The fact that there are readers out there gives me hope. Two people I know well who voted for the Sewer Rat don't have books in their homes and that speaks volumes to me. I just re-read Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang" and something tells me we all need to engage in those activities so skillfully described in the novel with respect to Climate Change. No one else is going to do it.
19
Walden by Thoreau. Steppenwolf by Hesse. We, the Living by Rand.
These three helped form my character while still in college.
Good writers have something to teach everyone. And they know when to end a story!
5
A book that influenced how I think, act, or look at the world?
How about Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” anyone?
31
This great piece reminds me of a Chinese fortune cookie I got -
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance"
12
No words could express how these readers have enriched my day.
39
The Kite Runner. Guilt and redemption in a cultural and social setting filled with violence... Opened my eyes and heart.
8
Anything Charles Bukowski, though I know he’s not for everyone. 100 Years of Solitude by Marquez was really great for me too.
7
The Whole Earth Catalog... so many connections, so much influence.
9
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. My mother gave me this book when I was way too young for it, perhaps I was in sixth or seventh grade. It shocked me. I was paralyzed with fear that these events could happen in a location near mine in the Midwest. But it also threw me into knowing that there were people in the world who had become horrible because their life experiences were very, very different than mine growing up in a secure, middle class family. While I felt revoltion at them, I also felt pity. Perhaps I can better cope with horrible people because of reading In Cold Blood.
10
BLACK MIDAS, by Jan Carew. English Literature assignment in high school, I read that book together with my classmates and also by myself at home.
I vowed that I never wanted to be like the protagonist, Aron Smart, who left his village as a young man, became very wealthy, got himself into bad and illegal activities, and returned to his village a broken man and a failure.
3
I read "Hiroshima" by John Hersey when I was sixteen years old. In his deceptively simple prose, Hersey exposed me to how the horrors of war affect everyday people.
18
Frank Herbert's Dune had a large impact on me when I was young. i discovered in the novel section of my local library and not the Sci-fi section. It's an over 500 pages opus and remains the longest book I've ever read. This passage became my motto: “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” head stuff for the shy introverted soul I was.
4
Given the pressing problems of our times, I couldn't think of any other work more relevant than E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful (1973).
Schumacher's was a prescient work with significant insights into and solutions for wide ranging issues including climate change, economic polarization and power of big corporations.
The world be significantly different today had we followed his advice.
3
I love this article and everyone who commented here. And I nominate whatever the next life-impacting book is that crosses my path.
18
Shogun by James Clavell
No matter where you are, how lost and alone you might be, you can rise and shine.
The Count of Monte Cristo
There is a God; Goodness is rewarded and evil is punished.
17
"Night" by Elie Wiesel, which I read around 1982. At the time I was 32 years old and very unhappy about the theology of Catholicism, which I had been raised in. The image of the hanging child, and the historical use of Jews by non-Jews as the perpetual sacrificial victim, the gruesomeness of seeking redemption in a cannibalistic ceremony that was repeated not just in church but viciously in the streets... Well, I went on to take classes in all the major religions, and Judaism without question had the answers for me. I saw a rabbi, and officially converted after studying for 2 years. Imagine how I felt after taking a DNA test 30 years later (and then another, and then another) and learned that I was actually a Jew all along--my parents had changed their name and were living a lie, and lied to their children. Then I remembered overhearing as a 5-year-old my relatives discussing someone they knew in a concentration camp. Then I remembered mysterious gaps in my mother's knowledge of our family history, and stories that conflicted over the years. Well, I am forever grateful for reading "Night" by Elie Wiesel... his book led me to an honest, un-wasted life, and my true identity.
120
This is amazing!
11
@sandhillgarden
The spark never dies.
Am Yisroel Chai - the people of Israel live.
12
In college, my Pacific NW based-self thought I wanted to be a nun. I visited a convent in NYC, for a week, had a total emotional meltdown, and fled. Similar experience when I went off to grad school in Maine 10 years later. Ten years after that, in grad school much closer to home, I read Eudora Welty's The Golden Apples. A cluster novel redolent with Greek mythology, telling a series of tales about characters in the small Mississippi town who receive the call to adventure but deny it, only to stay home and stagnate. That book haunted me for two years, until I finally took the plunge, and accepted a teaching position in Turkey. That first three months was an exercise in endurance, but here I am 20+ years later, a seasoned ex-pat who's lived in Turkey, Egypt, Mongolia and China. I don't think I would have done it without that book.
62
I will never forget the words, "Chapter One. I am born. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." I was ten and had cracked open a book at random found in the den. Everything changed. I had the sensation of embarking on a great and wondrous journey and indeed that is what Mr. Dickens generously bestowed upon a lonely neglected child. It changed me in its assurance that cruelty happened, love and decency were true, life was not fair and I'd be crazy if I expected it to be, and that I was not alone.
Decades later, when my mother died, how delighted was I by our kindly undertaker whose surname was "Dick." He encouraged me to address him by his first name but it was too much of a delight to have my own Mr. Dick! And how frequently I still turn to Aunt Betsy Trotwood's defiance in the face of catastrophe: "We must meet our reverses boldly and not suffer them to frighten us.... We will act the play out and live misfortune down."
Thank you, NYT, for a most wonderful article.
45
I didn't see many books with a science theme. I would recommend Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Darkness. It is a refreshing look which strives to rise above all the trappings of human fallibility. It seeks to find the profound in seeing the world as it is as opposed to how we would like it to be.
29
@A. Scott -
Oh! Oh! Oh! And Richard Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker," (with his earlier "The Selfish Gene," but mostly "The Blind Watchmaker") for basically explaining how purposiveness and purpose are totally unnecessary, and indeed fraudulent, concepts in understanding the natural world.
And, and, and Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel," for demonstrating that the best "scientists" are not limited to only one discipline or set of tools.
9
I'm an avid reader and there are many books which have moved me, taught me, and therefore to that extent changed me, but the one book which absolutely altered my life for the better, is Alcoholics Anonymous.
While I read it as part of my recovery program to help me break my addiction to alcohol, perhaps its biggest impact was in teaching me for the first time how to live life on life's terms, and that has made all the difference.
54
@Kingfish52 Beautiful statement. The best to you, Kingfish52.
6
I would have to say that "Lord of the Rings" is one of my favorite series after just finishing it a week ago. The darkest of times in the book and environmental devastation throughout are very poignant when considering our current political climate. Also, the works of Shakespeare changed my life and led me to be an English major in college. No matter how many times you read a play, you come away with a different perspective every time. Lastly, "To Kill a Mockingbird" is another one that I take off my shelf and read every few years to remind me what it means to stand up for what is right.
20
I have to thank the character and the book that made me an insatiable reader, thus leading to many of the happiest or most profound or most disturbing or most inspirational moments of a long life. Thank you Nancy Drew and The Hidden Staircase.
146
@Deborah When I was much, much younger, I devoured those Nancy Drew books. I read all of them and couldn't wait until a new one appeared. I read a few of the Hardy Boys books too.
49
@Deborah. Thank you, I agree! Nancy Drew was such an inspiration, showing little girls growing up in the 50s that they. too, could have adventures like hers, zipping around in sports cars and solving mysteries. At a time when all I saw around me were women marrying young and quickly having multiple babies, Nancy Drew reassured me that there were other choices to be had.
28
HARDY BOYS at ages 11-12 fanned my reading habit. In Jr High, we swapped them like baseball cards.
9
It was the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, a philosophical book composed in Sanskrit by Hindu " sages" around 700 BCE, that created the foundation for perpetual questioning in my mind during my college years. Its central prayer, addressed not to some anthropomorphic deity but to some undefined, and undefinable, cosmic power, is:
Lead me from Untruth to Truth
Lead me from Darkness to Light
Lead me from Death to Immortality
The prayer stresses not unconditional faith in any authority but guidance in personal inquiry into reality. I found reaffirmation of this ethos later in the Socratic wisdom about how an unexamined life is not worth living, and in the by-now trite but still stimulating statement of Descartes," I think, therefore I am."
I triple-dipped into wisdom, and its pool has continued to grow.
16
On The Road, by Jack Kerouac, when I was 17 opened my eyes to a different way of life. I was a good middle-class Jewish girl from Queens who felt, all during childhood and adolescence, that a big something was missing from the trajectory I was on: marriage, children, becoming a good middle-class Jewish houswife who obeyed the rules and traditions. On the Road opened my eyes and let me see that freedom was possible, and that I could pursue it. Some years later Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique allowed me to see that marriage and children did not preclude career, work, an engaged life. I was fortunate to find these two books and have spent my life as a writer, a feminist, and a relatively free spirit.
