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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:
moondog · 27/10/2006 23:13

No Logo Naomi Klein
The Politics of Breastfeeding Gabrielle Palmer

SoMuchToBats · 27/10/2006 23:24

A book by someone I'm not allowed to mention, about something I'm not allowed to mention. And I'm not being flippant - it saved my sanity when I needed it.

JoolsToo · 27/10/2006 23:45

Little Women - Louisa M Alcott just because it got me interested in reading

bluejelly · 27/10/2006 23:46

Middlesex
Everytime I think jeez my life is tough I remind myself that really, it's not THAT tough...

redclover79 · 28/10/2006 00:24

Mines The Alchemist too!! When I was about 22, stuck in Tenerife on an alcohol fuelled holiday I was talked into by a friend for some reason!! Disliked every minute of it from when I stepped on the plane (mortified of flying!). Read this the last week I was there and it rescued me from the awfulness of it all, so to speak!!
My other fave is by Wade Davis. Called one River and it's a biog about Dr Richard Shultz (sp?) and how he lived with different Amerindian tribes while mapping S. America for rubber tree populations during WW2... Not an obvious choice but I really liked that one!! Oh and Salt by Mark Kurlansky, I think?!

Greensleeves · 28/10/2006 00:30

The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse

handmaidstale · 28/10/2006 00:33

Tha Handmaid's Tale - no shit sherlock - had a huge effect on me in my formative years. And sometimes when I ponder the fate of women in Saudi Arabia, it still haunts me. When I look at young women round here (South Yorkshire) now, I wonder how I could have thought feminism was on an invincible march...!

cowmad · 28/10/2006 00:34

Captain Correllis Mandolin

awfull film great book

also

Diary of Anne Frank

Greensleeves · 28/10/2006 00:36

hated Anne Frank, pointless twaddle

liked Corelli, though wouldn't call it life-changing (film was shite)

cowmad · 28/10/2006 00:45

Anne Frank I read as a 14 year old
vvv powerfull when all I could think about was self

also Jewish

Captain Correlli

My familly expelled from Italy for being Jewish
(Mussolini didnt kill his Jews meerly stole from them)
so enjoyed the story of the dilemma facing the "fighting" force of troops from Italy,that really didnt know whos orders to follow.that of annointed King?...or the new power Mussolini

also best friends are gay!! and it gave me an insite to their daily dilemma of loving people that CANT love them..

Molesworth · 28/10/2006 00:52

Primo Levi's If This Is A Man/The Truce

Molesworth · 28/10/2006 00:58

and Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth

Alibaldi · 28/10/2006 04:02

Rabbi Hugo Gryn's autobiography finished by his daughter. Made me realise that man's inhumanity to man is beyond comprehension and we have learnt nothing from our mistakes in the past.

FrannyandZooey · 28/10/2006 07:35

Why do people like The Alchemist? I didn't get it at all, it was just a twaddly retelling of an old fairy tale

why would that change your life?

Pruni · 28/10/2006 08:02

Message withdrawn

iris66 · 28/10/2006 08:02

The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton Fired my imagination as a child and another I can't remember the name of about a group of people on a journey carrying "burdens" attached to them that got heavier or lighter depending on how they behaved - very karmic (anyone know it?)

aDadOnMumsnet · 28/10/2006 08:39

On The Road - Jack Kerouac

Gave me the travel bug

northerner · 28/10/2006 08:42

Same as Joolstoo, Little Women - Louisa M Alcott. As a girl my mum gave me her hard backed copy and I fell in love with the story. Still love it to this day.

Have had my head stuck in books ever since.

lucy5 · 28/10/2006 08:47

A book called Mischling [sp] second degree, about a Jewish girl during the war. I won't say it was life changing but it had a great impact on me when I read it as a young child. With hindsight I was probably too young to be reading it.

skanger · 28/10/2006 08:53

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert M Pirsig

Greensleeves · 28/10/2006 11:18

iris66 - The Land Of Far-Beyond. Very haunting book!

Flamesparrow · 28/10/2006 11:27

The Chrysalids - REALLY got me into reading everything in sight.

The Light in the Window - About a catholic unmarried mothers place... My gran was in one similar and although it was very painful to read and think of her, I felt I should know.

Crotchety · 28/10/2006 11:33

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skanger · 28/10/2006 12:01

anyone read A long long way by Sebastian Barry-its not life changing ,but it is very good and very sad too

skanger · 28/10/2006 12:26

Green eggs and ham is another very good book