What 5 books most influenced your life? What is your bookprint?
 

Scholastic has a new campaign that you are what you read. There you are invited to submit their "bookprint" -- five book titles, the list of books that leave an indelible mark on our lives, shaping who we are and who we become and see who among your friends or other people who were moved by the book.

It's a bit more facebook for books for my tastes, but I found it very revealing as to the books that helped shape who I am today. These don't necessarily have to be your favorite book, but the books that really influenced or impacted your life.

Taught me that every story has a lesson, I just had to find out what the lesson was.

This book taught me that it was okay to give up everything for someone else. It could bring great joy and happiness to be selfless.

Another book that taught me that sometimes it was important to be selfless and think of the other person and how it will be more beneficial for them than myself.

Emily Post's Etiquette 17th Edition
This book gave me a framework and how to socialize with people in a structured manner. I always felt uncomfortable and self conscious in all social settings because I didn't know what was acceptable and what wasn't.

If Life Is a Game, These Are the Rules by Dr. Cherie M. Scott
This book was the most profound read I ever had. I remember reading the 10 rules of being human in the introduction of Chicken Soup for the Soul, which also made a great impact on my life, but I didn't have room for it here. This book made such an impression that one Christmas I bought a copy for every single person that worked for me. I used to carry this book with me everywhere and any time I felt bad or anxious I could pull it out of my bag and open it to any page and find something in it that made me feel better. Today I do not carry it with me, but I always refer to it online or some other electronic method.

What is your bookprint? What 5 books impacted your life?

5 is not enough.

'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy', the complete 5 book Trilogy, deeper than you might think.
'Zen in the Martial Arts', plus a lot of other books on Zen Buddhism.
'B&O Power' if you are not a model railroader you will not understand.
'Thou art That' by Joseph Campbell, clearly stated some things that I was thinking for a long time.
The 'Bible', anyone who thinks they have not been influenced by this book is living under a rock, whether you have read it or not, possibly the most influential book in the world.

Actually I have read a lot more books that have had an influence on me, a lot of science fiction, but these are the ones that come to mind right now. Edward Hays has several books of modern parables that are interesting.

by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I was 8 when I read this book and fantasized about living in the big woods. Now I finally do.

Guinness Book of World Records
At 12 I read my first copy from cover to cover, and I still remember the photograph of the longest fingernails. I was and still am fascinated by human feats and accomplishments and have great respect for people who can achieve incredible goals. From where do they get the drive?

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Quotes from this book:
"There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by."
"I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I come to Hollins Pond not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don't think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular...but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive. "
"The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart."
"Spend the afternoon, you can't take it with you."


Death, The Final Stage of Growth by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
In college I took a Psychology class on Death & Dying, and we studied this book. I have gone back to this book many times during my life for help in dealing with death.

Perfect Daughters by Robert Ackerman
Difficult to read but very helpful.

This might be stretching the "five books" definition, but....

1.
2.
3.
4.
5. , by Susan Cooper


Although the , by Frank Herbert, might almost tie for #5, and the might almost tie for #4.

Whether I like it or not...
1) King James Bible , Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctarine & Covenants (listed together because it is possible to purchase them in one volume)

2) My Side of the Mountain. First book I read that motivated me to enjoy the outdoors, though The Education Of Little Tree was also quite excellent.

3) Death Be Not Proud First time I felt connected to someone who died, profoundly moving.

4) The Hobbit Fantasy world + outdoor trekking

5) Heidi First book I read cover-to-cover

The Dhammapada

The Dhammapada

Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha (Thomas Cleary, trans.)
This book provides a foundation and continuing reinforcement of my ethics and views on life.

For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Mindfulness Trainings

For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Mindfulness Trainings

Thích Nhất Hạnh
This is a natural extension of the teachings in the Dhammapada. It puts into modern context the ways to walk the path.

The Major Works: Including the Prelude

The Major Works: Including the Prelude

William Wordsworth
Heavily influential on my use of imagination and reflection, and in many ways philosophies on life. A significant work in transitional poetry, from classical to modern.

Songs of Innocence and Experience

Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake
One of the greatest achievements of poetry delving into myth, fear, and the sublime. It's also a poignant critique on modern (industrialized) society, even today.

Frankenstein

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley
It forces you to ask questions about your values regarding life, death, personal responsibility, and the pursuit of knowledge.