92
@Sheila Isenberg
Recently, when Betty Friedan died, her importance was widely recognized. But none of what I read adequately appreciated “The Feminine Mystique.” It was the most influential book of the Twentieth Century.
9
Perhaps the next question might be, who was the person who changed your life by turning you on to books. For me it was a librarian at one of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt libraries in the late 50s. I was in 3rd grade and still “couldn’t read”. My Mom heard about Mrs Coughlin and her ability to get children interested in reading. I reluctantly accompanied my Mom to the library one afternoon and sat down with this lady who asked me about myself and my interests. At the end of a half hour telling her about my science experiments, including the time I flew across a classroom after putting two ends of a wire wrapped around a nail into a plug socket to make the “most powerful magnet in the world”, she handed me a science fiction comic book. From then on I was hooked, eventually graduating to full length books. We met weekly from to discuss the book she, and pretty soon I, would pick. I try to imagine a different universe, where I didn’t meet Mrs Coughlin. It is a sad and dreary place.
86
The one book that comes frequently to mind these days is "NAUSEA" by JP Sartre. I wonder what Sartre would have come up with replacing his main character Roquentin with trump knowing what we know about trump.
2
"NAUSEA" is a truly comforting, warm and fuzzy read, compared to imagining being inside the truly mind bendingly cruel thoughts of the trump.
1
Thank you so much for this, NYT!
Without books I would be entirely bereft. Public libraries are the cornerstone of civilization. Whether or not you use the library, as I do, don't let a day pass without a silent message of gratitude to the institutions that bring books, in their infinite millions, to everyone.
149
@eleanor
Agreed!
And a deep bow to Benjamin Franklin who introduced the public institution to America.
I love my local library. And they are about so much more than books these days.
59
@eleanor
and great newspapers and their community of commentors!
16
"Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me" by Richard Farina.
I was 15 living at a New England prep school as a scholarship student surrounds by rich kids who'd been born on third base and assumed they'd hit a triple.
It suggested a life of imagination, resistance to authority, fidelity to ideals, and a spirit of adventure. It led to risk taking, cross country motorcycle trips, social and civil activism and the faith and belief that I could succeed pursing a creative life. It never gets old for me.
82
I would say that The Grapes of Wrath helped to form my social conscience and The Red Badge of Courage forever made me want to choose peace over war.
88
@gail falk I also wrote that The Grapes of Wrath was the seed that shaped my social conscience. I was of college-age when I first read it and most importantly realized that there are many people who need our compassion and help. Coincidentally, I was studying to become a nurse. The timing could not have been better.
10
The comment by Ms. Lipkin is terrific, much more meaningful than the drivel peddled by Ayn Rand; we are all in it together Ms. Lipkin, thank you for pointing that out. Self centered narcissists do have certain advantages as you point out when they are young and presumably intelligent, then life happens, an illness befalls you, hows that being alone think working out unless you were lucky enough to score big and even luckier not to hav3 invested it in a million ways designed to separate you from your money. Socialism or what I prefer to think of as old fashioned FDR type Democrats offer a better world than Rand ever did.
15
I have loved books forever, but this article might be the best I’ve read so far in my 69 years. Bravo!
20
Mad Magazine. 1960’s 1970’s.
13
My progressive views started to be formed by learning about the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow.
In the library stacks at age 13, I noticed a novel called “Compulsion” by Meyer Levin. What was this about? I had a vague idea of people having 'compulsions'.
It was a fictionalization of an actual, sensational murder case and trial. Two rich college buddies murdered a boy they knew--- just to prove they could do it and get away with it. One influenced the other, under compulsion.
To quote from PBS American Experience show on the trial – famous lawyer “ Clarence Darrow achieved what many thought impossible. He saved the lives of two cold-blooded child-killers” using his power of a speech.”
So, I read how Darrow laid out his reasons against the death penalty and for life in prison, for any crime, including for these 2 psychopaths, guilty of a horrendous act.
This 1924 trial was one of the most sensational of the century, and was made into a movie.
This led me to later read the bio-- ‘Clarence Darrow For the Defense’ by Irving Stone. I learned about the humanitarian and rational causes Darrow was famous for--- legal battles against corruption by powerful corporations, and his support for working people trying to start labor unions to protect from legalized, rampant exploitation.
In the Scopes Trial, later a Bwy Play/movie "Inherit the Wind--- he defended a teacher on trial for teaching Darwin’s evolution theory in school.
Big influence on me.
11
sapiens and guns Germs and steel help me to start understand ourselves as human race
1
How many mentioned the Bible?
3
Don't discount great SciFi... "The Mote in God's Eye" by Pournell exa Niven, "Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson...
2
Where are readers influenced by books from the realm of fantasy? YA (young adult) literature? Sci-fi? Westerns? Romance?
Just off the top of my head - Asimov's "Robot" series and much of his writing were very influential, especially his "Three Laws of Robotics".
I question how many of these books really changed peoples lives. I dare to venture most of the readers tailored their response knowing what the NYT's was looking for - that is books that were 'cathartic'.
I find this very truncated list to be over curated where the NYT's is puffing up its own perceived uniqueness as well as the same perception by its readers.
1/18/2020 7:25pm
1
@Common Sense In regard to whether these books changed people's lives, I'll take their readers at their word. Not sure that catharsis is a bad thing. This seems like a very long truncated list of works. Further, rather than a perception of uniqueness among the readers, I get a sense that they, through reading, gained an appreciation of universal experience and what they learned from it.
3
I was thinking of canceling my subscription to the NYT -- sick/tired of all the op-eds, the politics/identity politics. But then along comes this great article. Thank you NYT! How about an article on our favorite poems?
9
Nice feature — but no editorial on the Sunday before the third impeachment trial in our history! I opened to the editorial page of the print edition to discover no editorial. This is another disappointing example of the Sunday Review’s failure to live up to its name. How about getting back to what made the section great once upon a time: a review of the week’s news? That or change its name to Sunday Thumbsucker.
1
Profits Over People. Chomsky.
1
Interesting that the NYT prints a letter from somebody who chose Atlas Shrugged but that she rejected the thesis of the book. I am wondering due to the consistent popularity of this book for many years if this letter is representative of the most common reaction to it?
5
Walter Kaufmann, not William.
Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion; A Prayer for Owen Meany; Little Women/Jo's Boys; Sword in the Stone (TH White); John Cheever-World of Apples...
2
I have a subscription to the NYTIMES, alongside all these people.
5
Great!!!!!!
For me ..... coming from a highly dysfunctional family that was not poor but just eccentrically nuts , reading grounded me in normalcy and reality. Imagine that. Something not real made me see ;as I absorbed authors, that I had a thing called resilience. And coupling that with bookish knowledge .... looking backwards 60 years ... “see Dick and Jane and sally and spot. “I have to say for me it would be “ Little Women “ and all Louisa May Alcott that I absorbed. And in middle school “ Atlas Shrugged “ and all of Aldous Huxley including Brave New World .... And Herman Hesse. Then in high school. “ A Separate Peace” and “Great Expectations”....,, College ...., “My Antonia “ and Hp Lovecraft stuff. The classics etc. lately I read a lot of ancient works by women. Amazing stuff.
Historical fiction is my fun go to read. Learning to read well at age 6 and 7 saved me. My kids are readers too. And public radio has been soothing them for 30 plus years. For them during bedtime read aloud I read “ The Watson’s Go to Birmingham” and Bud , Not Buddie” both from Lewis. Great novels for young readers and adults. We found Harry Potter formulaic and boring after novel 2. Not a classic. But fun for awhile. Nytimes this was great. A nice breath of fresh air for a Sunday. We all could use a break.
3
Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”
Man, that book got me into a lot of trouble!
7
Brava, Valeria Volin!
Slaughter House Five
5
Henry Miller.
3
Really liked (although I have never been a socialist) Barbara Lipkin of Naperville, Ill. on how reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged affected her and how the final time she read the book she was a young mother and as she read, she realized that there were no children in Rand’s cast of characters, no old people; no one was sick or disabled. Where were they? How were they supposed to manage on their own? If that isn't a smack yourself upside the head moment for anyone who reads that book, I don't know what is.
Nor do I ever remember Ms. Rand being asked on any interview shows like Phil Donahue, Mike Wallace, C-SPAN, Tom Synder about why there were no children in Rand’s cast of characters, no old people; no one was sick or disabled. And what role society has in helping them.
Although I do recall her noting she did not believe in forced altruism which grew out of her being a young girl in Russia when the revolution happened and the country became socialist/communist.
