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Which Books Have Influenced You The Most?

Rendezvous With Rama, The Lost Worlds Of 2001, Childhood's End, Islands In The Sky, Expedition To Earth and all the other books by Arthur C Clarke.

Ringworld by Larry Niven.

Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Various collections of poetry by Robert Frost.

Various collections of poetry and prose by Edgar Allen Poe.

The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.

The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame collection by various.

And all the many science books that I read as a kid.
 
The first books that come to mind are a small collection of science-fiction books that I read and re-read as a child:

--Dune by Frank Herbert;

--The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle;

--Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle;

--Hunters of the Red Moon by Marion Zimmer Bradley;

--Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein;

--and Nova by Samuel R. Delany.

These turned me into a lifelong SF fan.

Then comes Flying Aces of World War I by Gene Gurney. I read this in the second grade. It turned me on to history as a subject, and to the First World War, which has been my particular passion ever since.

Some books that have exercised an important influence on my work as an historian are:

--The Strange Death of Liberal England by George Dangerfield;

--Britons by Linda Colley;

--The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner;

--Fin-de-Siecle Vienna by Carl Schorske;

--Death, Dissection and the Destitute by Ruth Richardson;

--and Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning.

The Discourses of Epictetus got me interested in philosophy, and have affected my thinking ever since. A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke and Candide by Voltaire awakened my particular interest in Enlightenment thought.

Finally, James Blish's Black Easter and Arthur Edward Waite's The Book of Ceremonial Magic got me interested in the Left-Hand Path.
 
Everybody Poops
My Big Boy Potty
The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts
The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory
 
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

both by Richard Bach
 
In no particular order:

The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose

Starship Troopers Tunnel in the Sky, and Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein

Rendezvous With Rama, Childhood's End, and the Space Odyssey series by Arthur C. Clarke

Assorted works of Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

All Calvin and Hobbes collections by Bill Watterson and all The Far Side collections by Gary Larson

The Goosebumps series, by R.L. Stein.

Jaws, by Peter Benchley

Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton
 
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Religion:
The Story of a Soul - St. Therese of Lisieux
The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
The Catechism of the Catholic Church

Literature:
Out of Africa - Isak Dienesen
Ruslan and Ludmilla - Alexander Puskin
Pushkin Threefold - Walter Arndt (translator) - includes much of Pushkin's verse both in the original Russian and w/English translation on the facing page
Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham (I also love many of his short stories - especially those about the South Seas)

Women's Independent Travel:
A Journey of One's Own - Thalia Zepatos
Kite Strings of the Southern Cross - Laurie Gough

Adventure Travel:
The World's Most Dangerous Places (all editions) - Robert Young Pelton

Autobiography:
My Wicked, Wicked Ways - Errol Flynn (who was a surprisingly entertaining storyteller as well as a world adventurer even before his Hollywood days - the guy led a fascinating life, with or without movie stardom)

War, World Poverty & Other Moral Issues:
A Rumor of War - Philip Caputo (Vietnam War)
Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There - Mark Baker (self-explanatory)
Hiroshima - John Hersey (the personal stories of several survivors)
Night - Elle Wiesel (The Holocaust & WW II Concentration Camps)
Actual Innocence - Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, Jim Dwyer (wrongful criminal conviction and The Innocence Project)
Material World - Peter Menzel

History:
The Last Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky (who actually wrote a few interesting, accessible, and surprisingly entertaining volumes on Russian History - specifically about Tsar Nicholas & family, Rasputin, etc. Those wacky Romanovs!)
A History of Russia - Nicholas V. Riasanovsky (also a very readable volume, though not as entertaining :lol: )
Twelve Who Ruled - RR Palmer (about Robespierre and the rest of the members of the Committee of Public Safety - French Revolution. Probably the most interesting book I read in college)
Evita: An Intimate Portrait of Eva Peron - Tomas de Elia & Juan Pablo Queirez (this is actually a coffee table book filled with photos, but I believe that once you know the basic story of Juan and Eva Peron, books full of photos like these really tell the story. And Eva's is a fascinating story that continued well after her death.)


