What three books have had the greatest influence on your life?

rgambs

eeriepadave said:

Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.  This was pretty much the only book i remember reading in school.  I think i read Catcher in the Rye but Where the Red Fern Grows stuck pit more to me.  I remember our class doing a project on the book about the trial and all.

Insomnia by Stephen King.  It wasn't the first book I read from him but it definitely felt it was the one the I connected with most if that makes sense.  I think it was the spirituality was the main thing.  I have to re-read this now

Angels & Demons by Dan Brooks.  I was laid off and bored and I think my mom had all his books so i just started reading them in order.  And i think this one and Lost Symbol more than the Da Vinci Code.

Insomnia was my second adult novel, the librarian was impressed because she said she couldn't follow or understand it.  I felt like a boss.
She must have been a little dim lol

brianlux

rgambs said:

brianlux said:

dankind said:

You've gotta know by now that I don't play by the rules, so I'm doubling it.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: I devoured these old Doyle, Dumas and Hugo volumes that we had in our farmhouse as a kid, but I always left this one on the shelf. It just sounded way too boring for a boy who was more into hunchbacks, detectives and musketeers at the time. When I finally cracked it open, however, I found that books could do more than merely entertain; they could also move one to deeply soulful (and tearful) self-examinations and ultimately healing, redemption and rejuvenation. And they could teach us lessons that will remain with us forever. In this case, take care of yourself and the people and things you love, and all will flourish; neglect yourself and the people and things that you love, and all will disintegrate.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley: Who the hell is this guy whose image and quotations are starting to show up on all my friends’ shirts and stuff. Is he some kind of African despot? Oh, wow! Not at all. He’s my new hero! That voice. That passion. That love. That anger. That determination. That outrage. That humility. That faith. That courage. That mind. A beautifully flawed human who recognized his own flaws and went to great lengths to try to make amends for them and anguished over the times he could not. He's still resides on the throne, leading the humans I most admire.

Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: I was a complete mess the first time I read this (and Lila), and I truly believe that Pirsig’s novelistic inquiries have a great deal to do with why I’m still on this planet. I’ll never be free of all the demons that caused me to seek out these books in the first place, but they are always there on the shelf when I need them. And I find that I need them more often than I'd like. (I needed Zen about a year ago when I had a terrible issue with my young son while his very sensitive and empathetic big sister was in the same room. The words are even more relevant as a father. Much of the narrator's torment stems from his inability to deal with his son's irrational egotism out of certain fear that the behavior he's seeing in his son is scarily similar to the ghost that haunts him.)

Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre: This tome basically put into words so many of the thoughts I'd had about the absolute absurdity of life -- and then some. This book is basically my religious text. I live my life guided by the the philosophical notion that existence precedes essence and that while our lives ultimately have no meaning, our essence does (until it doesn't).

Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things: This one tears your goddamn soul apart. There's no forgiving some of the damage that some of the characters inflict upon each other, even when there actions come from a place of pure love. The prose is just beautiful and moving, and it meanders as form perfectly marries with function. 

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon: I read this the first time while studying abroad in Russia. A friend loaned me his copy (a hardcover first edition!) for something to read while traveling. Well, it's a good thing that I was with a group for all of our planned excursions, or else I would've missed many a train stop, bus stop, etc. due to my nose being buried in this book. I read it twice while there, and I try to reread it once every year or so. This novel basically blows up everything one imagines a work of fiction to be and glues it all back together haphazardly because someone must've gotten high from all the fumes. (Joyce is a dog chasing its tail; Pynchon is a snail chasing a hog.) It climbs to the heights of erudition and wallows in the depths of depravity. There are fractured fables and scatological sea shanties. Blood, shit, snot, cum, piss. There are corporations getting rich off the corpses produced by WWII. There's magic and the void. There's sex, drugs, and rock & roll. There are conspiracies everywhere and answers nowhere. Recalcitrant troops and extremely perverted poops. It's an entropic nightmare and a live sex peep show booth full of freaks. Everything that matters to me is in this book.

