Maybe it's the book itself (whether you like it or not), or some other circumstances surrounding that book.
I'll give you two: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. After reading each one, I had to sit in quiet contemplation in order to fully absorb everything I had just read. Brave New World challenged my understanding and science and culture as well as teaching me to view the function of religion in society. The Handmaid's Tale introduced to me Second Wave Feminism and was the first time I'd ever seen sex distorted and used as a means of control (hey, what can I say, I was very young the first time I read it).
I can definitely agree with Brave New World. I found it much more plausible than 1984. It's frightening to still be unsure if I'd rather remain in a cloud of happy ignorance, or be aware of it all, something I think really applies to our world today. The Handmaid's Tale is on my list!
I would probably argue that Brave New World is just an exaggeration of today, and for me that's where the power is. People are increasingly focused on the shallow and inconsequential, led that way by a media force that only seeks to exploit the limited attention of the masses for maximum profit. Bernard Marx and his surrender to the system is just a representation of modern protest - very little action is taken and very little change before their ideals eventually just cave in. I dunno if that's what Huxley intended or if I've just got everything wrong, but that's how I've always interpreted the book.
Brave New World was a revelation for me going into my senior year of high school. That book sucked me in like few others have and it is still a favorite of mine to this day.
I recently finished 1984 for school. That book along with Fahrenheit 451 were big impacts on me because I read them just when I was starting to understand the world around me wasn't just High School, but other stuff too. But most importantly they taught about the dangers of specific censorship (or censorship in general). I learned a lot from those books.
1984 did the same for me as well. On a simple level, it just taught me to question authority and to watch the "left hand" when the "right" is doing something flashy. I wouldn't say it made me a conspiracy theorist, but it did teach me to think clearly.
In general there are a lot. One that's sticking out in my mind right now though is The Likeness by Tana French. On its surface it sort of seems like a run of the mill murder mystery novel - a girl is killed in a small town in Dublin, and an investigator with an uncanny resemblance to her pretends to be her for a short time to try to find out who killed her. But the psychological depths it gets to were intense. The investigator starts liking this girl's life more than her own, things like that. But what made it impact me is that the detective ingrains herself into this close knit community of friends who are post grads at the local university. And its an amazing group of friends, like a very close family. And throughout the course of the novel she starts to realize one of them killed the girl and then it becomes about the psychological damage of unravelling this group, both for the members of it and for this detective. It hit very close to home for me because I had just graduated from college a month before I read this. I had a very close knit group of friends like the group in the book, and I was feeling really down about the loss of that. It really felt like I had lost something irreplaceable. My dad recommended I read it because he saw how bummed out I was getting. And it did help, it sort of made me realize that yeah things are always going to change, but nothing takes away the memories and positivity I have from that time in my life. Good book.
It was an entertaining read but I ended up not liking it as much. The ending of In the Woods was pretty unsatisfying, but more than that each book she writes focuses on a different protagonist. The lead from The Likeness is a side character in the first one, and the lead from the first one doesn't show up in the second one except for a small cameo. I say read them in whatever order you want, but I found reading The Likeness first a good entry point and a better book overall.
Something about The Old Man And The Sea just brings me so much peace, it's weird. The book is so simple and soothing to me to read. My favorite line is when Hemingway describes the old man and says "The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks." In fact, the way he's described in general just gives me such a vivid picture of this man and makes me love him all the more. I don't know. It's just such a good book. Also I will say Looking For Alaska messed me up for a few days.
I love Hemingway, so much so that I named my dog, Hemingway. As a nickname we called him Hemmy, and I think most people thought I was in to car engines. I have read much of Hemingways work but I haven't read Old Man and the Sea until now. I just started it. I also love th way the old man is described. I immediately love him and I'm rooting for him.
Ender's Game. I don't know what it was -- but when I got to the end and found out that Ender hadn't been playing a game all that time, I threw the book across the room and spent 10 minutes on my bed in a rage. I've never had a book affect me as much since then, and doubt I ever will.
Freakonomics. And for that matter, SuperFreakonomics, but to a lesser extent. The parts about climate change and abortion changed the way I look at those things entirely.
Of course, reading about the similarities between Sumo wrestlers and school teachers was fascinating too. Would recommend to anyone with a questioning mind. You'll realise how little sense some of our preconceptions make when we look at reality. (Everyone cheats. A little.)
One that I read many years ago, when I was an undergrad, called The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse. I think it was very influential for deciding to get into academia... it's a very strange view of academia though. Here is a relevant description from Wikipedia. The Foundation Trilogy and War and Peace were both very influential in me getting into Social Psychology, perhaps even more than studying the thing. It's like literature gives a nice background for my motivations and intuitions about the field, and the rest is just technical stuff.The setting is a fictional province of central Europe called Castalia, which was reserved by political decision for the life of the mind; technology and economic life are kept to a strict minimum. Castalia is home to an austere order of intellectuals with a twofold mission: to run boarding schools for boys, and to nurture and play the Glass Bead Game, whose exact nature remains elusive and whose devotees occupy a special school within Castalia known as Waldzell. The rules of the game are only alluded to—they are so sophisticated that they are not easy to imagine. Playing the game well requires years of hard study of music, mathematics, and cultural history. The game is essentially an abstract synthesis of all arts and sciences. It proceeds by players making deep connections between seemingly unrelated topics.
The Foundation Trilogy is a masterpiece. To me, Isaac Asimov is the Father of science fiction and The Foundation is what got me interesting in science fiction, and I'm sure its the same story for lots of others. I've heard that Frank Hebert said The Dune series was party inspired by The Foundation.
Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov made me a 17-year-old nihilist.
The creation of a religion based on "harmless untruths" really spoke to me. Whenever I have seemingly arbitrary encounters with people repeatedly, I can't help but think in terms of the karass.
I love Vonnegut. Siren's of Titan is my personal favorite, but everything he wrote was just pure brilliance.
Anthem really changed my perspective on an individual level. I feel like a lot of her work is taken on such a large scale, but if you look at it from your own point of view it's a pretty cool book. The whole premise of remaining an individual in a world that prides itself on community was an interesting idea to me. I would only take the idea and work it to become something more later on. My views have changed from those in the book (I find it better to balance community and individuality), but I still find it played a huge role in challenging my perspective.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It helped me change the way I approached a lot of things in my life.
Two books in particular influenced the way/what I think. Flatland, a book about a two dimensional shape who meets a three dimensional sphere, influenced my life in middle school, causing me to become interested in the academic view of dimensions. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is another book that influenced the way I thought. The book gives one many different lessons on how to think and minimize bias. The way of thinking this book promoted, combined with my psychology class,l ed me to a conclusion about free will that ended my faith. Both these books influenced my life and way of thinking early on, leading to the person I am today.
I , too, love Flatland. It's also a pretty on-point satire of Victorian society. Never got into HPMOR though. Yudkowski's writing style is kind of headache inducing, and complicates otherwise simple concepts in an effort to impress and overawe. Sometimes when the point is explained plainly, contradictions in his ideas become obvious. Like the chapter where he goes on about how "the map is not the territory", yet does the transfiguration be reifying the "map" that is quantum field theory anyways.
I agree, I'm mostly talking about the earlier chapters though. Such as before Harry reaches Hogwarts. With the basic lessons such as try to prove yourself wrong, and also figure out what evidence or arguements will change your mind. I was also enamored with the way he tied the learning experience in with the story, especially in earlier chapters. I haven't been able to find any other works that did this formulation of story and learning well. Most books, I felt like I was being talked down to. However, that's not to say that the story is a good one, that HPMOR is the best rationalist fiction, nor that one should blindly accept Yudkowski's ideas. In fact, some people claim that lesswrong, the forum headed by Yudkowski, is ironically close minded. Regardless, I found the scenes where Harry was discussing how to think with Draco or Hermione, the people who were new to rationality, great brain food. P.s. Can anyone recommend a learning story, such as described above?
