Books that have changed/challenged your thinking

Ape House by Sara Gruen. About a group of chimpanzees stolen from a research facility studying their ability to learn to communicate and who turn up on an underground reality show.

For most, please subsitute some.

Have read Starship Troopers on noble's recommendation. As a novel, I wouldn't rate it but as a parent/teacher, I would have to say that it is an interesting read. One of those books that most people might dismiss as propaganda which it is but interestingly done.

I would thoroughly recommend Bankers Town by Joel Hames - in indie author who I stumbled upon on Amazon.

He's written two books, and Bankers Town was his first.

Based on his own time as a London banker, it gives the reader an amazing insight into the dark and murky world of banking leading up to and during the 2008-09 crash. The lead character is fictional, but the events throughout the book are based in what actually happened to the author while he was in the banking industry.

It's one of those rare books that I've read twice (so far!) and it really has made me think about something that really I knew very little about, other than what was put out by the media and news channels.

Highly recommended.

Non-fiction: Thinking, Fast and Slow is very interesting if you're interested in the way our brains make decisions. Really challenges your preconceptions about humans as rational beings!

Fiction: I find Barbara Kingsolver very thought provoking.

WiIdfire - I love Shades of Grey! It manages to discuss weighty matters with a real wit and lightness of touch.

I would agree with 1984 and Brave New World. I also liked The Plague by Albert Camus.

Oh and flowers for Algernon

My recommendations some already mentioned:

1984
Animal farm
Z for Zachariah
The silver sword
The color purple
I know why the caged bird sings
The handmaids tale
Behind the scenes at the museum
To kill a mockingbird'

Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee is about the infiltration of white settlers in North America into the homelands of the native Americans and how a land was changed forever.
If ever a book were thought-provoking, this is it.

Would also recommend:

The Colour Purple by Alice Walker (NF)
Tuesday's with Morrie (NF)
Mister Pip (F) by Lloyd Jones
A Safe Place by Lorenzo Carcaterra (NF)

Books that have stayed with me, with scenes I'll never forget.

Defying Hitler

www.amazon.co.uk/The-Grip-Death-Destructive-Economics/dp/1897766408

read this several years ago and it's probably a bit old hat now but it did make me start to question my assumptions about money

Shades of Grey.

(No, not '50 shades of Grey', just 'Shades of Grey' by Jasper Fforde, a totally different book)

On the surface, a light hearted comedy, but underneath an interesting commentary on social division and discrimination.

Ender's Game. Gets you thinking about ethics and morals.

To Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath, The Handmaid's Tale, Nineteen-Eighty-Four, Anna Karenina.

All of these books shaped my views as a teenager but they are such great novels that, when I have re-read them over the years, they have shaped and challenged my thinking all over again in different ways.

All, that is, except for To Kill a Mockingbird - the first reading was so perfect that I have never felt the desire to go back over it.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Cleft by Doris Lessing
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

All are alternate realities, all stayed with me for years. The Cleft especially as I read it just after I'd had my first child, a boy. The other two made me really appreciate our world and my life in it.

Righto MK - I'm back on it.

Canyouforgiveher - strange thing is that straight after I posted, I remembered about Gilead. I loved that book, really loved it. Almost came back on to post about it. Of all the books ....

I think you'll enjoy 'The Theseus Paradox', DansonslaCapucine. I found it an easy read in terms of the page-turning x-factor, but it's the ending which really made me think about how we see the world and major newsworthy events - and our place within that world. Absolutely shocking story. Didn't see the ending coming. Loved it!

The Gift of Fear changed me and how I look at my safety - for the better i think.

People of the Lie by M Scott Peck made me think about how ordinary life can include evil.

Gilead by Mariilynne Robinison as well as being one of the most moving, human, lovely books ever, made me understand America.

MK - I have The Theseus Paradox on my Kindle but haven't got into it yet. Must try again this weekend (instead of buying more books).

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It's about an American unit who arrive in Dresden after the Allied bombing.

Also, one of his short stories about having to take a pill and commit suicide when you are 50 as society can no longer afford to look after you. Must have read it as a teen and it has stayed with me (I'm 39).

Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

A work of genius, with his humanity and love of all humanity shining through. Definitely changed my life and I read it once a year.

The Theseus Paradox - because it's based around a life changing real event, was written by someone who was actually there, was investigated by the Sunday Telegraph - and people on the book forums are raving about it and desperate to know how much is real and how much is fiction! Click here: hyperurl.co/KindleTheseusParadox

I like the sound of Starship Troopers. Have always largely ignored the science fiction shelf so maybe it's time to rectify that omission. Thank you.

Agree with Brave New World which i read as a teen. It massively challenged my thinking around the effects of nature versus nurture and now in the Ivf age about its ethics, sex selection, surrogacy etc etc on s societal level. Not sure what else has changed or challenged my thinking other than the obvious ones - guess some in feminism- Wifework, Bitch, Female Eunuch, life after birth which together made me feel that my sex had finally caught up with and trapped me like most women on giving birth.