7
gone with the wind. I read it 13 times from grade 8 on. my 11th grade US history teacher told me I was an idiot. I proved him wrong by graduating with honors from UC in history, 5 years later. any great teacher would have understood that the power of that flawed but gorgeous book to ignite my passion for history was of infinite value. of course my understanding of the civil war and slavery evolved as I matured. Although I must admit my love for Scarlett, Rhett and especially Mammy has never diminished. thanks for this fabulous article and the great comments from the wonderful readers of the NYT.
25
@karen I loved that book when I picked it up before heading to vacation during 8th grade school break. It has also stuck with me ever since then!
7
I’d just like to say how very happy *all* of these thoughtful and moving tributes to the power of literature made me. My fellow Citizens of the World of Reading: thank you for brightening my morning, and for expanding my reading list.
23
I read The Population Bomb the summer before I entered Stanford University and would go on to study population biology. In this age of hand wringing over climate change I rarely hear mention of the greatest way you can reduce your carbon footprint-don’t have that third child.
12
Thank you. Great thoughts.
1
A lot of great stuff here! I'm particularly attracted to the words of Wendy Gianfrancesco about Atlas Shrugged. That book greatly contributed to the colossal mess America is in today. The far right and libertarian crowd eye this book as one of their bibles and odes to little government and self reliance. They conveniently overlook the fact that hypocrite Ayn Rand's signed up for social security late in life when she came down with cancer.
19
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
"What is real, Phaedrus?"
4
Eliot's "The Wasteland" continues to inform my worldview nearly fifty years after i first read it.
3
i saw 'johnny got his gun' in 1971 before i read the book.
both were very powerful.
the horror of war brought home in a particularly awful way.
i believe trumbo produced and directed the movie.
timothy bottoms, donald sutherland and jason robards were in it.
and, oddly enough, my cousin married a 'second' cousin of trumbo.
3
@brupic
i should've added that the 'books' that changed my life were the 11 volumes of 'the story of civilization' by will durant and his wife ariel who was credited as co-author for the last five volumes.
they were hand in hand with 'civilisation' a personal view by kenneth clark which was a 13 part series on bbc.
single book was hard times by dickens.
william shirer's three volume memoir of his life--particularly the first two--left quite an impression.
4
Lord of the Rings. I read it every year. Like the Bible, it never gets old
2
A FAMILY OF NOBLEMEN
BY
MIKHAÏL Y. SALTYKOV
(download a free copy at the Gutenberg Project)
This book was on the criticism radar in the early seventies when I was in my early twenties. I saw it on the bookstore shelf a few times and finally bought. Saltykov and his readers saw it as an amusing satire about the corruption, decline and dissolution of czarist autocratic society. But what I saw was how each of his main characters achieve final moral and physical dissolution right on the page. You have to read it if you want to know what I mean. It's been with me ever since. You will be amused or you will die.
1
Ernest Hemingway's "A Natural History of the Dead". Charles Bukowski's collection "South of No North". Hunter S. Thompson's "Kingdom of Fear". William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying".
All of these are American authors, well-known and widely criticized for their 'machismo' and their male-centered perspectives.
And yet... their brutal honesty and integrity laid bare the heartless futility of chauvinism. Every attempt to fit into a chauvinist culture by crushing empathy led to desolation and loneliness. Every one-dimensional depiction of women as an unknown object in their stories underscores the pain of separation and their own disillusionment of the path that forces such separation.
And yet... in the '60's, Thompson told a Hell's Angel who was beating his wife that only punks do that, for which he was severely beaten, and was criticized even by women at the time for 'sticking his nose in another man's business'. Hemingway fought the fascists with both fists, at a time when most American men were home talking about blacks and Jews. Bukowski said "We are all going to die, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn't."
Is it ok to be proud of them again? Even recommend them, at least to other men?
3
Definitely "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris. It's just a little sad that the world needs a book like this- if people's thinking weren't so religiously addled we wouldn't need Sam Harris.
4
@Richard Katz -
Yes, yes,
I forgot about Harris. And his thin “Letter to a Christian Nation.”
Should be required reading for anyone claiming to be educated.
2
Real literature is dead. Schools now teach 'young adult fiction'.
1
QB VII
Exodus
Mila 18
All books by Leon Uris; they taught me so much about recent Jewish history, and, although we have been the scapegoat of western civilization, made me proud to be a Jew.
8
Quite likely, due to space considerations, they--rightly--chose to limit the "old white guys."
There was also a HUGE dearth of self-help books... the book which completely changed my life was a Self Help book, but Not. A. Single. ONE. Listed. (Ram Dass does not count. He died literally (figuratively) yesterday.)
And NO ONE named "the Bible"
Seriously?
Johnny Got His Gun
I read this book, having had served in the Armed Services, after the Korean War & before Viet Nam. It haunts me to this day. I consider it the pacifist's handbook & required reading for both hawks & doves, also suggested reading for all who consider or have entered the service academies. It was made into a film: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067277/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2.
Spoiler! Be prepared, it's not for the faint of heart, but worth your time. Peace...
4
James Joyce’s Ulysses because it taught me how to read.
4
Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The author's search for quality continues my search today.
2
Be Here Now, by Ram Dass.
A Wrinkle in Time. It taught me the value of being exactly who who you are and the power of love to defeat evil.
2
“Cape Cod” Thoreau
Fantastic journey first person.
So MANY wonderful selections!
Makes me realize that MOST of the books I've read have changed my life.
10
Kudos to Barbara Lipkin for being able to see through Ayn Rand.
22
@WZ Kudos to Barbara Lipkin for making it through Atlas Shrugged (twice).
I tried and couldn't do it.
3
Well,it is indeed very difficult to single out one book from the heap one has read. I have been reading English-language books from the age of 13. But serious reading began only when I was doing my graduation in 1977 at Arya College, Ludiana and the next year when I was doing my Bachelor of Journalism at Panjab University, Chandigarh. I think the book that influenced my thought process and approach to life was, Lust For Life , a biographical account of Vincent Van Gogh's life by Irving Stone whose portrayal of the poverty-stricken painter and his struggle wove such a magic spell that I was haunted for days even after finishing the book. Suddenly, a shadow ( Was it Gogh's ghost ?) would spring up from nowhere inside my hostel cubicle and possess me.
The result was that I started painting after midnight ( Did seven paintings in all ) and while I was at work I always felt Van Gogh was watching, sitting in the chair next to me.Thanks for giving me an opportunity to say all this.
12
Without being facetious, I'd have to say "Fun with Dick and Jane". Seriously. It taught me to read. It was the first book I could read and it opened my mind up to all the possibilities that existed in all the books to be read.
Otherwise, I'd have to say "Walden" has had the longest-lasting impact of all the many books I've read, either by choice of necessity.
5
I'll put in an honorable mention for Up The Down Staircase.
5
A book that recently amazed me was The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, translated by Washburn. It's long long book by a woman/women, mainly a novel, about life in the palaces of imperial Japan 1000 years ago. Wow. wow. wow!
3
Barbara Lipkin nailed Ayn Rand . Every one must read her work latter Ms.Lipkin’s review.
7
What book changed my life? In fifth grade, I read “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” by Elizabeth George Speare. It was the most exciting book I had ever read at that point in my life. Countless numbers of great books followed but “the Witch of Blackbird Pond” turned me into a life long avid reader.
10
Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.
6
I was on a plane back to New York from Colorado where I had participated in the latest of years worth of personal development workshops led by a brilliant teacher. I was in my mid forties. Buddhist thought informed the work and as such many books were introduced. I opened the one recently purchased - “the mind of clover - Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics” by Robert Aikan. I started reading and felt instantly that I had found home in a way I’d never felt before. It resonated perfectly with my deeply held beliefs on how to be in the world and validated those beliefs. It was a standout moment of deep spirituality.
2
My mother was an avid reader, at six she took me to the Library and armed me with a Library card. Every week, we went to the Library and off I went on a magic carpet.
The world of words, thoughts, understanding filled my life. I read some of these books, but how to pick just one? So many take you different places, prompt different thoughts, just the joy and lyric of the written word, as well as open vistas that were never imagined.
5
The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes. I read it way back in 5th grade so long ago, but have never forgotten how Wanda, the poor immigrant, new girl in school, was made fun of by her classmates. She wore the same threadbare dress to school every day, so how could she really have 100 dresses? It turns out she did, thanks to her imagination and creativity and most of all, a kind of determination I didn’t know children could have. She also forgave the girls who were so mean. Her wise and patient soul spoke to me, made me want to stick up for the underdog, and to be a generous person like Wanda. I work in a children’s library and often recommend the book.
15
The Poison Wood Bible,
Barbara Kingsolver
Hearing the voices and different reactions of three sisters to the same events throughout their lives bowled me over. There is no one way that is more moral of looking at situations in life. Learning to listen to one another, tolerating another point of view is still not easy for many of us.