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-+-{Important TFP Staff Message}-+- Hey, if you can, please provide links to Amazon in case someone wants to buy one of these. It would have saved me some time and will save anyone that you inspire some as well. These books inspired you - take an extra step to help inspire others.

taught me a lot about tolerance.

I read for the first time in the fourth grade. I made it a point to read it every year until my senior year of high school, and it helped me decide not to go to the Naval Academy.

I had a passing interest in Russia before I picked this up out of boredom at 9 PM on a Tuesday when I had a class starting at 8 the next morning. I read it in one sitting and literally couldn't put it down.

The greatest novel about distance running ever. I wanted to be Quenton Cassidy so much that it hurt and it was a sad day when I finally realized that I couldn't physically do what he did.

introduced me to science fiction, and I still read them ever now and again.

The top five that have influenced my actions in life:

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living - Carnegie
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Carnegie
Art of War - Tzu

1984 - Orwell

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Covey

- as a few above, it seems; important to understand the 'rules of the game'

really any of Gladwell's books. Interesting studies in what success is and how it happens, and how much of it is an accident of timing

- Best book to get an idea of what World War 2 was like outside of the Saving Private Ryan hero wins all stereotype. Made me realize just how twisted humans can be given the right orders from their 'superiors'.

- made me realize that the tidal wave of Atheism was rising, and that it was OK for me to "Come out" as an Atheist to my friends and family, despite the consequences. Even further helped me remove myself from the crutch of "agnosticism" and realize that provisionally accepting that God does not exist is the right way to go

I read about Heinrich Schliemann and his discovery of Troy when I was young. I can't find the book but it was similar to this:


It sparked my fancy for the classics and led me to attempt the Illiad & Odyssey several times (I was successful with the Odyssey):



later I went on to read adventure enjoying Scott and the Antarctic:




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I think this is the case for myself as well. From there I explored all of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Niven etc ... but most specifically:

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The Dune series has engaged my imagination for decades now:



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I want to give specific mention to another book:

This slender tome was impossible to put down. Like Jazz, I was unable to attend to other matters until it had been dealt with. In fact, the comparison of life in the Soviet Gulag to my (at the time) current circumstances made my life easier to take - I was tree planting in the interior of British Columbia. I recommend this to everybody

Five that come to mind and have acknowledged iconic status in my life:











And here are some which hammered the door of my consciousness as I was about to close this post:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Out of the Silent Planet and the Perelandra series by CS Lewis
History of Western philosphy by Bertrand Russell
Tarzan Series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Chalet School Series by Eleanor Brent-Dyer

This was not an easy task, differentiating the books I loved from the books that have had the most impact on me (chronologically):

1.

Karen

Karen

: I read this as a very young and impressionable girl. It taught me about true compassion, love and perseverance and has greatly inspired some of my deepest life passions.

2.

To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird

: Also read at a very young age, this book became the tool that still has me defending the downtrodden.

3.

Walden

Walden

- Henry David Thoreau: During my early teens, this one inspired daydreams of building my own cabin in the wood and living off the land. A part of me is always there.

4.

Delta Of Venus

Delta Of Venus

: I happened upon this in my early 20s, after I'd engaged in a lot of sexual activity and thought I was an addict. She changed sex for me forever.

5.

The Four Agreements

The Four Agreements

: I've probably mentioned this one at least once before here, but it totally changed my perspective on life. All the lecturing and wisdom in the world couldn't make me see that I didn't need to take the problems of the world on my shoulders, but Don Ruiz found a way to show me that I am me. Simple, yet life-altering stuff.

... I worked with a teenager like this for a year... I still wonder what happened to him. He dissociated in my office once.

. How I learned to read people.

Made me figure out why people believe in god

Then there is a tie between and .

The Purpose Driven Life This is the first Christan book I read, other than the Bible, after deconverting from Christianity. My dad bought it for me, as I hadn't let him know yet, so I decided to treat it as an experiment. It was while reading the book that I started to, from an outside perspective, understand religiosity for the first time. Ultimately, the insights I gained from the experience helped me to finally have closure with being religious and live my life honestly as who I am. It wasn't the intent of Pastor Warren, of course, but so what?

I read this, I think , around 2004, just before joining the forum. If you want to understand the mind of plutocratic pawns, this is how you get there. Beck tends to swerve like a drunk driver through books, but BillO manages to keep on message throughout, demonstrating how false, partisan narratives are built. It's a much more immersion experience than watching the O'Reilly Factor or Hannity or Huckabee, because it's basically an entire year of talking points, along with elaboration, in one source. It was like taking a masters class in propaganda.