Honorable mentions: A Coney Island of the Mind, Geek Love, Jitterbug Perfume, The Complete English Poems (John Donne), Salinger's Glass stories, Letters to a Young Poet, IT, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Motherless Brooklyn, The House of Mirth, 1984, The Holy Bible (KJV), everything by Vonnegut (even the stinkers), The Complete Stories (Flannery O'Connor), The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha, Leaves of Grass, Sanctuary (Faulkner), The Great and Secret Show and Everville (Clive Barker), The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Riverside Shakespeare

Cheater!  Haha!  Good list though.  Gravitiy's Rainbow has one of the best opening passages of any book ever!

I need to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  I just have a feeling the time is right.

U. I like good opening passages.
Was it, "The night was humid."???
Lol there's an obscurish reference.

My favorite opening passage ever is from Cormac McCarthy, The Road.
"When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world."

The Road is awesome.  One of the few books I've read in a single sitting.

Gravity's Rainbow opens with:

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

dankind

I forgot Moby-Dick! Sweet Dolly’s tits! How could I leave out that amazing encyclopedic adventure!?!          

Hilarious, terrifying, informative, philosophical, instructive, gory—it has it all. I kind of feel like we’re all on the Pequod right now, and old man Ahab has just spotted Moby-Dick. Y'all up for a Nantucket sleighride?

@rgambs “You clumsy poop!

F Me In The Brain

Owen!

McCarthy is a goddamn magician with words.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

Shane (elementary school favourite... with The Outsiders a close second)

Into Thin Air (read multiple times including the first time- at the hospital for the birth of my son)

The Tiger (bought at the airport and read flying to my grandmother's funeral... couldn't put it down and one of my first recommends to anyone)

* 'Influential' is tough to gauge. I think I went more with 'nostalgic'. Oh well. It all works one way or another.

brianlux

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

Shane (elementary school favourite... with The Outsiders a close second)

Into Thin Air (read multiple times including the first time- at the hospital for the birth of my son)

The Tiger (bought at the airport and read flying to my grandmother's funeral... couldn't put it down and one of my first recommends to anyone)

* 'Influential' is tough to gauge. I think I went more with 'nostalgic'. Oh well. It all works one way or another.

I think you could argue that things that are nostalgic are generally things that have strongly influenced one's life and so we often have an attachment to that thing and/or the memory.

Into Thin Air!  Great!  That book completely blew open the doors to mountaineering literature for me.  I remember you mentioning earlier how much that book affected you, Thirty.  Awesome!

tempo_n_groove

eeriepadave said:

Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.  This was pretty much the only book i remember reading in school.  I think i read Catcher in the Rye but Where the Red Fern Grows stuck pit more to me.  I remember our class doing a project on the book about the trial and all.

Insomnia by Stephen King.  It wasn't the first book I read from him but it definitely felt it was the one the I connected with most if that makes sense.  I think it was the spirituality was the main thing.  I have to re-read this now

Angels & Demons by Dan Brooks.  I was laid off and bored and I think my mom had all his books so i just started reading them in order.  And i think this one and Lost Symbol more than the Da Vinci Code.

I LOVED Angels and Demons up until the helicopter part...  That was an "awe c'mon man!" part of the book.  The writing was really good in it sans that damn part.

Hobbes

Three came to mind right away when this thread first posted. I took a few days to ponder alternatives but kept returning to my original three.

The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 

tempo_n_groove

Hobbes said:

Three came to mind right away when this thread first posted. I took a few days to ponder alternatives but kept returning to my original three.

The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 

2nd time i've seen this mentioned now.  I will have to check this out.

Horos

tempo_n_groove said:

Hobbes said:

Three came to mind right away when this thread first posted. I took a few days to ponder alternatives but kept returning to my original three.

The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 

2nd time i've seen this mentioned now.  I will have to check this out.

I can't believe @brianlux hasn't read it.