5
Timothy Crouse’s The Boys on the Bus opened my eyes to the wonderful and complex world of political journalism. It started me down a path of pure joy for history and political discourse. After introducing me to the 1972 campaigns, I devoured all off the Jules Witcover and Jack Germond campaign histories, Halberstam’s The Powers That Be, and more. Biographies and histories beyond just the presidential were next and a decades long passion began. All because Professor Peter Regenstreif assigned Crouse’s book in his very popular Politics and Mass Media Class at The University of Rochester in 1989. I never thanked him at the time for the inspiration (I wish I had), so I will now.
6
Thanks, Times. You’ve given me a new list of books I want to read. Even at age 80, I can find a book to change my life.
23
I guess I'm one of the few Times' readers that had a positive reaction to Atlas Shrugged. Given what happened to many people post the communist/socialist revolution of 1917, you should not be surprised by Ms. Rand's views. While I do not necessarily agree with all her opinions, I came away from reading Atlas Shrugged with the sense that personal responsibility for one's own life is preeminent.
1
The one book I have given away to many older teens that they have told me made them think of their lives differently was Demian by Hesse. Many have re-read it many times and each time something different is uncovered. For those college students who are philosophically inclined, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" was always a game changer. For the ones who were thinking of a life in medicine, no doubt, R. Selzer's "Mortal Lessons" powerful and often bizarre essays of his life as a surgeon.
2
In the mid 1970s "The Complete Walker" by Colin Fletcher captured my imagination and gave me a dream, something that kept me going on long submarine patrols.
Work and life kept me off the trails and out of the wilderness for long stretches. But, for the past decade I've been channeling Colin on my daily hikes and remain grateful for how he inspired me.
[He mentioned "Limits to Growth," a book I think of often. Limits provides an important reminder of the absurdity of forecasting because of our inability to foresee what disruptive innovation can bring. There is another lesson about the fragility of complex systems, something with frequent reminders.]
2
One of the greatest things about reading a good book is how it sharpens your memory of the time you read it. Sort of like traveling. I read Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” when I was fourteen. It took me a whole summer to complete. In addition to the story, the characters, and all I learned about history and language, when I recall that book I’m transported to the stairwell in my house where my legs stuck to the painted stairs as I read, and to the roof where I read next to the leaves.
16
The book that I return to over and over again is The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menard. It gave me an understanding of the nature of truth that continues to serve me well. Also because of its historical setting I think it could easily be considered a must-read for every American citizen.
1
Read "The Giving Tree" by Silverstein, first as a grandchild, now as a grandparent, after 70 years. It brought tears on each occasion. The words and pictures did not change, but the reasons and nuances of responses have grown greatly.
8
I was a senior in college when I first read E.M. Forster's Howards End. I'm now 73 years old and reread it at least once every year. Only connect!
7
Does anybody recall a small obscure novel written post WW 2 in late 1950’s about an ex soldier stationed in the Pacific Theater who is now living in Georgia and has a strange skin rash and loss of sensation in his hands and face. Diagnosed with Leprosy , it is his journey.
I can only assume this topic was popular for this time because we had a leper colony in I believe Georgia for real. And this was an outcome of exposure for the service people.
I read this novel at age 9/10. It really affected me in a positive way and I was precocious in my world view afterwards compared to my cohort group of kids in school.
Anyone else remember this tomes Title or existence. ?????I think there might be a movie as well in the early 60’s based loosely on it. I would love to find it again. Reread it as a 67 yo.
6
"... a small obscure novel written post WW 2 in late 1950’s about an ex soldier ... Diagnosed with Leprosy ..."
Google Books would be a good place to search for it.
This isn't quite what you describe, but it does concern an ex-soldier who contracted leprosy:
"Who Walk Alone" by Perry Burgess (1942).
See, also:
"A Disease Apart: Leprosy in the Modern World" by Tony Gould (2005).
2
"... we had a leper colony in I believe Georgia for real."
There was a leprosorium in Carville, Louisiana. See the Wikipedia article, "National Hansen's Disease Museum".
A Google Books search for "Carville leprosorium" will find some books.
There is also a PBS video, "Triumph at Carville: A Tale of Leprosy in America" (2005). (available on Amazon)
1
I appreciate all the insights offered here. I especially resonate with Barbara Lipkin's experience with "Atlas Shrugged". I read it when I was about 22 and it seemed to make a lot of sense. Captain of my fate, etc. It took longer to realize the hidden lies but I, too, have been a Democrat with Socialist tendencies for years.
14
The Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer. It was my first time sitting in the pew of an Episcopal church, and my lapsed Roman Catholic mind was blown.
The people had in their hands the full worship service. The catechism was in the back of the book along with the historical documents that explained to me why this church spoke to me.
It was a catholic style liturgy with a Protestant theology and governance. My life was never the same again. Over time, I became an active lay person and then a clergywoman.
6
Someone here jarred a fond memory.
Pretty much left to my own devices I remember reading comic books I would purchase at the Dricolls Pharmacy near my house. In the back of the comics would be a form to fill out and I could order paperbacks for kids and teens. I would send in the 25 cents taped to the book order and was delighted as a 10 year old when I got the package with my paperback. These were thin stories written like a 90210 episode or a teen soap opera. Crushes and sweater sets and Bobbie socks and Penney loafers. Kept boredom at bay. And gave me a moral framework to use. I learned social etiquette thru reading these cheap little titles.
5
Lovely. A wonderful idea beautifully done. Thank you.
There is no better way to learn about another human being than to get the answer to this question: “what piece of art has changed you and stayed with you through the years?”
Ask this of yourself and others. Have a good answer to share. You will be a better person for it.
5
What an excellent article! I have just ordered 4 books described by your readers. I recommend Northern Farm, by Henry Beston. About a year on a farm in Maine, before electricity. His descriptions of life, and the natural environment are just beautiful.
5
@Keith Silliman Ahhhh! I loved it too!!!! And still reread it once in awhile.
So many books, so little time. Having been a copy editor and proofreader for most of my career, I've read too many books that were lousy, but quite a few influential ones that I never would have read otherwise. "Diet for a Small Planet," for example, made me rethink my eating habits in relation to the environment. I've never read "Middlemarch," but I want to. "The Overstory" is currently on my stack of new paperbacks (my Nook is jammed to the point that I can't use it--I need to hit B&N and get advice). I couldn't think of a book that changed my life, but there have been many that changed my course, or my outlook, or my relationships. (But I would like to give a shout-out to P.G. Wodehouse, who can always change my stress to calm and laughter.)
6
If you have not yet read Middlemarch, you have a wonderful journey ahead of you.
13
Picking a book that changed one’s life may seem like an easy decision; however, for some people like me, it could be a difficult task. The difficulty stems not from having read many books and you cannot decide, instead, it arises from understanding that various books change one’s life in different ways. This change could be as a result of reading a book addressing an issue a person may be going through at a particular moment and finding solutions to that issue or reasons why they might feel that way. For me, this is the case when I consider a book that changed my life and that book is “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I read this book a few months before moving to the United States of America because I was excited to be moving to a new country, and anything related to that country felt like something I should know. The book tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who was moving to the United States to further her education. It follows her struggles with work-life balance, the American culture, racism, relationships and her success with a blog, which she later shuts down. She eventually moves back to Nigeria to be with her high school lover. Although, I am not a woman, nor was I leaving behind a high school lover, I connected with the possibilities of having similar experiences Ifemelu had and realizing ways to handle situations if I ever found myself in them. It also helped me realize the importance of hard work and persistence with our passions.
18
What a wonderful article. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig: it’s important to understand how things work including machines and ourselves.
Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich: The universality of this and the importance of honor, respect, and freedom for all women.
8
The books that come to my mind immediately are from my childhood. The most memorable was Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. I read it when I was 9 and on the cusp of puberty. As an young girl with a lot of questions and life opening up, Margaret was like a friend. I read it multiple times during those years, and my friends and I would read it together and discuss it practically page by page. I have read so many other great books over the years, many much more thought provoking or challenging, but this one has such a very special place in my heart.
7
Questions like this remind me of Gen. Charles deGaulle when asked which was his favorite of all the books that he had read. "My favorite book is the one I am reading when I am reading it," he replied. A good answer then, a good answer now.
15
de Gaulle must have been a hoot to sit next to at a dinner party.