What happens when a celebrity becomes a murderer? You get Phil Specter or Thunder Collins. What happens when the person's celebrity is fed by being a murderer? OJ Simpson. The book I Want to Tell You isn't any good, obviously, but what it represents is the dark side of modern society. Here we see a man who killed two people who was able to get off due in part to his fame and in part to playing on people's being uncomfortable with racial issues, and now still manages fame in the form of infamy. The book itself was a simple way to try and make legal fees, but it represents in a fundamental way just how rotten things can get when we all lose perspective. In that way, this is one of the most important books of the modern age.

Similar to above, but different enough that it should be told: Sex and the City documents perfectly the mindset of consumer culture. In the book, you see women who define themselves by things and by their attachments to sexual partners that are just as hollow. While on the surface the book just seems another silly romp, when viewed in the right lens, it is the greatest argument in modern history for minimalism. In a time when global overshoot is at 30%, an unprecedented number, the satirical reading of Sex and the City stands as a dire warning about humanity's inability to come to terms with a limited world.

If you're still with me at this point, you've caught on to the fact that I've listed 5 absolutely terrible books that I'd not wish on Hitler. My actual bookprint or whatever is probably going to be something like For Whom the Bell Tolls, Crime and Punishment, Slaughterhouse Five, Dune, and Ulysses. The thing is, these are on my list for the same reason they're on everyone's lists: they're fucking amazing books and most anyone who can read well can instantly recognize this fact. These books, among other great works, have helped to challenge the assumptions and bring new ideas to thoughtful people for a long time and will continue to do so for hundreds of years. The Christmas Sweater, on the other hand, is the ranting of a lunatic obsessed with his own media cult. As someone who actually owns a sweater I joyfully associate with Christmas, I'm offended even at the title of this book, let alone its empty sentimentality and outright dishonesty. Glenn Beck should be banned from Christmas.

So there we have it. My bookprint or something.

If I'm honest with myself, I'd say that Television has been a much stronger influence on me than books. Stupid The Wonder Years.

But I digress. Here are three books that stand out for me:

. Each chapter is a fable about a world where time runs differently (backwards, slower at higher altitudes, fits and starts, etc...) and how people live their lives because of it. I began to question my own patterns and how passive I was in following them. I also began to recognize them in others.


I read this in University and it's a pretty damning story about the clumsy colonization of an Igbo tribe in Nigeria. But it's not a one sided telling of the evil white man against the noble savage at all. Instead the conflict reveals the common frailties of self-interest and close mindedness in us all. I look at all world disputes with this in mind.

. Ok, three books here but the way he paints the vastness of the Universe both in Space and Time makes me humble. I can't read schlock Sci-fi any more.

I suppose I should mention the Bible as well despite how little of it I've read. I don't believe in God in the sense that he's a human-minded judger out there but I can't shake the idea that there's an ideal we're working towards or failing at.

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Holy Shit! I've never heard of that book but he completely ripped of .

changed how i read.


accelerated changes in how i see.


this has excerpts from several texts that had a big impact on how i hear and think about sound and its relation to space.


well, yes.

this:

and this:



changed how i write.





this because it's brilliant:



and so is this:



and this:



but i digress.

- Totally changed my views on food, it's preparation, and where it comes from.

- I had to read this for an anthropology class in college. It completely changed my views on Christianity.

- My love of reading is due to this book.

- How cliche, right? I had a dinner with an old high school friend recently. She was reading this with her book group and told me how much it had reminded her of me; in fact, the copy she was reading was one I had given to her. I loved Holden in high school. I identified with him. I still do.

Um off hand, LoTR trilogy + Illusions by R Bach (good call I forgot about that one). Oh and The Alchemist.
I might replace LoTR trilogy with something else, but I can't think of anything. Besides though, that really did influence my life. Made me want to write and be creative. I read them when i was really young.

Well, technically, The Lord of the Rings is a novel published in three volumes, so that would only take up one slot in your five. :)

Omnibus and Anthology for the win!

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While it's not something I've read in one sitting, I did manage to read 1/2 of it last night and I should have completed the other 1/2 later tonight. I can't explain just how interesting it is, but yet dull and dreary.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Touche. I forgot that it was originally published as one huge book, but the publishing company decided to split it up so as not to intimidate people too much.

