business systems don't work . . . sorta done in the style of a regular business best-seller. Oh yah, I highly recommend it.

[sublang]

Without Remorse by Tom Clancy.

[Kärnfysikern]

I mostly read light stuff. Fantasy and sci fi and horror.

But if you are curious about fantasy read The farseer triology by Robin Hobb, its not your ordinary fantasy with elfs and fireballs and shit. But a very good told story with alot of character development.

A good traditionall fantasy triology is riftwar by Raymond E Feist, I found myself totaly and utterly consumed by those books.

All horror books from Dean Koontz are good and most of Stephen Kings off course. Kings a little deeper and more character oriented while Koontz likes guns and action(damn that man is obsessed with Uzi, almost every good damn book he writes he praises the Uzi), but sSze the night and Fear nothing was alot different from his normal fiction. Those 2 books are by far Koontz best works.
It and Tomyknockers are Kings best books imo.

The best sci fi I have ever read is the foundation triology by Isac Asimov. Everyone should read that. It describes the fall of one empire and the building of another. EPIC triology that spans over hundreds of years.
2001,2010,2061 and 3001 by Arthur C clark is all VERY good and thought provocing(sp?).
The rama books are also good, a small group of people stranded in a gigantic alien spaceship heading god knows where.
A very spooky sci fi is Solaris(the movie sux but the book is good), its scary in a sublte way and it had me tensed all through.

Starship Troopers by Heinlein is AWSOME not at all like the movie in any way. It contributed to my political views alot, I realy like the sound of the goverment in that book, and the law system. Maby Im a facist

Rainbow six is a awsome thriller that had me hooked from the begining!!

[Martin43]

Good thread as always BigGreen!
Want to participate but because of time differences, am always too late! And/or struggle to post.

Books that were meaningful to me: in no particular order but neither the whole list: Alain Fournier: 'Le Grand Maulnes'(this was Fournier's only book, he died in 1st WW); F. Kafka: America, The Castle (whenever I feel down I re-read the latter, it helps me ...); Henry James: 'Aspern Papers' and 'Roderick Hudson' (Love James full stop!); Patrick White: 'Voss'; Dostoyevski: 'The House of the Dead'; I'll stop here.

Books that I think you might enjoy: I second PHeedno's choice of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and selections of David B. as well as sd11, not forgetting the Bible (Matt Foley):

Italo Calvino's research on Fairy Tales (don't remember exact title)
Boccaccio: 'The Decameron'
Angela Carter: 'Nights at the Circus'
Oscar Wilde: 'Lord Arthur Saville's Crime and other Stories'

Not fiction but excellent:
Oliver Sacks: 'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat'
Seeing that you like films: Pauline Kael's film reviews or if that's too old fashioned get yourself the Brit mag: Sight and Sound.


Have fun!

[redrock]

Of Mice and Men - my all time favorite!

Black Coffee Blues by Henry Rollins

Newjack: Life at Sing Sing - A journalist becomes a C.O. just so he can write a book about prison life.

[BigGreen]

I hate Oscar Wilde, and like Irving has stated, feel that his legacy will be relegated to "quips and quotations" coffee table books. No doubt he was brilliant, but I'm not a fan of his writing.

Also, after eschewing German lit for whatever reason, I gave Kafka's "The Trial" a good reread, and while I'm not in love with it, I would like to check out some of his other works, Amerika being the first I'd like to check.

Good call as well on James...I'd been meaning to get to him as well. Additionally, someone mentioned Asminov, and while i'm not a big sci-fi fan in the least, it sounds intriguing.

Finally, since this thread has been revived and people are presumably looking for some summer reading, I'll toss in a few of my all-time faves (the ones I reread over and over again with renewed fervish each time):

I'm leaving out the "Theocratic Age" and other works of Classical Antiquity and fast forwarding to the 1700's on:

*Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)...I think this can only be appreciated after a few rereads.
*Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)...still stands in my mind as one of the best blend of beautiful writing and an incredible story in the last few hundred years.
*Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)...flame away, but it's one of the few books that brings me to tears even after several reads.
*The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)...this one gives Dickens a run in the category mentioned above.
*The Book of Daniel (E.L. Doctorow)...one of the few "consciously aware of its own existence, shattering the paradigm of the novel" post-modern efforts that actaully got it right.
*The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)...I don't care how cliched it's become to love this book, and I know you're supposed to outgrow it, but I can't.
*The Naked and the Dead (Norman Mailer)...every WWII veteran I've spoken with has told me that his captures even better than "Saving Private Ryan" what it was truly like to be there.
*Time's Arrow (Martin Amis)...a pain in the ass to start, but a brilliant and original take on writing and the act of reading.
*Choke: A Novel (Chuck Palahniuk)...blows Fight Club out of the water in every sense...not an insignificant accomplishment.
*How to Be Good (Nick Hornby)...see below
*High Fidelity (Nick Hornby)....Hornby makes it onto my list twice, and is the only author to do so. I am of the opinion that if literary critics weren't so caught up in moving away from straight, classic narrative storytelling AND weren't so insistent on indicting *everything* that becomes popular as pop-culture trash, Hornby would be far more heralded than he currently is.