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson RAW uses a method of writing he dubs "Guerrilla ontology". From Wikipedia: When I first read the Illuminatus Trilogy it took about a year to read. Not because it was long (though it is), but because I kept fact checking the book. I found out that a lot of the time that what I thought was a a plausible truth turned out to be completely made up by him, and then other times when I was certain he was lying it turned out to be historical fact. His writing style really challenges how you view the world, no matter if you agree or disagree with what he is saying.Guerilla ontology is a practice described by author Robert Anton Wilson in his 1980 book The Illuminati Papers as "the basic technique of all my books. Ontology is the study of being; the guerrilla approach is to so mix the elements of each book that the reader must decide on each page 'How much of this is real and how much is a put-on?'"
Both the Communist Manifesto and the Dao De Jing had major influences on me. The Manifesto was what started me on the path to leftist politics, and the Dao De Jing impacted the way I act in day to day life by helping me stop stressing about small things that are outside of my control.
It's really funny how it happened. It was a mandatory read in French class in highschool (five years ago?) It was called "Le Petit Sauvage" (I don't know if there's a translated version of the book somewhere - if I can get my hands on it, I might do it myself). And very basically, it was the story of a man rediscovering himself as the result of a mid-life crisis. Also, it was a transliteration of the principle of 'carpe diem'. But it was also a book about not fearing the future, either, and treating oneself. It still shapes who I am to this day - It's been told to me several times, before and after, that adults were really just people who had barely any idea what they were doing in the grand scheme of things, and mostly winging it - but that book nailed it into me, and I've sworn to myself not to lose THAT side of myself - the one that makes me wonder. The side people would call the 'inner child' - but that's not accurate, because really I see it more as the natural, non-suppressed state of the human mind that we are told to tone down or even completely repress to appear "socially acceptable", "productive" and "mature".
I have two, The Circle by Eggers and Outliers by Gladwell The Circle made me question the necessity of social media. I hadn't realized how anxious it made me feel. Since then I've deleted Facebook, Twitter, etc.. I feel like I have so much more time to myself and can just be present in the moment. Outliers made me aware of how success comes from seizing opportunities. It has made me more observant and grateful for the opportunities that I find (or forge myself!). Amazing, fascinating books that I would reccomend to anyone. I can see them on my bookshelf now.
Illusions, by Richard Bach. Short and simple, yet thought provoking and meaningful. I'ts the right balance of showing you how life isn't simple, but at the same time is very simple. It really emphasizes that you control your life. It's also centered around roaming, feeling lost, and aircraft, so it struck me when I first read it and has stayed with me.
It's hard to say but at this point I think I'd nominate The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. I used to be fairly libertarian leaning, but the more I've learned about the effects of laissez faire capitalism on countries that move in that direction, the more it has left a sour taste in my mouth. I never learned much about Latin America in school and this book's outlook on the coup by Pinochet in Chile was pretty startling. I don't think I knew much about Milton Friedman before this book either, but his style of economics is very much popular among the right and has been hugely influential over modern politics. If you want an easily digestible primer on neoliberal economics, this book is a good starting point.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges. I read it, damn, over 10 years ago when I was a sophomore/junior in high school. I can't even remember too much from the book but that's not the point. This book blew apart my adolescent brain and sent me on a quest for knowledge. I had an awesome US History teacher that politely entertained my ideas and passed on books/authors/research to me. I'm so glad I read that book, even though much of Hedges' current work and views on religion makes me cringe. This was the spark that got me going.
My answer is Cloud Atlas. That book had a heavy impact on my worldview. The theme of relatively simple phenomenon having such a profound effect on not only our lives, but the lives of countless future generations, is simply awe-inspiring. And the way in which the author interweaves these huge ideas of life and love within stories told by relatable characters makes the messages easy to digest.
I really couldn't have said it better myself. That book is beautiful.
Anthony Keidis' autobiography. Mostly because he was on cocaine and heroine at the age of 14, I wasn't expecting him to be so young when he was using those drugs.
I'd have to say that Stoner by John Williams really hit a nerve. It just got me thinking a lot about life and even how I want my own life to turn out. Might be because I read it recently, but nevertheless it was a great read. And of course the Harry Potter series, they really got me into reading in the first place.