2
What a wonderful piece-so many books that I now must read from this list. Being changed by a book is such a beautiful thing. I read "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry in the chaos and fun of raising my young kids. I would repeat stories from the book's characters to my children so they could learn how people lived in other places. To read a great book is to become a part of the family of characters, to belong to it. This is why when a truly great book ends, we feel ejected, lost, as if we have truly lost our place in the family. I re-read that most treasured book again while caring for my dying father-a true book lover. The juxtaposition of the hard lives of the book's characters against the ending of my father's life was unreal. It somehow made vivid scenes even more alive. To read is to live-to live more than our one life. To live as many lives as there are books to read.
11
"All Quiet on the Western Front" changed the way I viewed war and its victims. Stunning.
Erich Maria Remarque's other books are beautiful too, if one loves history, philosophy, humor, and nature.
17
@David Henry Wonderful book. The passages describing being home on leave, his dying mother, the disconnection he felt...
5
One thing for sure, all that reading produced thoughtful, graceful writers who contributed to this piece.
32
This reminds me of one of the most memorable book club nights I ever experienced. The theme was Influential Book From Childhood. The assignment was for everyone in the group to pick out a book (or several books) from childhood and share that, whether it was the one that had the most influence of anything they’d ever read in elementary or high school, or it represented a crucial turning point in their life, or they just loved it. Any book, any reasons, any age, and any impact were up for consideration. The resulting discussion was excellent. We ended up needing two meetings to cover everything everyone wanted to share.
14
Thanks to NYT and to the reader who suggested the question.
I took a Social Psychology course when I was an undergrad in the early '70s. One of our assigned readings was "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" by Erving Goffman. What or who is the true you? How do we behave in the presence of others? How can we make others feel comfortable -- or shut them out -- in social settings? Can we manipulate situations and when is that immoral?
Although the writing was a touch too academic in places, "Presentation" was intriguing and even exciting.
3
@Occasionally Correct I double majored in philosophy and psychology. I think that course would be right up my alley!
Psychology is as much about questioning the fundamental assumptions behind our hypotheses as testing them.
The people who consider psychology a non-rigorous major, I find, tend to be relatively non-rigorous people, themselves.
1
Great column. Looking back, there were so many books that made a difference, that changed my life. After a lot of time i the weeds today, I can narrow them to two:
*Beverly Gray mysteries, a series popular in the 1940s, passed down to me by my mother and aunts. More worldly than Nancy Drew, Beverly went to college, then became a reporter who covered world's fairs and took world cruises where she met people from other countries. A girl could do all this (?), I wondered in the late 1950s when discovering these books by Clair Blank, a real Pennsylvania author, not a composite as with other series for girls.
*Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan, "the international best selling novel by an 18 year old French girl." This from the front cover of my 35 cent paperback from Dell, which I still have: published in 1955 in the small format of old, 4 1/4 x 6 1/2". The novel is told in first person by a teenage Parisienne about her father, his two mistresses and her less important but often present boyfriend.
The Beverly books outlined for me an exciting international life plan, which I could hardly wait to begin, but the Bonjour book shocked me into realizing that even young, relatively naive girls could hurt people by confusing fantasy with reality. And by sorting out the differences too late.
3
For me, it was Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation." I had already cut meat out of my diet (and have since added back in fish), but it opened my eyes to an entire system of cruelty--not just to the animals killed, but to their relatives, the people who worked on the farms and factors, us as consumers, the neighbors dealing with ecological nightmare runoff, and the doctors who are now scrambling to figure out what to do as more and more "MRSA"-type diseases arise.
It also educated me on how industries I hadn't even thought about (like makeup companies and academic institutions) were engaging in what anyone would consider torture if done to a human.
Like I said, I didn't become, and am not currently a vegan (though I should be). But I am more mindful of my behavior and the affect it has on larger communities.
The more recent book I'd also recommend is "Educated" by Tara Westover. First time I finished a book in one day in years because I literally could only tear myself away for food and bathroom breaks.
7
@JL As much as I love animals (I'm a vegetarian because of that) I also cannot stand Peter Singer. He advocates for animals but also thinks that people born with disabilities should be "euthanized" at birth. He sees no value in people if they cannot "contribute" in ways he thinks have value. That, to me , is a true and utterly depraved hypocrisy.
3
I suppose if I thought about this some other night, a different book would rise to the top. But right now, I would say that the book that had the greatest impact on me was Walter Jackson Bate's biography of John Keats. I say that possibly because I read it while a graduate student in English, having left medicine right after graduating from medical school. Keats left medical training to become a poet. I later left studying Romantic poetry to return to medicine as a resident in pathology. But the greater reason for my choice is that Bate's biography made Keats the young man real to me. Keats' poetry, from then on, and literature as a whole, was no longer just literature on a page between the covers of a book, but the creation of a person whom one could come to know. What enabled that revelation was that Bate portrays the details of Keats' brief life in the context of his poetry, and simultaneously illuminates his poems by reading them in the context of his life. That may sound silly, but if you read the biography, you'll no doubt see what I mean and realize what a great achievement it is.
12
@PMJ "Here lies one whose name was writ on water."
4
@Jeff I do not recall what Bate said about the epitaph you quote which appears on Keats' tombstone in Rome without his name or his birth and death dates, just a reference to its being the grave of a 'YOUNG ENGLISH POET.'
I just looked up the passage on Keats' death and burial, there's no mention of that line, but Bate does say that 'tufts of daisies' were scattered on his grave. I would guess this was a deliberate omission but cannot guess the reason. Perhaps a willful gesture not to interpret his final, eternal statement.
1
@PMJ Thanks for bringing up the Bates biography of Keats. Related to that is the book that changed my life, the Letters of John Keats, edited by Robert Gittings. At Grinnell College in the late 1970s I read the letters, three biographies of Keats, including the Bates one, and nearly all of the poems in a course solely on Keats taught by Jim Kissane. Many of the letters are like journal entries, which Keats uses to work out not just ideas about poetry but life. Passages of the letters have stayed with me—on negative capability, the “camelion poet”—and one, the “vale of Soul-making” letter, became a personal philosophy. Keats’s challenge, “Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul,” gave me a perspective for accepting the necessity of the pain and troubles that would come later in my life. My schooling is not done.
7
I’m a lifelong reader and lifelong resident of the Great American Desert. The book that most changed my outlook on the land that I love was Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert. I read it shortly after the turn of the millennium based on a list of the best new non-fiction books of the 20th century. I’ve never looked at water, rivers or dams in the same way since.
9
@Cynthia K. Witter
Then Edward Abbey would matter to you too.
1
A year ago if someone would have asked me, "When was the last time you had your mind blown?", I would not been able to answer without going back through the years.
Happily, in the last year I have had my mind thankfully blown twice! First, by "The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez" a true and very timely book by Aaron Bobrow-strain. My very next book followed a short piece in National Geographic by Moshin Hamid entitled "We Are All Migrants", which led me to the novel entitled "Exit West".
Both of these books have helped me make some sense out of the sometimes overwhelming problems we face in the world on a daily basis.
6
When my wife was dying, she gave me "A River Runs Through It". After she died I couldn't read it for a long time ... and I found it very hard to mourn. On a long plane ride, I read, cried copiously, and exorcised a lot of guilt. A very powerful book. (The movie is not bad either.)
18
@WZ My grandmother wrote her memoirs about two decades ago. I read them at the time, but her dementia prevented her from ever turning them into anything other than printed-out short stories.
If I remember correctly, they are not anywhere near publication quality. But they do contain my family history, which is quite interesting. (Grandma was a Jewish girl growing up in East Harlem during the depression, part of which time the only remaining relative from the holocaust came to live with them. There are also stories about awful arranged dates (imagine, an old maid at 20!), friends' coat-hanger abortions, hiding a pregnancy for the first four months (as a teacher) because of the fear of being kicked off the payroll, volunteering (despite being a young working mother) for JFK's and then RFK's campaign, among other stories).
I look forward to re-reading them. Hopefully with her (to the extent she is still here), but eventually once she is gone. I'm sure the tears will flow. I wish she were cognizant enough today for me to give her the "thank you" that she deserves for preserving those memories.
5
When my wife was dying, she gave me "A River Runs Through It". After she died I couldn't read it for a long time ... and I found it very hard to mourn. On a long plane ride, I read, cried copiously, and exorcised a lot of guilt. A very powerful book. (The movie is not bad either.)
4
Just one?
How about:
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (Freud)-let to my career as a psychiatrist
Doktor Faustus (Thomas Mann)-synthesized my world view about good and evil, order and chaos, refracted through the lens of music and also transition from a classical world to a modern one.
A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle) for every reason
Guns, Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond)-more synthesis of multiple branches of science
The Invention of Nature (Andrea Wulf)-brilliant biography of Humboldt and his brave explorations, especially as they relate to climate change today
The Childcraft Series of World Book Encyclopedia, especially the biographies
Our Bodies, Ourselves-my leap into feminism and medical self-reliance
Let's Go: Europe (for my first trip abroad, which led to many more. I COULD travel on my own! Once I started, I never stopped)
The Shulchan Aruch (Joseph Caro), as an exemplar of Jewish scholarship and modernity.
