Which book changed your life?

'Aquarius Rising'? Duh! I meant 'Sagittarius Rising', by Cecil Lewis, an account of air fighting in WW1. Shows how long ago I last read it.
And then there is 'it's' in my last post. Quite wrong, of course as it should have been plain old'its'. Do these things matter? Yes, I think so as punctuation slips more and more rapidly beneath the horizon of our teachers/learners.

I wouldn't say any specific book has changed my life but some have and a profound effect on me, and none more so than Skallagrigg by William Horwood. I first read it soon after it was published, in the late 1980s and have just finished a re-reading. It gives an insight into what it's like to be disabled - the main character has cerebral palsy and becomes a computer genius. One of my post-OU jobs was teaching disabled people to use computers and I found what I'd learned from the book very useful.

Books. Where do I begin? I'm probably not as profound as most of you guys, nor as smart. However, I can read. And love. The one book that changed my life was Boy meets Boy. It made me realise that gay love and acceptence like that only exists within the pages of books. It made me wake up, and take note of the fact that happiness is everywhere...you just gotta look for it.

Undoubtedly, Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict, recommended by OU at my first tentative approach. If all this amazing information available why hadn't I known about it until now? I was 30 years old with four years of schooling a long way behind me. It's still a fascinating and highly relevant book.

'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson, made me realise that science is much more accessible than it first appears and encourage me to take my first tentative steps into OU life

Funnily enough it was Paul Mackenna's 'Change Your Life in Seven Days' swiftly followed by his 'Instant Confidence'. Nothing magical about it and I was sceptical at first, but it does make you look at your life, decisions and future from a whole new perspective.It took me through a nasty divorce and saw me safely through to the other side...and hey! I kept my sanity:)x

For me its 'The Ragged Trousered Philantrophists' by Robert Tressell.He depicted how England was for the working class in the 1900's.A must read for socialists.Appartly Edwina Curry dident like it, which speaks volumes.

I find this a difficult question to answer because I have read a lot of books that have influenced me, but I read Erin Pizzey's "The Watershed" when I was about 14 and it really opened my eyes to issues of feminism and how people can be manipulated within relationships.

I first read Gone with the Wind when I was in my last year at secondary school, some 15 years ago now. It must have taken about 4 renewals at the library for me to finish it, but i have read it at least once a year since then (obviously i can get through it a bit quicker now as well). I don't know what it is about the story, maybe it's the fact that life doesn't turn out to be perfect after all. I have watched the film several times, whilst stunning for its time, it just isn't the same as the book.
G
oodnight Mister Tom is always a good read - I know its for younger readers but I like the rhythm of the story and yes, this one does have a happy ending. Nothing better than curling up on the chair on a cold sunday afternoon then realising it's got so late you have to get up and turn on the light so you can keep reading.
Happy reading to you all!

cheryl

Great question. Mine is Janet Frame's autobiographical trilogy: To the Is-land, An Angel at my Table and The Envoy from Mirror City. I first read it at the age of 20 (17 years ago). It has kept me going through many difficult times. I used to borrow it from the library constantly, but I won a little money with an academic prize, paid my electricty bill and bought my own copies, which are among my treasures. While I don't share many experiences with Frame, the way she refused to, or could not, perform 'smiling, helpful, socially acceptable' (despite the fact that it lead to 8 years in a psychiatric 'horror' institution and too-numerous-to-count electroshock treatments) changed my life. I was - and still struggle with being - a performer. If I'm not careful, my life is just one long Oscar Clip as far as I'm concerned. She reminds me, reading her autobiography reminds me, to stop. I don't read her fiction, because I don't like it, but she is my heroine and my role model. Her autobiography is part of who I am.

I'm with those who say that reading is an ongoing process, and different books change our lives at different times. The Bible changes mine on a daily basis - if you're looking for life changing stuff, it's a pretty good place to start. (Although, the esteemed academics at the OU might not agree - since the last Open Eye magazine featured a course that will apparently champion evolution and expose the weaknesses in the biblical view of creation. Interesting, since I always thought academic study was about weighing up both sides of an argument with a bit of objectivity...)

