Books that have shaped you

[Kaison]

Up until about 3 years ago, the answer to this would have been "There ain't any." On the road to de-conversion though, I've read Demon Haunted World by Sagan, Why People Believe Weird Things by Shermer and Misquoting Jesus by Ehrman. These books really helped me to understand why the things I used to believe were/are silly and almost certainly rubbish. They've also turned me from someone who didn't question much of anything, to someone who questions almost everything.

[Trolldor]

Infidel.

Was walking home reading it, and at one point just stopped.
Couldn't walk or breathe properly either.
If you've read it, you might know the point, but for reference it's the page before the Chapter "Leiden"

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

[macdoc]

the last line of the book did it for me

“there were no watching eyes"

The central character was free to make his own rules and game....it freed ME from conventional society and rules
once around, I'd make the most of it and not follow anyone else's muse...
so far so good :-)

Oddly that novel can trip people including our fourth year English Lit prof - huge battle with our small very elite English Criticism class he held at his home....
week after week we told him he was wrong and that the novel had suckered him.....just exactly what it was about...not to get suckered into someone else's game....
To his everlasting credit he came around and apologized...
It was an eye-opener for all involved...really got some of us on toe to toe mind skill basis with a university professor level intellect and made our points...
growing up interlude...

this was central to the book as well

T. S. Eliot - Little Gidding
- We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

and that has also been a crucial insight

I'll give you an example...

17 years after I divorced my first wife....
I found out she was gay....

talk about a bunch of dominoes falling into place....it re-arranged my personal view of that period in my life in a dramatic way....I knew it for the very first time....
and was much relieved and re-assured at my decision to leave...
I needed, she needed it...but at the time I had no idea why she needed the parting of ways.....not sure she did at the time eithrer but she sure as hell needed to find her own way and I was drowning in her unhappiness...

••

Another other significant influence was



as I always felt myself to be one...

The Outsider is a non-fiction book by Colin Wilson first published in 1956[1].

Through the works and lives of various artists - including H. G. Wells (Mind at the End of its Tether), Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Harley Granville-Barker (The Secret Life), Herman Hesse, T. E. Lawrence, Vincent Van Gogh, Vaslav Nijinsky, George Bernard Shaw, William Blake, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoevsky and G. I. Gurdjieff - Wilson explores the psyche of the Outsider, his effect on society, and society's effect on him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsid ... in_Wilson)

and perhaps one of the most insightful works for me even tho the author is associated with some strange ideas in other works of his...this non-fiction work is superlative in my view.



Koestler's Act of Creation which is hard to find....a tour de force of biology and it's role in human creativity...similar to Goedel Escher and Bach in it's interleaving disparate subjects ( poetry, jokes and the eureka moment in science ) and all underpinned by solid biology/psychology and understanding of how creativity occurs...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Creation

It fits very well with my Bayesian brain view of human neural net

These are stand outs...there are many more in a lifetime of reading....

[Rum]

[FedUpWithFaith]

I haven't been shaped by any books. In fact, I've never even found one in my size.

[hadespussercats]

"Villette" by Charlotte Bronte, hands down-- what a beautiful story, and the imagery has stayed with me over the years.

More recently, I'd have to say "The God Delusion" and "A Devil's Chaplain" -- since those two books sent me on a year-long quest for my own identity.

As a child, my biggies were "A Wrinkle In Time" By Madeleine L'Engle (and the rest of that trilogy) and "Illusions" By Richard Bach-- both books gave me a new way to consider being spiritual without the bullshit I was getting from church.

I also loved "A Secret Garden"-- I identified strongly with the contrary heroine who learns through work how to open her heart.

There are more, but these selections cover a good portion of the gamut.

Great Thread, BTW.

[Trolldor]

50 top myths of popular psychology.


Well, that was an eye opener.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My spiritual guide.

[maiforpeace]

Most recently these two books have had a huge impact on me, and precipitated huge, positive changes in my eating lifestyle. Because of these two books I have never enjoyed food as much as I do now, which is saying a lot coming from someone who has been in the food industry for years, and I have had visible improvements in my health, my food shopping budget and my over all sense of well-being.

Food Rules - by Michael Pollan
Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer

For example, one of the 'rules' our household adopted from Michael Pollan's book that has been working fabulously for us is:

Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself –

There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking a soda now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we are eating them every day. The French fry did not become America’s most popular vegetable until industry took over the jobs of washing, peeling, cutting and frying the potatoes. – And cleaning up the mess. If you made all the French fries you ate you would eat them much less often, if only because they are so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies and ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you’re willing to prepare them – chances are good it won’t be every day.

[RuleBritannia]

[Mac_Guffin]

I have a dent in my head from where a War & Peace book fell when I was little.

[Ian]