The Joy of Cooking. It's always a joy.
9
A book that influenced how I think, act or look at the world?
OK, I’ll offer a second, another weird one.
“Ten Thousand Working Days” by Robert Schrank (MIT Press, 1979).
It engagingly documents the real-world experiences and lessons of one individual’s diverse lifetime of jobs, from being a furniture factory worker and machinist to a city commissioner and Ph.D sociologist. Unlike many books here, the philosophical lessons are not in your face, but they’re there, along with a lot of well-earned practical wisdom.
Come to think of it, I have got to find a copy of this somewhere in the used-book universe and give it to my daughter. She is right at the age where it could help her a lot.
A wonderful column. It illustrates how the magic of books can be life-changing. Here's a plug for The Truth About Stories by Thomas King.
4
Foundation and Robot series - Isaac Asimov. Prescient, brilliantly entertaining, can’t ask for much more in a series.
Aubrey series - Patrick O’Brian. Once you’ve picked up the vernacular of the times and the navy, you’ll be not only entertained and educated, you’ll be transported back to the time. 20 volumes
( the last three were rushed and weak ), so not for the faint of heart. But I have been through them a dozen times including three times in one year.
4
I love to see so many books that are important to me are important to others - and I got reading ideas. Some of mine are:
Catch-22 by Heller – I love the dark humor and the exposure of the absurdities of power.
Bartleby by Melville – The narrator’s unrealized need, and inability, to understand Bartleby is perfect.
Stoner by Williams – With a humble realism, shows there may be something left for a soul when life refuses solace or meaning – perhaps in a book.
The Rebel by Camus – Even the slave has the power to say “No.”
Short stories by Kafka – Feels like bumping into some dark truths in a dream.
8
@KCK Yes, Stoner by Williams.
1
God Bless, Rick de Yampert, for his salient description of the under recognized childhood classic, " Go Dog, Go." I had that one when I was a kid and I read it to my sons on numerous occasions when they were tots. Indeed, I would have to agree with Mr Yampert, that that book is an epic by P.D. Eastman.
May it live on for other generations to savor.
8
@Charles
Ah The Rebel...Camus: "The conscience of the 20th Century". Camus's "The Rebel" is an incredible book!
@Charles
Go Dog Go is a brilliant book that has resonated with our family for 3 generations! We all know it by heart (who doesn’t - because who can ever read it only ONE time!) and find that quotes from the book come in handy for so many everyday experiences and bring smiles to all when we say in unison! “Do you like my hat?” Or “It’s a party! A big dog party!”
1
This is such an amazing,beautiful recounting of voices reading voices.Thank you.
22
I regret not having put in my own choice:
Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
I'm a human being, but have never really felt like one, although I'm a relatively normal non-sociopath, married, children, running a small business.
I wasn't all that bothered by not feeling human, because I never looked on Homo Sapiens as a particularly interesting or worthy species.
How amazing to read a great book which treats humankind as the childish species we are, and leads us to hope that we can become something better.
From the current list, I was absurdly delighted to see 'A Gentleman in Moscow' listed right alongside of 'Eloise', as in some ways these books are virtual twins. Amor Towles simply lifts Eloise whole from the Plaza Hotel in New York and teleports her down gently, time machine and all, as Nina in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. Call it plagiarism or borrowing or theft or stealing, I call it Art.
Dan Kravitz
6
@Dan Kravitz -
I double-second Childhood's End.
One of my favorite younger-me books.
(Don't know that it influenced how I think, act or look at the world though...)
The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. Alone, life is nasty, brutish, and short. Or, in other words, it takes a village.
That is to say, no person can conquer society but together we can accomplish amazing things. Were that truly Hobbes' view although he made arguments that he never contemplated. He provided a philosophical basis for modern liberal democracy while writing a polemic supporting the divine right of kings.
That is why I believe that we ought to follow the lessons of Moses, the Teacher, the son of Amram, the Levite and Jochebed.
3
I have a weird one.
Roger Fisher's slim tome "International Conflict for Beginners."
Got it for a buck from the discount bin I think my freshman year at college.
It teaches a disciplined way to formalize getting into the other guy's head and see the world from their perspective, next steps, and tit for tat.
(Fisher would go on to write the famous, and highly-recommended, "Getting to Yes".)
If only Trump would read it! Life for so many people would be so much better. In a very real way, the book operationalizes empathy.
5
So many come to mind but to narrow it down I choose Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" on equal footing with Kent Haruf's "Plainsong"--both evoking such tender pathos toward human fragility that I am physically moved by their message of kindness and acceptance when I am feeling angry or mean. But so does Carson McCuller's "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"--I can't choose one. I don't want to choose just one.
12
Nancy Drew, Anne Shirley, Jo March - were there ever any better role models for a young girl headed for women's liberation? Thanks to NY Times for a great catalog of literary inspiration.
23
There is no one book that changed my life, but I would commend to readers once a year to read a play by Shakespeare and to savor a book by Dickens. It should also be noted that we live in times when world literature is more available than ever in English translation. I look to Nobel Prize authors and those who have been listed by the Man-Booker Prize for superb reading experiences. With appreciation to Orhan Pamuk and Mo Yan, among others.
8
There wasn't much science fiction presented here.
Isaac Asimov said: "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
This statement is more relevant now than ever. One book that comes to mind is "A Mirror for Observers" by Edgar Pangborn (no one has ever heard of it - I pick up copies whenever I can find them). The aliens who have adopted Earth as their home take a centuries-long view as the protagonists wage a war of ideas with separatists about how to best influence the course of human development. Pangborn wrote this book in the mid '50s and was prescient about the challenges we're facing today.
Ursula Le Guin's classic "The Left Hand of Darkness" turns the idea of gender roles on its head, and is a wonderful study of courage, sacrifice, and love.
I've returned to both these books yearly for decades, and expect to continue to do so. They're old, dear friends now.
3
@Claire Elliott I'd definitely put Stranger in a Strange Land on the short list of books that changed my life.
4
@Claire Elliott Having read LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness when it, and I, were newly issued, I read it again last year and can't imagine I enjoyed it any less than the first time. Reading Ms. Leguin is a matter of discovery and rediscovery.
4
@Claire Elliott Not sure if you consider them "sci fi", but "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451" definitely come to mind.
Unfortunately, what I though was fiction two decades ago is now coming to life.
12
Of all the books over the many years, 'Love in the Time of Cholera' remains in my heart and soul as the best. What is life without the complicated ride of love?
10
My life was also changed when I read "The Feminine Mystique", as at the time I believed the only things I could become were a secretary, a nurse, a mother and a ballerina.
While all worthwhile professions, they aren't the only ones. This was a huge revelation for my 13-year old self.
9
The Sound and the Fury (Wm. Faulkner) showed me how literature could be just like music. Some of those pages soared like a Coltrane solo. I stayed up all night to finish it and it took me about an hour to read the last 5 pages. I didn't want it to end.
13
Bertrand Russell's "The Conquest of Happiness", and Montaigne's Essais. I read both, one in English, the other one in French, around age 20. They changed the way I looked at the world.
Try it!
4
@Fran ….yes Bertrand Russell was rec'd to me by a school friend....I enjoyed his prose and thoughts, incl Conquest of Happiness which I still have about 50 years later. (I save books, and must now get rid of some, to organize my apt!)
Russell was a rational, independent, humanitarian, brilliant thinker.
1
@Fran Not a book, but learning about "Russell's teapot" truly changed this (now atheist-leaning) agnostic's perspective.
There were many tears shed during my undergraduate philosophy days (particularly formal logic), but Bertrand made sense in a way Occam's razor alone didn't re: God.
I've told my partner that when I die, I want him to dispose of my body the greenest way possible, then pray for my "soul" to join that of Russell's teapot. Orbiting Jupiter might be quite fun :-)
1
Death of a Salesman...screenplay by Arthur Miller. I read the play in junior high school. Saw the play shortly thereafter. And have watched numerous stage and film productions since. And every single time (since my first introduction to Death of a Salesman when I was 13) I am touched beyond measure. So achingly sad and how quietly and privately some suffer desperation.
9
@alabreabreal Tennessee Williams, for me. Both "Streetcar" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
(I was shockingly disappointed when watching the movies that most of the overt references to non-heterosexuality were removed. But I was born in the 1980s, and these were shot in the 1950s. I guess they did the best they could...)
2
The thoughts of these readers brought me to tears. Thank you so much, readers and NY Times for sharing these soulful and insightful lines!