Anyway, rant over - another book that has deeply affected me is the one I've just finished, 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'. Hosseini is quite simply a master storyteller, evoking the trauma of life under the Taliban regime of Afghanistan with searing honesty. Any other book after this one seems bland.

Other than being a catalyst for change, not sure a single book can change your life although life needs to change if you're to even scratch the surface of books available to be read.
I remember feeling quite pleased with myself when I finished Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess because it was such a marathon read; and wondering if I must be really thick because I found Rushdie's Midnight's Children unreadable (still do despite returning to it 3 times over the years).
The most consistently satisfying was William Golding's Fire Down Below trilogy.
Carl Sagan's (and Stephen Weinberg's) writing in the 1970s polarised my beliefs about the existance of God - suppose that could be argued to be life-changeing.
What I do find is that I now lack patience with writing that I find is amateurish or sloppy. I usually pick up what's cheap when I visit the supermarket and have put many of my purchases aside after 20 pages with the condemnation that 'it reads as if I wrote it' - much to the amusement of the local charity shops who directly benefit from this habit.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran which was given to me by a woman I worked with in about 1975.

This section in 'Marriage' made me realise that I was a person in my own right and not just Mrs B (as I was then), aged 21, two years wed and wondering what had happened to my life.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

the best book I've read was Jung Chand's "Wild Swans". The story of China through the lives of 3 women, 3 generations, over 100 years... it is definately a life-changing book...

Hi Sharyn, I love that poem you quoted and it's totally accurate and exactly why I'm such a happy chick as I adhere to those 'rules'. :-)

I haven't read one that has 'changed' my life yet, but The Collected Verse of Banjo Patterson takes me to a special place when ever I read it, or anything by Douglas Adams will put things into a more manageable perspective ... or my old fave Omar Khayamm .... or Jonathan Livingstone Seagull - golly I had almost forgotten about him, I was a child when I read that and it made me feel as though I was brave enough and big enough to glimpse the big world ... sigh ... I really mustn't read that book again as I am sure it will not stand up to my memory of it.

I haven't read that life-changer yet, but I really hope that I find it.

As for reads that will always stay with me, To Kill A Mockingbird, Dry, The Liar's Autobiography and Moab Is My Washpot are some that I wouldn't like to live without.

It is difficult to say which book changed your life as how do you define change?How much of a change does it have to have? 1984 changed the way I looked at and thought about things and always stands out in my memory when I am asked that question. But if I think more about it books like ragged trousered philanphropists comes to mind as does Revolutionary Road which I have just read. Reading novels which are some tines touted as life changers just creates pressure on the reader to 'get it'

Bexifer - To Kill a Mockingbird is in my top favourites list.

It didn't change my life but along with Far From The Madding Crowd and A Town Like Alice it made my teenage years more bearable.

No one book has yet changed my life. But 'To kill a mockingbird' appears so many times on this thread I have reserved it at the library.

Jude

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In fact, I've read a couple of his other books since (Ignorance, The Joke) and what he says about the human condition seems so enlightened, as if he put into words what I didn't know I thought. It's rare.
I recommend it!

Well mine is a DVD but it is available as a book too (I was too busy with OU work to read this in book format, as it's a very complicated subject, including quantum physics, universal entanglement and the relevance to life and relationships!) as I have a family, design & publishing business and social life. Yes, I cheated and watched the DVD - and brilliant graphics they were too - I think they added a different dimension, especially as the central character was deaf!).

An absolute MUST READ and absolutely LIFE-CHANGING book is 'What the Bleep do we know'. Available on Amazon for under a fiver, my sister who works on the Board of de Beers in South Africa, went to a live lecture and HIGHLY recommended it.

It should be a COMPULSORY for all tutors doing the Sciences or Social Sciences to watch (at least once or twice!) GENIUS!

