Books that have shaped you

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock.

Which will one date be regarded as the date of the beginning of the end of Western Civilization.

[Animavore]

This from Wikipedia

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (often referred to simply as Baby and Child Care), written by Benjamin Spock, was first published on 14 July 1946, and is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. By 1998, it had sold more than 50 million copies.[1] It has been translated into 39 languages, claimed by Channel 4 programme "Bringing Up Baby" to be second only to the Bible in non-fiction sales. Another source places the book as the seventh best-selling "non-fiction" book of all time.[1]

[Rum]

Dude! I used to have Frazetta's art books. That was thirty years ago. Jesus Christ, hard to believe. I musta sold them off at some point, cuz I don't have them anymore Anyway, Rum, I had no idea you went to art school. Did anything come of it?

Lozzer, apologies in advance, but Catcher in the Rye had a profound influence on me It articulated everything I was feeling as a young man but didn't know how to put into words.
Years later, Good Omens, I think, jump-started my obsession with everything British

Hi Tat, Nothing very much came of it I am afraid. My life was pretty chaotic by the time I finished Art school. Drugs mostly..the LSD issue I have referred to elsewhere. I had a choice - I could do one more year get get a so called 'ATD' (Art Teaching Diploma) or go out into the world and try to make a living through my art. Well teaching struck me as simply not my thing (whuich proved to be right because when I had a break in my career way back I trained and got myself qualified as a primary school teacher, but hated it so much I quit after only a few months!) and I simply had no idea what to do to make a go of my art as a way to earn a living.

Anyway I drifted and got into all sorts of stuff for a few years including travelling. I did the old so called hippie trail to India and the north African thing too until three years later I settled on social work as what at the time felt like a positive choice. Back then it was seen as a 'helping' thing to be part of. Perceptions are somewhat different in the mind of the public these days - wrongly for the most part. I kept up the drawing and painting though and at one point took up cartooning. I had a cartoon strip running in a few local newspapers called Jed Grunt for three or four years, but that was about it. Oh - me and my ex tried starting a graphic design business too 20 years ago during the career break mentioned about. It broke us..kicked it off the very day before one of our regular recessions was announced in the news!

Excuse the autobiog - just realised I have rambled on..age you know!

[lofuji]

While Animal Farm and 1984 are well worth reading, for me George Orwell's best work is his essays, which range in scope from critiques of dirty seaside postcards, boys' weekly papers, Henry Miller, Salvador Dalí, crime fiction, Gulliver's Travels, Charles Dickens and Tolstoy's attack on Shakespeare to polemics such as Politics and the English Language [this one is a must-read], always from a democratic socialist perspective. I still dip into his Collected Essays and Journalism [four volumes] from time to time, but I do very little reading nowadays, because

I can never get tired of reading:

In that case, NEVER take a job as a book editor. I worked as a freelance book editor for 15 years before I retired, and it completely killed the joy I used to find in reading. Reading is the last thing you want to do after spending a day working through someone else's work. A couple of years ago I decided to reread Great Expectations, and I couldn't get past the first page because I thought the punctuation was all to fuck. My loss.

lofuji

[Drewish]

I'm using this thread to make a reading list

[Shaker]

Pseud alert!

This, to start off with:

for being (still) the greatest work of fiction yet penned, because it shows what can be done in the hands of a mad genius when he decides to piss all over centuries if not millennia of foregoing literary tradition and do things his way. For showing me, in short, what fiction can be.

[Animavore]

Ulysses is great. Joyce and Oscar Wilde are two of the greatest writers. Both Irishmen. We rule.

[cowiz]

The Secrets of Origami - or did I shape that?

[RappingAgnostic]

Hey, what do you know? 'Zilla and I have something in common!

I love Stranger in a Strange Land

My other favorite book is Dune

For some reason, the short story The Ugly Little Boy by Asimov really resonated with me.
One of my favorite stories ever...

I read all the time...
So there are many, many more...but I'll just keep it short.

[orpheus]

Pedagogical Sketchbook by Paul Klee
The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
The Fratricides by Nikos Kazantzakis
Ecrits by Alberto Giacometti
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
Poems and Prose by Georg Trakl
Kleinzeit and The Medusa Frequency by Russell Hoban

and, of course:
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake by The Master (Mr. JJ)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hey, what do you know? 'Zilla and I have something in common!

I love Stranger in a Strange Land

My other favorite book is Dune

For some reason, the short story The Ugly Little Boy by Asimov really resonated with me.
One of my favorite stories ever...

I read all the time...
So there are many, many more...but I'll just keep it short.

I just re-read Stranger, the uncut version.

[Ameri Boi]

I know, I know, It's somewhat new in comparison with what everyone else has on the thread






This book has had the greatest impact on my life; With it I am now capable of arguing with my father, mother, siblings and such about evolution, and correct them on their misconceptions about what it is, and how well we know what we know. Alas, I am only 21, and there are bound to be more books that shape my mind, but for me, right now, this book has given me Intelligent content, confidence, and comfort(ironic?) in knowing the origins of my species and those before it.

[Lozzer]

I know, I know, It's somewhat new in comparison with what everyone else has on the thread






This book has had the greatest impact on my life; With it I am now capable of arguing with my father, mother, siblings and such about evolution, and correct them on their misconceptions about what it is, and how well we know what we know. Alas, I am only 21, and there are bound to be more books that shape my mind, but for me, right now, this book has given me Intelligent content, confidence, and comfort(ironic?) in knowing the origins of my species and those before it.

That book is for fags

[JimC]

I know, I know, It's somewhat new in comparison with what everyone else has on the thread






This book has had the greatest impact on my life; With it I am now capable of arguing with my father, mother, siblings and such about evolution, and correct them on their misconceptions about what it is, and how well we know what we know. Alas, I am only 21, and there are bound to be more books that shape my mind, but for me, right now, this book has given me Intelligent content, confidence, and comfort(ironic?) in knowing the origins of my species and those before it.

That book is for fags

I kow it doesn't start with "John and Betty...", Lozzer, but one day, if you keep up your studies, you may be able to slowly get the gist of it...

[Lozzer]

I know, I know, It's somewhat new in comparison with what everyone else has on the thread






This book has had the greatest impact on my life; With it I am now capable of arguing with my father, mother, siblings and such about evolution, and correct them on their misconceptions about what it is, and how well we know what we know. Alas, I am only 21, and there are bound to be more books that shape my mind, but for me, right now, this book has given me Intelligent content, confidence, and comfort(ironic?) in knowing the origins of my species and those before it.

That book is for fags

I kow it doesn't start with "John and Betty...", Lozzer, but one day, if you keep up your studies, you may be able to slowly get the gist of it...

I kow too

No, I really want to read it, except the Mister Dawkins set a guide-price of twenty-fucking-quid on it. Wayyy to encourage people to be interested in reason and science there!