I've only read a handful of the books listed but Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the only one on mine.

brianlux

Horos said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Hobbes said:

Three came to mind right away when this thread first posted. I took a few days to ponder alternatives but kept returning to my original three.

The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 

2nd time i've seen this mentioned now.  I will have to check this out.

I can't believe @brianlux hasn't read it.

I've only read a handful of the books listed but Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the only one on mine.

I will have to remedy that!  

HesCalledDyer

A couple reference books that I really took in are The Little Brown Handbook which was a small, concise guide for writing that I got in my freshman English class in college.  I still have it to this day.  That and Mathematics and the Imagination which is basically a collection of thought-provoking mathematical applications to every day things - game & puzzle theory, number systems, geometric curiosities, and many, many other novelty topics such as understanding the googolplex, tracing the path of a trains wheels or a bomb dropping, etc.

Attaway77

Jack Kerouac - Big Sur
Jack Kerouac - Dharma Bums
Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing 

Wobbie

I'll get back to you but, for sure, it wasn't the bible.

fricking hogwash.

camsjam

The three I think of as most influential are also nostalgic so maybe it is a factor in my choices.

Sam the Firefly - Dr Suess (and numerous titles of his).  My mom read this to me and it made me want to learn to read and began my love for books.

Watership Down-Richard Adam's. Don't remember exactly how old I was when I read it but it caused me to think about and question society, violence in the world and the status quo. Its dark but also whimsical and unique. I am thinking I should reread it now since I've forgotten a lot about it.

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings- Tolkien.  Talk about an AET! Just a great world to fall into. I was starting high school and met a couple of other kids who loved the books and made me a part of their group. They introduced me to Pink Floyd, the Doors, and pot. 
  

Malroth

Wobbie said:

I'll get back to you but, for sure, it wasn't the bible.

fricking hogwash.

I'll get back to you also, I think one of them will be the bible though.

Ms. Haiku

The Bible, I can't deny the influence in our culture.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Got me interested in the Harlem Renaissance. 

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esqiuval (may be spelled wrong), for many years I thought of food as magical because of this book. 

Ledbetterman10

Cool topic. 

-The Divine Comedy
-Nineteen Eighty-Four
-Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

I can’t really quantify the "influence" these books that had on me but they’re definitely my three favorite works of fiction. 

brianlux

It's interesting that the Bible has come up a number of times here.  I can see why, I just hadn't thought about it. 

I did read the Bible all the way through once.  Probably around 1978. 

Boy, Deuteronomy and Numbers! Those are the books that get poked fun at the most but having read the whole book and  looking back on it, those are the first books that came to mind, so I know they left an impact.   It's like looking at a Robert Motherwell painting.  It may be challenging at first, but you never walk away without it having some effect on you. 

King David let me down (getting away with murder is not my thing) but Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were kind of cool precisely because they got so hot.   And Jonah getting swallowed by a whale and puked up on the shore-- epic!  Gives Moby Dick a run for its money.

The O.T. has plenty of great stories and poetry but I got bogged down with the prophets.  I struggled with them but I don't remember why.  Maybe because I thought they would be cool but they are actually pretty harsh and a bit scary. 

The N.T. starts off great with the whole story of Jesus thing (although I have to admit I preferred Nikos Kazantzakis's version and the film made from that).  Paul getting God-walloped was fascinating and he became a better man but then got hung up on too much legalism for my taste. 

I hated the ending.  Revelation, as grand as it in all it's apocalyptic gory glory, it's supposed to be about the good guys winning but its too much like the way today is in all the wrong ways. 

I never did find the part about people in the Bible taking magic mushrooms.  I think some hippie made that up.

Malroth

1. Goonies- First "thick" book I read. Checked it out of a bookmobile.

2. The Bible- Most may not believe in this concept of god and jesus, but the teachings on love are........

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 English Standard Version (ESV)

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[a] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

3. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena- My favorite book, so it is the book I compare all the rest to.

Title refers to the medical definition of life.