Favorite Books as a Child:
The Little House in the Big Woods (really, the entire series) - Laura Ingalls Wilder
 
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PKTrekGirl said:
Religion:
The Story of a Soul - St. Therese of Lisieux
The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Click to expand...


:techman: I will also add "The Everlasting Man" and "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton, as well as the complete works of one Clive Staples Lewis ("The Great Divorce", "The Screwtape Letters", and 'A Grief Observed" chief among them) and perhaps "Evangelium Vitae" by JP II for good measure.

"Slaughterhouse Five", "Cat's Cradle"- Kurt Vonnegut
"Fahrenheit 451", "The Martian Chronicles"- Ray Bradbury
"The Killer Angels"- Michael Shaara
"A Canticle for Leibowitz"- Walter M. Miller
"The Once and Future King" T.H. White
"Man's Search for Meaning" Victor Frankl
"The Brothers Karamazov" Fyodor Dostoevsky
 
The Satanic Bible

Dorf's Golf Bible

The Idiot's Guide to Home Surgery

If I Did It - OJ Simpson

The Idiot's Guide to S&M

Careers in Southern Law Enforcement - S. Crockett
 
Huckleberry Finn by Twain.

The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck.

Lord Jim by Conrad.

Catch-22 by Heller.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Thompson.

1984 by Orwell.

Battle Cry of Freedom by McPherson.

And my childhood favorites:
D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths and D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants.
 
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Everything (A Book about Manic Street Preachers) by Simon Price
 
Misfit Toy said:
Seems silly to completely ignore the wishes of the thread-starter.
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I personally think he's just covering for the fact that he didn't get that when he read the OP. He isn't a big reader - that's why he only has one book in his list. :devil:

Seriously, TLS - the whole point of the OP excluding the Bible was to eliminate half the posters mentioning it, and to simultaneously show respect to the fact that some of us would consider that Book to be an order of magnitude above any others.

Aim a little lower, and try again. Name books (lowercase b) that have influenced you, not a Book that is the direct Word of your Lord and Savior. :p
 
USS_Triumphant said:
Misfit Toy said:
Seems silly to completely ignore the wishes of the thread-starter.
Click to expand...
I personally think he's just covering for the fact that he didn't get that when he read the OP. He isn't a big reader - that's why he only has one book in his list. :devil:

Seriously, TLS - the whole point of the OP excluding the Bible was to eliminate half the posters mentioning it, and to simultaneously show respect to the fact that some of us would consider that Book to be an order of magnitude above any others.

Aim a little lower, and try again. Name books (lowercase b) that have influenced you, not a Book that is the direct Word of your Lord and Savior. :p
Click to expand...

I traditionally do aim high. That's why I didn't omit the most influential and important book in human history. Sorry if I made you guys uncomfortable.
 
It would probably be my collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories I was given as a child. Without it, I may never have become the paranoid, maladjusted, morbid weirdo I am today.
 
Hmm... Interesting question. When I was young, about 11, I read a Star Wars based book called Cloak of Deception which dealt with the Senate and it spurned my interest in politics so that had a huge impact on me.

Also when I was about 13 or so I read a Dotor Who novel called Alien Bodies which opened me up to a lot of surrealism and built the foundations to me becoming quite a horror fan as did This Town Will Never Let Us Go which shares the same author, Lawrence Miles.

A Game of Thornes by George R. R. Martin changed my life. Not only did I become heavily invested in this fine series but it introduced me to the character of Eddard Stark who is a hero of mine and my favorite literary character.

Duma Key by Stephen King hit on a lot of issues that relate to me and it, no exaggeration, made me cry. I was sitting in the university lounge reading this and I suddenly felt tears in my eyes. I tried to hide it as best I could and luckily no one was paying any attention otherwise it would've been blatantly obvious. That book was so rich and so inspirational that I would be remiss not to mention it.

I read a biography on Edward R. Murrow that cemented him as my favorite "real life" hero and while the book was solid it's more the man himself that got me so I don't know if that counts. The book was Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism by Bob Edwards.
 
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