Hmmm. I'd actually have to put in another odd one then, basically D&D 3.5 (technically all the books but I'll count it as one). Its a huge hobby of mine, and it has shaped my life by the people and friends I've met. Its also shaped my imagination.

So that's 4. Illusions, Alchemist, LoTR, D&D, and...perhaps the book of five rings. At least as a placeholder for now.

Which has shaped my martial arts and philosophy.

with its satirical follow-up

that's seven, I know, but it's hard to make choices. all of these books impacted my development, my thinking, the way i view life...

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this, too...


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ok, i stop now :)

The Catcher in the Rye - JD Sallinger
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes
The Outsider - Albert Camus
From Hell - Alan Moore

_

I think anyone wanting to buy a copy could find one for themself from Amazon or another book seller of their choice.

OMG you're a serial killer! :)

The First one and perhaps The only :)

"Foucault's pendulum, Umberto Eco" 3 mens imagine a world story...

After some books :

"If this is a man, Primo Levy" life in concentration camp

[URL="http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Dorian-Gray-Oscar-Wilde/dp/1936594390/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296816930&sr=1-1"]



"Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde", classic book. Un man staying young but his picture take all his perversities



"seven Pillars of wisdom, Thomas Edward Lawrence" Lawrence's life with arab during first world war



"looking on darkness, Andre Brink" A black man can't love a white woman during the appartheid


And some poets like Dylan Thomas, William Wordsworth, Rainer Maria Rilke, Shakespeare (sonnets)…

No, just five isn’t enough :no:

For me it is:

F Scott Fitzgerald: his short stories (ie: Diamond as Big as the Ritz, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, the Baby Party), the Crackup, the Great Gatsby, along with Tender is the Night.









As an actor, in my younger days, I read many plays, Shakespeare was ok, but Moliere was mind blowing, the invisible Invalid...... wow way ahead of it's time.






Woody Allen The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose



Then there were the biographies that influenced me,


Zelda: A Biography by Nancy Milford the story of F Scott's wife Zelda Sayre



Kink by Dave Davies, talking about the founding of the Kinks in Dave's perspective




X-Ray the Unauthorized Autobiography by Ray Davies Early history of the KINKS told in a somewhat Orwellian style.



Stone Alone by Bill Wyman his story of the Rolling Stones




Brian Jones' biography Brian Jones: The Untold Life and Mysterious Death of a Rock Legend by Laura Jackson




Albert Goldman The Lives of John Lennon: in which the author gives John a very rough time making him sound mean-spirited, doing whatever he can get away with to tear down the subject even if it means passing off rumors as fact, speculating on the flimsiest of evidence, and using obscuring resources to the point that you're hard-pressed to know what to believe.




The books that got me into D&D while in high school:


JRR Tolkein of course with the Hobbit and Silmarillion




Gary Gygax's work




of course the classic every high schooler has probably read at some point:


Go Ask Alice and the obscure male version Jay's Journal




Among other books in the topic of counselling addiction, the Hardy Boys series and Encyclopia Brown series in 4th,5th and 6th grades (where I could read 1 a day because they were all basically the same), the Hitchhiker's Guide series, Mad magazine books like Don Martin Digs Deeper.

I can only come up with one at the moment, I'll have to think about the others.

This is off the top my head ...

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand - Went through the typical Ayn Rand phase in college. I don't buy into her philosophy, but her ultra-right-wing views went a long way towards pulling my left wing (at the time) views towards the centre.

Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert - May be dismissed as chick-lit, but this book caused me to take a completely different view of religion. I had previously dismissed religion as unscientific, but I now think it's a pre-cursor to psychiatry and psycho-therapy in that it helps people to deal with traumatic events in their life.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey - Introduced the idea that there are 3 stages of how one interacts with others; dependent, independent, and interdependent. The last meaning that you're able to form mutually beneficial relationships.

Sperm Wars, Robin Baker - The first, and probably the best, book that I've read on evolutionary biology. Introduced me to the statistic that 10% of people are not the biological offspring of the man they think.

That's only 4, so I'll include 2 honorable mentions ...

Linchpin, Seth Godin - Everyone want to work in their own, well-defined, silos at work. You make yourself indepensible by being the one that pulls everything together.

The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle - Delivers a solid message that one has to think about one's goals and do what's necessary at the present time to meet them. Only criticism is that it's a re-packaging of Eastern meditation, without adequate acknowledgement or credit.

Insufficent posts for links.