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A book that changed your life (or at least your mindset...)

91 replies

rosie79 · 27/10/2006 22:53

I'm sure this has been done before but an curious to hear about what book or books people think helped changed their life or the way they view the world, or helped them in some way. For me it has to be:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho when I was 20

The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck (first discovered a few years ago but have read it four times now!)

What about you?

OP posts:
hotandbothered · 28/10/2006 23:41

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. I think by Judith Kerr. It made a huge impression on me and probably got me fascinated in ww2 - particularly the social rather than political aspects.
Jane Eyre - always read it when I was ill. I loved the recent drama on TV, brought it all back to me..

Sheraz · 28/10/2006 22:47

AS a girl I loved all the Judy Blume books - made you fell it was ok to be you.
As an adult - bit of a cliche but The Colour Purple by Alice Walker and have to agree about T Kill A mockingbird - which tackles racism, disability, parent- child relationships, everything, superb.
But have to thank Enid Blyton for getiing me into reading as a small child read all famous 5/ secret 7/ St Claires and Malory Towers.

LoveMyGirls · 28/10/2006 22:42

women

LoveMyGirls · 28/10/2006 22:42

wome who love to much - for abused women.

3andnomore · 28/10/2006 22:31

Little women, to me in a way is special, I love the movie, prefer teh old katherine Hepburn version, but still like the Wynona Ryder one....but little women was the 2. proper book I read in english and actually understood, lol.....my first being Daddy Long legs, again based on a old film with leslie caron this time....I read Little women by candlelight for most of my labour wiht es, in the bath, just lovely and so relaxing

3andnomore · 28/10/2006 22:23

to kill a mockingbird???????
O heard about this movie, not the book, but was under the impression it was about an american child that was a so called Feral child....am I maybe confusing things?

Flamebat · 28/10/2006 22:16

I've had 5 people you meet in heaven sat on my bookshelf for about a year now!! I really must read it.

blueshoes · 28/10/2006 22:14

Dr Sears - my first glimpse of attachment parenting. After the usual diet of parenting books, including you-know-who's, his views were very liberating.

blueshoes · 28/10/2006 22:11

I couldn't bear to even open the pages of American Psycho.

janeite · 28/10/2006 21:36

I loved The Five People You Meet In Heaven too (and Tuesdays With Morrie) but the only other person I know who's read it, hated it.

iris66 · 28/10/2006 21:19

Greensleeves Thanks so much for letting me know about the Land of Far Beyond

MissyBabee · 28/10/2006 21:09

i was lent it blackmagic - I'd never heard of it and was shocked at how damn good it was! need to buy it and read it again; enough years have passed to give me the energy to read it again!

MissyBabee · 28/10/2006 21:06

I should add, I too never understood what was so fantastic about the Alchemist. I read it with a 'hmpf, is that it?'

Also, I never understood the fuss with Little Women. I wish I had read it much earlier in life.

BlackMagicMiaou · 28/10/2006 21:06

Ooooh yes Missy, The Fountainhead is fab

It is on the bookshelf behind me, one of my "must read that again soon" books!

McDreamy · 28/10/2006 21:04

The 5 people you meet in heaven - got me thinking but at our bookclub it wasn't for everyone.

MissyBabee · 28/10/2006 21:02

2 books that blew me away:

Hanif Kureshi - Intimacy - a fantastic opening, just coincided with a crash with a certain time of my life

Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead - i'll never look at architecture in the same way again and I fell for Howard Roark

McDreamy · 28/10/2006 20:46

I've just finished The Boy in The Striped Pjamas, chilling - a great word to describe it. The one and only book to make me cry.

BlackMagicMiaou · 28/10/2006 20:38

The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom. Yet another book about WW2, this was about a Christian Dutch woman who hid Jews and ended up in a concentration camp as a result. However for me it was less about the horrors of camp and more about the spirit of Christian forgiveness (which, at the age of 15 and a fervent Christian, sat rather well with me!) But it's not so crushingly religious that it would put off secular readers iirc. Made me think a lot about being less self-centred and seeing the good in people.

There was another one in my mind when I started this post but I've forgotten which it was now

Molesworth · 28/10/2006 20:16

that was utterly chilling wasn't it

I read it in one sitting

brimfull · 28/10/2006 20:16

ah,that's it thanks molesworth!

Molesworth · 28/10/2006 20:13

that sounds like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

brimfull · 28/10/2006 20:10

agree with pruni about Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence,quite shocking and has changed the way we shop .

Has anyone read The Boy with no Shoes,about a boy in a concentration camp and a nazi's son?Can't remember the author.

expatinscotland · 28/10/2006 19:57

My Dream of You by Nuala O'Faolain.

That's it's okay to be happy on your own.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Just two.

foxinsocks · 28/10/2006 19:52

'To Kill a Mockingbird' will always be a special book for me. We read it at school (for all races) in South Africa during the apartheid era - I can still remember how the room was full of tension when we read passages out and how, when we watched the film, many of us cried.

Original poster
rosie79 · 28/10/2006 19:39

3andnomore Oliver Sacks is a favourite of mine too. It was after reading 'the Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat' at 16 that I decided I wanted to study psychology (even though his books are more neuroscience really).

OP posts: