books that changed your life

[SenoraPostrophe]

This has probably been posted before, but I've just seen it on another forum and it's got me thinking.

I don't want to hear about the best books you've read, but the ones that change the way you think.

Mine are:

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut (an absolutely ripping satire on politics and the nature of man)
Stark - Ben Elton (the root of my green politics I think)
Ulyses - James Joyce (didn't get very far: made me realise I'm not as clever as i thought I was )

I'm sure there are more though.

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Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy. Awakened my feminist awareness. Her early stuff is so angry and so good.

Katherine by Anya Seton - antithesis of Marge Piercy but the lush romantic prose and meticulous research got me totally hooked on medieval history for life as a hormonal teen...

La Vie Mode d'Emploi by Georges Perec - not until my third year of studying a French degree did I finally encounter a really enthralling modern French novel - and it wasn't on my British syllabus either, this was in France...

Marina! Snap about Katherine! I practically wore mine out and I can still bore for England about Bolingbrokes and Kenilworth Castle and the Lancaster line (I was really cross when I read Daughter of Time - another one! - and realised that lovely Richard III was done for by one of her descendants.)

I bought all the other Anya Setons on the strength of Katherine and none of them came close.

Janh The Daughter of Time! I know! I was as cross as all get out with that piece of news too. but surely all the nastiness/ruthlessness must have derived from the House of Lancaster and not the de Roet genes
For years when we went up the A1 for hols I would ponder whether to get dad to turn off for Kettlethorpe...
Not only did I read the rest of Anya's output - Avalon - being especially but I went and read EVERY volume of The Lives of the Queens of England by Agnes Strickland!
I also read Gairdner on Richard III after Josephine Tey...

Actually I've just remembered all the Jean Plaidy books which I read about 3 times each. Got me totally hooked on history.

Scallagrig by William Horwood?? Tell me more then I can decide if it's what I need right now.

Hmmm. How do I sell it? It's about humanity, about learning how to love, and living through unimaginable pain. Fictionalized, epic, skillfully crafted and utterly inspiring. A paradigm had shifted for me after I'd read it.

A bit melodramatic but it's true.

Wish I could say The Silent Ark but I was already a veggie when I read it.

oo yes animal farm and lord of the flies both good books

thanks monkeytrousers, sounds too heavy for me in my present state of mind but one to bear in mind for later.

No really, it will lift you out of it!

Lance Armstrong - It's Not About the Bike. How Lance survived testicular cancer and went on to win the Tour de France, this is a story about triumph of the human spirit. Borrowed it from my dp (he is a cycling fan) and couldn't put it down.

The continuum concept by Jean Liedloff - a must read for any of you attachment parenting mums/dads out there.
An anthropologist went to the South American jungle to study a tribe but found herself intrigued with the way the tribe brought up their children. All about trusting your own and baby's instincts.

1. Feel the fear (but do it anyway)- Susan Jeffers. (great book for motivating the cautious to just get on with it).

2. Martha Gelhorn biography by Caroline Moorehead (inspiring biography of first famous female war correspondent who went on to be a single mum)

3.Birthday letters, Ted Hughes. A great reminder to get out of brutal and destructive relationships.

Memory Sorrow & Thorn by Tad Williams - Re-Introduced me to the wonderful world of fantasy

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulkes

to kill a mockingbird.... atticus was one wise man....

love the line he uses about walking a mile in someone else's shoes ( or skin - memory fails me here) in order to fully understand what it is like to be them

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