Yes, the list is dominated by British and American writers (which was my concentration), and I'd like to expand upon that, but this is how the list currently sits.

[mammoth]

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding!!

That book has made more of an impact on my life than anything else that I have read. It was given to me as a birthday present when I was 19 and I haven't been the same since!

[sin]

the assault -mulisch
cannery row -steinbeck
1984 -orwell
native son -wright

and im gonna go with pheedno on neil gaiman (ever read the sandman comic books?) he is a master story teller, but his popularity is minimal.

[Money Boss Hustla]

Stone Angel.

I really liked Clockwork Orange...liked the movie more though.

[Kärnfysikern]

Originally posted by mammoth
Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding!!

That book has made more of an impact on my life than anything else that I have read. It was given to me as a birthday present when I was 19 and I haven't been the same since!

Damn how could I forget that one its so good, maby hes workout teories are a little old but god damn, the pictures and everything. one of the best books ever without a doubt!!!

[jeffylyte]

It seems that most here are concentrating on high Fiction. Not having read much lately (my last book was Immunology by Kuby), I cant give anything within the past five years, but for books that aare purely enjoyable (read: not trying to have meaning) try:

more upscale:
A confederacy of dunces by john kennedy toole
my antonia by willa cather

pulp:
the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy by douglas adams
dragonlance chronicles and the twins trilogy by weiss and hickman (second only to lord of the rings in the fatansy genre)
big rouble by dave barry

if you have any technical training STAY AWAY FROM MICHAEL CRICHTON. absolute crap. none of it could possible happen and it is rife with scientific and technical errors. but if you have to the andromeda strain is best.

oh and i forgot. you should go back and reread the entire series with the lion witch and waredrobe. it has been commonly said that it has multiple meanings depending on where you are in life, so people should read them three times: as an adolescent, as a n adult, and as a senior. the author was very enomored with religion and exploring it, hence why sixpence none the richer used that phrase as thier band name.

[BIG R]

Dam Mammoth you took my book! I also read the Arnold Atlas and it changed my training and shot me up to a winner.......I own the Hard Cover.

Ruben

[lloyd_cannon]

animal farm - good fiction

all quiet on the western front - my favorite fiction book

[Kärnfysikern]

Originally posted by jeffylyte

pulp:
the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy by douglas adams

Another off my favorit books that I forgot. Damn no book ever has made me laugh like that one. :/:
Adams was the king of humor!!! Only writer that comes close to him is Harry harrisson(or maby it is harrysson) and his The stainless steell rat books.

[ripsid]

I hate ADD! I can't sit and read I can't focus....33 and can't sit still for 1 or 2 pages....
I did get through "Rogue Warrior" by Dick Marcinko...killed me but I was on a plane for most of it...

[HeartDocMD]

The author who has had the most impact on me has been Michael Crichton. The book Terminal Man, has greatly influenced me, and had set me thinking about science/medicine. His mind, and writing ability in my opinion is not surpassed, as he has done well not only in literature, but also as a doctor, in the movies (Sphere, Congo) and even on tv, as I believe he was one of the creators of ER. Not too shabby...

[mark mcgregor]

Hey why are you so stuck on fiction?
non-fiction is the best its real and you usually learn something.
I recommend

- Mr Nice ,its the autobiography of Howard Marks,he was one of the biggest weed smugglers in the world-its amazing!

- A Path With Heart ,by Jack Kornfield -its one of the best books on meditation ever!
-The Archaic Revival,by Terrence Mckenna
-The Holographic Universe.

[Doc M]

Two of my persoanl favorites:

1.) It's Not About the Bike, My Journey Back to Life:; Lance Armstrong
2.) Let's Roll: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage; Lisa Beamer ( Her husband was on one of the 9/11 flights ).

These are both great reads on human determination and how individuals react in crisis..

Doc M

[Juggernaut]

The Art of War - Sun Tzu
The Tibetan Book of the Dead - W.Y.Evans-Wentz
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Holy Bible

[majorpecs]

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King...there are 4 currently with 3 to me written in the near future:

1. The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
2. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
3. The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
4. The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
5. The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (to be released this year)
6. The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susanna (2004)
7. The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

This has got to be the most intriguing series of books I've ever read!! AWESOME Read....you don't even have to like Stephen's writings in order to enjoy these books...it's a totally different style of novel compared to most of his other books.

[majorpecs]

I'm serious...this is a badass series.....check out the website to whet your interest:

http://www.stephenking.com/DarkTower/

[BIG TEXAN]

I've been hooked on those for a while now Major. You are right, it is a dramatic difference from his normal standard of writing.


My pick for the book that most dramatically changed my life has got to be the Where's Waldo series.

[OverDrive]

hmmm a book that had an influence on me ...
SID HARTHA - Herman Hesse
The Greatest Salesman in the World - Og Mandino

but fav's would also include
1)The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
2) Don't sweat the small stuff
3) Green Egg's & Ham