65
One line in one book has influenced me more deeply than any other. And it has kept me from falling further into the chasm of grief that opened when my granddaughter died. “Having been is a form of being” from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning has helped me in my sadness in an inexplicable way.
36
@Bonnie This is the book I would have recommended. My father, a librarian, gave it to me as a young teen and it utterly changed my life. After I nearly died 2 years ago, I re-read it and it was then that I realized how much it has influenced me for over 50 years. Thank you for mentioning it!
2
@Bonnie
The line I need the most from Viktor Frankl's book is
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
9
@Bonnie - thank you for mention that book, that I love. Somehow, I had forgotten that line. This one is always with me, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ― Viktor E. Frankl
5
Lots of books by, worlds apart, Ivan Doig and Anthony Trollope. They went over the same ground again and again - the difficulty of building and maintaining a good life, of getting along with other people, the fragility of existence, the inevitable importance of having some money at the right time, the trauma of poverty. One of them writing of the high country of Montana and the other of London and other parts of the UK, both generally in the late 19th century, give or take a few decades. Timeless themes.
9
In my middle age, the Faith of a Heretic by William Kauffman. Brilliant. Gave structure to all those thoughts we have about what important values mean. Truth. Honesty. What is moral. Etc... I try to read a passage as often as I can. It’s a book to savor slowly. It has helped me when I was feeling particularly emotional and prone to action without thought.
2
Alfred Lansing's Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage. You will never complain again.
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@Martin Sloan
You should try South, Shackleton's own story.
3
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. At the time, in college, I felt completely misunderstood. The things that I thought were important about life were not shared by anyone I knew. I felt isolated. Alone. Truly a ‘man of the steppes’ I realized for the first time that there wasn’t anything wrong with me. It gave me the confidence to own my internal thoughts.
9
I am really grateful for the opportunity to subscribe to the NYT - even thought I am millions of miles away. Reading this article just confirms this opportunity. I am glad that at least one of the books that I read (after reading the review in the NYT) - When Breath Becomes Air - was included in the listing.
45
“Go Dog Go” - if only my grandkids would have stayed little forever, to cuddle all together and have me read that steady, determined, lovely piece of literature once again. All those dogs going around are truly some of my best memories of all of us being on the same page at the same time. Little did I know it was perhaps some of the most precious of all times in life. I hope my grandkids will read “Go Dog Go” to their kids and grandkids, too, someday.
24
@MIMA Thank you! You are so right. The books that changed my life are the ones I read to my little boys, both my sons and my grandsons, while sitting in their beds, blankets over us both. Of course, the wonderful "Good Night Moon" and "The Runaway Bunny." But also, "It's Not Easy Being a Bunny," by Marilyn Sadler. (It's not easy being a small child.... or a tired mommy.) "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb," by Al Perkins... that child grew up to be a fine drummer. (No surprise!) And the classics of Mother Goose... "How many days has my baby to play?" Oh, those warm, snuggly dreamtimes with books and sleepy, freshly bathed little children.
7
Ayn Rand, when she was old, hypocritically benefited from the various government programs whose existence she had criticized all along.
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@Jerrold She had no choice, as is the case with so many people in hard places. We should live in a world where people can have better choices, and in which there is mercy and help for them.
6
Thank you so much for publishing the comments people made about their favorite book! i loved reading these comments - and felt connected with so many of these readers! Sylvia Caplow
32
The book that changed me was "Crime and Punishment". When I started the reading I was more concerned about how that reading would make me look like "well read" and "admired" by those who happened to see it in my hands. I was in my teens, for God's sake. Soon, I became so absorbed and obsessed with the plot, the aesthetic and the moral power of the book that I was weeping by the end of it. But I was crying not because of anything related to the plot, but because I had never being hit that way before by a work of art. The lesson of how a cultural work can touch my soul and enlighten my life is a something I will always be in debt with Dostoiévski.
34
@Anderson Chalegre As a teen I was also reading Tolstoi - identifying with Pierre and Levin - but even more intensely with Raskolnikov - (sp?) - personal questions of who has the right to live and bu what means - and had not yet found the answer to that, being in an intense family political struggle. At the same time reading Byron in the bathtub as my father yelled at me why I was taking so long in the loo. Ah youth! And how it remains. Of course these were also the years of opening the camps. As a teen, to see what was seen.
1
@Anderson Chalegre Last year I only read Russian classic literature. Crime and Punishment I had already read many years ago -- a great book. Russians were such great writers as well as composers of fabulous music.
16
Wow. Many of these books I have not read, a few I have. But the one I would have chosen is here and I am delighted to see it.
I must have been a second or third grader when I read The Little Engine That Could for the first time. As the youngest by far in an aging family I did not naturally feel I had a chance of keeping up with my much-senior sibs, but today, as I enter my eight decade I am still the little engine that can and I do.
Second and third picks? Mikhail Gorbachev's The Master & Margarita, and Eric Fromm's What Do You Say After You Say Hello?
6
My first year Spanish teacher assigned us the task of reading a book in Spanish - any book! - and writing a book report, also in Spanish. Everyone else chose stories for children. But poetry loving me chose the collected poems of Garcia Lorca. "La sombra de mi alma huye de un ocasio de alfabetos...." Hunh? Word by word I slogged through the poems. Did I understand them? Not a bit, at least not then. But I learned that there were treasures just waiting to be found if I would just look for them and expend the effort.
Years later there were Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet which taught me the same thing. "Lerne die Fragen selbst zu lieben."
15
@Shiphrah Ha!
My senior year Spanish lit teacher refused to (probably because she was prohibited from) teaching the novel I really wanted read, "Kiss of the Spider Woman." There were--literally--30 of these books sitting unread in the storage closet because of the county-wide ban (shout-out to Northern Virginia!), so my AP English teach gave me (to keep) the translated (English) version.
Needless to say, this straight, cisgendered woman didn't suddenly convert into someone else. But it was the first time I actually read literature (of any sort of explicit nature) that humanized the characters and didn't make the sex scene into something ugly and prurient. (And I actually learned something about Argentina and fascism.)
P.S. That same English teach gave me a copy of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Apparently, "Streetcar Named Desire" was okay, but "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" had too much "inappropriate" content. Also, not sure why they didn't flag "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" or "Their Eyes Were Watching God" or any of Pat Conroy. Gotta wonder what goes through these school board/PTA members' minds. The most scandalous thing I've read of late (trying to be a good atheist Jew) is Leviticus, in its entirety. (Though the Talmudic commentary on sex and women's hygiene ranks pretty close up there...).
2
I could relate to Barbara Lipkin’s reaction to Atlas Shrugged, although my reaction was immediate compared to her eventual realization of the dark side of the world of Atlas Shrugged. I also read it as a teenager on the recommendation of an older friend who recommended it to me. I had no political opinions of which I was aware at that time.
I found the harsh philosophy espoused by Ayn Rand repugnant. It was an emotional reaction, not a political judgment at that age, but by the time I was in college my emotional instincts became my political beliefs. That experience convinced me at an early age that our political beliefs are a fundamental reflection of who we are.
My friend who recommended Atlas Shrugged moved to New York and enrolled in Rand’s Nathanial Brandon Institute. A year later, her parents had to fetch her from New York where she was in the grip of a psychotic episode. She was hospitalized for several years after that. I don’t know if she recovered. I often ponder the influence of hard-core individualism on our emotional well being.
27
Reading this wonderful article and the comments section reminds me how grateful I am to be able to participate in the NYT community. Here I sit, deep in the Black Mountains of NC having wonderful exchanges with people I don't even know. Thank you NYT!
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@WHS I agree. I have just read all the letters in the article and thought about how I had been influenced by the books mentioned that I had read. I admire the clarity and certainty of the responders' choices and reasons. I am paralyzed when I try to think of one book that has changed my life. I think every book I have read has changed my life in small or large ways, and I wouldn't want it to be otherwise.
I am 83 now and recognize that there is limited time left to me to explore more books. Realizing this, I now severely restrict my on-line time and the absorption of more political dross to read good current fiction and non-fiction and to visit, once again, with old-time favourites.
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@Karen
I appreciate the great wisdom you've imparted to us. Read on, and keep prospering.
6
Well said. Thank you NYT
4
I know it is not what you are thinking here, but it was a textbook when I was 14, "Contemporary Geometry" by J. F. Schact, R. C. McLennan, and A. L. Griswold, that opened whole new vistas to me about what mathematics is really about, and convinced me to be a mathematician. 51 years later, I am a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics from UW-Milwaukee with all my degrees from Cornell University, and I have never regretted a single moment of this wonderful ride.