I believe that different books come along at different stages of life, and have an impact.
Somebody else mentioned Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet'; this book was given to me just after my divorce, when I was struggling to come to terms with a lot of life 'stuff', and it helped me to make sense of so much - especially the passage on Joy & Sorrow; later when I met my now hubby, the passage on Love spoke to me, and later still when my mother, and then my sister, died, the passage on death was a huge comfort - I requested that it was read at my sister's funeral.

A childhood book which had a great & lasting impact on me was 'What Katy Did' by Susan Coolidge; after her accident she had become very brattish, but gradually learned humility: as somebody who has had to learn to live with disability, I have often remembered snippets from that book, & keep meaning to re-read it - I made a start by buying it for my granddaughter recently. But the lasting impact on me was the chapter about Christmas: somebody (her father?) had given her a sum of money to buy presents for her family ..... she put a great deal of thought into what she bought - I can't remember the full details, but do remember that she bought her sister some hair ribbons, and for another sibling she bought a bicycle: I thought this was so unfair, until I read further & discovered the recipients' reactions to their presents. That book taught me that monetary value isn't the most important aspect of giving - just as well since for most of my adult life I've been strapped for cash & unable to afford expensive gifts!

Other memorable books:
'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' - the ending shocked me, & made me cry more than any other book.
'Dark Quartet', and 'Path to the Silent Country', by Lynne Reid Banks. These two books chronicle the lives of the Brontes - incredibly moving.

There are other books, which I'm sure I'll remember sooner or later now that I've discovered this forum

I read 'I am the Cheese' by Robert Cormier when I was a teenager because it was a set book in school.From what I can remember It's a dark psychological book about a boy cycling to Vermont with a killer punchline at the end. It really shook me out of my complacent early-teen world and opened my eyes to the darker side of life. I've just re-acquired it through the magic of the internet and am torn between reading it and potentially being disappointed or leaving it unread so it retains it myth-like status in my psyche. Any advice?

I've just read 'Never Let Me Go', by Kazuo Ishiguro. If there is a book to reaffirm the warmth and frailty of human existence, this is it. It made me want to embrace life fully, now. It is chilling, beautiful and deeply moving. It also has that mesmerising quality which comes with a great story, I couldn't put it down.

http://www.open2.net/reading/neverletmego.html

I read 'A Million Little Pieces' by James Frey a couple of years ago and it may not have changed my life but it certainly changed the way I think!
It's a memoir about how James Frey got himself in a position where he was a drug addict and alcoholic who was wanted by the police in many states. This book goes through his recovery process and his change of state of mind going through many tragedies like the death of a loved one. It certainly makes you appreciate how lucky you are!!

Hmm, interesting, as I have two that changed my life and both were religious in content. The first, when I was about 17, was 'Dear and Glorious Physician' - a factional book by Taylor Caldwell about the life and times of Saint Luke, the result of which nearly made me become a nun :O
The second was two decades later - 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins. Now a confirmed atheist and Science-ophile (there must be a real word for that), I can honestly recommend it to everyone.
If you're religious and want to develop a robust justification for your faith, then Dawkins will certainly give you the material. If you're toying with agnosticism and atheism, the Dawkins will show you the way.

Witty, well researched and well argued, it's not a book that can be ignored.

Carl Rogers, "On Becoming A Person". I would struggle to give a reason for the impact or to specify any one particular effect, the best I can do is to say it's the only instance I recall feeling as though the author was present during reading.

Three books,
"The Swiss Family Robinson",read when I was about 6 or 7 and recovering from measles, "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet" probably read about the same time, and Jacque Cousteau's "The Silent World", read after seing the first showing of the TV series here in Ireland sometime in the 60s. I've had itchy feet ever since and I've been scuba diving since 1969. Looking forward now to winning the Euro Lotto and going into space with Virgin.

How about this one for all the wrong reasons!

James Joyce- Ulysses.
I've had several editions of this book over the years and always promised myself that this would be a good read when the time was right but only ever managed about 50 pages into it before giving up. I've just finished it and it has changed my life. For years I've been convinced that Joyce was a genius and now I know that he's an overhyped, incomprehensible waste of time who can't write an interesting story to save his life! Ulyssess is now consigned to the charity bag and I can move on and read someone who has an interest in their readers!