I'll go with a more mainstream answer and say George Orwell's 1984. The dystopian society that Orwell predicts was very intriguing to me. It really made me think for months after I read it. I still haven't got the chance to go back and have a re-read. If you haven't read Orwell's works yet, please do! and start with 1984.
The book that impacted me the most would be the Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I read it in school long ago and I loved it so much that I read at least once a year still. I find themes within the book when I read it and find it so relatable. It may be for young adults, but it is still impacting my life as an adult. "Stay gold, Ponyboy."
For me, it might be The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. It instilled a strong sense of wanderlust in me at a young age that I have yet to shake.
I'll go with some non-fiction. Manufacturing Consent not only broadened how I observe and consume the mass media, it also taught me many uncomfortable truths about my country's politics and foreign policy and backed itself up with a plethora of citations. I read it as I headed into a adulthood, and I think the timing was perfect. I still viewed the government naively as a mostly benevolent power that usually acted as the moral authority of the world. Manufacturing Consent made me question that notion and see that this country was no more noble than any other world power in history, acting in its own interests mostly, which usually overlapped with the interests of its political elite. It also taught me how to spot certain, subtle biases that permeate through mass media during news coverage. Since then, I think I've become more refined in my ability to consume news, seek sources, and notice disparity in coverage. It also opened me to new political opinions and other works to consume and learn from.
I was very influenced by "The Art of Happiness," a self help book jointly authored by the Dalai Lama and a western psychologist. It helped me through a very dark time in my life, and introduced me to mindfulness meditation as a coping mechanism. I feel that it taught me the importance of being honest, not only with other people but with myself.
Hm, hard to say. I haven't read the book since I was very young. There may be better books covering the same subject matter out there that I am unaware of. But I would say that if you struggle with anger, shame, or self doubt like I did, the book teaches a number of ways of thinking about those problems that I think would probably be useful.
Presently, the book that affects my thought pattern more is "rich dad, poor dad" by Robert Kiyosaki. i'm in a phase of life were i need absolute knowledge about financial management. i used to be so lose with spending money and am trying to curtail that with lessons learnt from the book.
I would have to say Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Although, the reason is pretty personal; I was going through some depression at the time. Her writing is beautiful, and some of the concepts changed how I think and approach my life in general. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
Pursue goals and take responsibility for my own position. The only way to get what I want in life is to make it myself, but first I have to know what I want. After reading the book I went through a period of self evaluation to figure out what I wanted in life and to pick out goals, I actually went back to my roots as a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut back then, so I figured why not try, If I fall short I will still probably wind up someplace nice. Yeah, society crumbles in the book and spoilers, the book ends with society hitting rock bottom. The book is taken by many to be like the bible of total libertarianism, and that is definitely in the book, but alot of those people also read other book literally. The book definitely made me more of a libertarian, and I agree with the vast majority of the premises of what the character John Gault said in his radio takeover address about the role of the individual and the role of government. But, in addition I still believe the govt should also provide education and health care in addition to basic regulation of market places and defense. You have to have a healthy and educated society to have it worth protecting... aside from those points I am down with the book. I think it is a good book for motivated smart individuals living in a world where the only certain thing is death, taxes. The book also separates good-greed and bad-greed. And I think this is a key thing of her books that many who have not read the books do not realize exist in them. Bad-greed is exploitative and is like the polar opposite of the good. I think that those that read the book then look at our society and see a lot of bad-greed going around, but there are beacons of hope. It's a damn good book. It does brainwash you, it really does. But everything needs a good washing now and again.
Wow, it's actually more difficult than I thought to pin down a specific book, as I think every book you read will have an impact in some way. For me I am tempted to choose Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, I read it when the movies came out and there was something about being the same age as the protagonist that I know for myself and for others in my generation helped us to connect with it, and more importantly, each other. While not life changing, it certainly helped that just when starting at secondary school and experiencing all these changes and uncertainties, the books and movie came along and gave us all a sense of being connected and having a place in the world; and it's a thing we're always going to have with us, maybe our generation should be called the Potter generation as I know in 20, 40, 60 years that if someone mentions a Harry or a Ron or a Hermione that we'll all be able to sit around and talk about the impact the books and movies had on us. Whoa. Harry Potter is our Vietnam.