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@Eric Key On the contrary, I hope (and think) this is exactly what they were thinking: a book you encountered at the age of 14 "opened whole new vistas" and set you on a course where you can look back a half-century later and know you have not regretted a moment of "this wonderful ride." That the book was a geometry text sets you apart, yes, but going through life with an understanding of "what mathematics is really all about" is, I believe, a form of poetry.
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@Eric Key
That book, "used", is available from Amazon.com for $6.24. There is one five-star review.
8
@Fran Thank you Fran, but, amazingly, I have the copy I used in high school! The year after I used it the school stopped using it and I got to keep my copy!
8
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying changed me fundamentally when I read it 35 years ago.
The Buddhist teaching that death is not to be feared but used to limn our finite time on earth in sacredness and appreciation changed me fundamentally. The message of that book is a gift I revisit every day of my life. I am richer, more whole, and so much more aware of my blessings because of it.
16
What a wonderful project and article. Thank you for the article, and thank you for so imaginatively envisioning the future of journalism.
26
Superb project where there are virtually no wrong inspirational books. One such text which moved me not so much as a life changer but rather as a life clarifier was “Stoner” by John Williams. Stoner’s story survives undaunted and so deeply poignant as a small college literature professor confronting personal adversity and professional absurdity. His quiet, stoic determination built on a youth of hard work and struggle, devoid of arts and letters while profoundly universal, shames us to tears yet redeems not only the protagonist but anyone who reads this beautiful book.
7
Thanks for this inspiring article: so many books to reflect on and learn from...Starting with Dr. Seuss's Mulberry Street, about wonder, imagination and the power of words...continuing with many stops through Proust, Tolstoy, Austen, HD Thoreau, Eliot, Melville, Joyce, Whitman, etc, etc., etc..
Good statement herein, BTW, on Ayn Rand: everyone should actually read her self-absorbed screeds to learn how not to be, and as a result to become more compassionate and socially aware: ie, how to grow up and be less narcissistic and more human: An important task, especially in our currently dire and negative political and social climate...Conclusion: read enduring books, forget Facebook, Twitter and purportedly "social media"....Books are the actual and enduring social media, in contrast to Mr. Zuckerberg's electronic soma.
7
In 1989 I stumbled upon “Return to the Center” by Bede Griffiths. I was active in my faith and a voracious reader on a range of religious (and other) topics but had never encountered writing like this. In one succinct chapter after another, the author intertwines Eastern and Western terms for the Divine and many lucid analogies to explain God, eternity, time and space, sin, faith and my place therein. As I read, my understanding and experience of faith and God quietly expanded--like a gentle Big Bang. I confess--before, I thought God was Catholic. (Silly me.) Afterwards, I viewed my faith, religion and, in fact Earth, from an infinitesimal pin point somewhere beyond the Milky Way. Mind-blowing.
That pivotal experience continues to impact my life and interactions with others in countless ways.
As I sit at my keyboard in 2020, thirty plus years have passed. It doesn’t matter. Time collapses. The power of those words remain.
12
What a great column! Where else would you see Go Dog Go (one of my all time favorites ) and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations in the same piece (along with all of the diverse others)?
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Fascinating to read of where each person was in their lives and make sense of how and why that book at that time meant so much. And vivid reminder of how important books, reading and writing are. This could be a weekly column I would look forward to reading.
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This is a great set of recommendations and book memories. In high school I read constantly. Mostly scifi, the books held in my lap under the desk or propped up behind a textbook, as teachers droned on. Bradbury, Asimov, Brunner, Tolkien, LeGuin, Vonnegut, Herbert, Brunner. Discovering a new author was such a pleasure - leading to a trove of books to tear through. I can’t name one that stood out, but there were several - Dune, Martian Chronicles, Cat’s Cradle, Foundation, Stand on Zanzibar, Left Hand of Darkness - from which fragments remain with me still, 50 years later. I miss the joy of finding that new (to me) author and their trail of books to follow.
13
Martin Buber’s book titled I and Thou.
10
Helped me during a miserable period of my divorce.
2
The Bhagavad Gita taught me how to live undisturbed by the disturbances of being a soul trapped in a body. I highly recommend it.
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@Steady Gaze I bought by donation the BG when I was 14 in 1974 in an airport from a guy who was quite eccentric to me. I thought I was being very cool and radical and tried to read it but alas, my brain was not quite ready for it yet. Maybe now!
1
The True Believer by Eric Hoffer. I read it at exactly the right time: just when I was going into adolescence. That book kept me from going to the extreme of Left or Right and kept me from getting wrapped up in nutty organizations.
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@sjs YES! Glad you mentioned this great little book which really opened my mind up as well.
2
@WHS
I've been thinking about it. I haven't read it in years and now I think its time to read it again. Maybe it will help explain the crazy times we live in.
5
For me it wasn't a book so much as a play I read in Jr High School, An Enemy of the People by Henrik Isben depicted a Doctor who was dubbed an enemy of the people by his neighbors for doing what was right.
15
Many!!! But two come quickly to mind. Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and Faulkner's A Light in August.
3
This post is actually by Jerry, Sarah's husband. I love to read. I would love everyone else to read, but I prefer not to have others tell me what to read. So all good, all bad, hey read something, even if only the back of the cereal box...
That said, I recommend anyone who would care to be led to read Twain's "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven," in which Stormfield asks to meet the greatest writer who ever lived, expecting Shakespeare. Presented with the spirit of a poor departed shoemaker, the Captain is surprised to learn that this poor soul had been the best writer, but had never had the freedom from toil to write anything to be noticed. Thus our world.
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@Sarah McCarthy Yes! I stumbled on this when I was probably fifteen (65 now). I had discovered Twain when I was ten or eleven and was smitten with his humor and empathy, and ability to puncture the pompous. "Stormfield" gave me so much to think about; it really always has meant a lot to me. I struggled with religion and the contradictions that I found in it. I was so relieved to find that I was not the only one to think about these things. This is the first time I have ever heard mention of that story by anyone other than me! Thanks!
1
When I first saw this article which bragged about opening the Times' pages to ordinary readers I was curious. But when I skimmed it and saw "Atlas Shrugged" among the readers' choices, it confirmed my bias against unqualified ratings. Then, when I read Lipkins' pan of that literary dreg I realized my bias was just that. Good bless you Barbara Lipkins!
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@Mickeyd -
I never read "Atlas Shrugged," but I did read "The Fountainhead." It certainly did have a major effect on my lifetime worldview. And like you and the young-mother Ms. Lipkin—NOT in a way positive to the book's theses.
I was even confident enough in my moral guidance to my teenage daughter to recommend "Atlas Shrugged" to her. Happily, she was very unhappy with it.
11
My life-changing book was the encyclopedia, or several, chiefly the 1974 World Book, the Fourth Edition Columbia (1975) and the Eleventh Edition Britannica (1910-1911). They have helped me marvel every hour over almost fifty years at the infinite majesty of the universe and, not least, of that portion of it devoted to the attempts, often amid staggering and heartbreaking difficulty and sacrifice, by human minds to understand it, however partially and ever-tentatively, in hopes of advancing the welfare of all life, of bravely bearing a torch amid the immemorial night of suffering and want, and to create and transmit enduring beauty in the discernment of the minutely-branched order beneath its surface chaos. In those encyclopedic pursuits, the values of long-steeped expertise, conveyed in language clear to an intelligent general audience, presented impartially and judiciously, have been implicit in every word of every article. So it was perhaps no accident that my contributions to internet scholarship took the form of the 20-times expansions, submitted as winning entries to contests in 2012 and 2013,
http://www.unzcontest.org/the-winners/
of two Wikipedia articles on magazines, Encounter and (small p) politics, central to 20th-century intellectual history.
11
I didn't see any poetry mentioned. Leaping Poetry and Friends You Drank Some Darkness, both translated/collected by Robert Bly, introduced me to a looser, non-rhyming, image-rich type of language.
In high school, Lord of the Rings for my first truly engrossed read, and All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got His Gun for pacifism. For ecology and politics, The Population Bomb by Erlich. But a biography of Albert Schweitzer read when I was 15 gave me the inspiration to leave the church.
8
@fionatimes Thank you for mentioning poetry. I remember Bly's poetry, and his translations from Spanish and German. From early on, I loved poems, and don't think I could tell you exactly why; perhaps because, at their best, they approach the non-verbal experience of the world. That likely says more about me than words in a line. "Outside of truth, there is no poetry." Onitsura
4
@fionatimes
Hands down the most valuable book I’ve read is “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens.” Forty-five years ago, I got desperately lost very suddenly. I cast about for explanations. Stevens, whose 9-5 job was insurance executive, might as well have clambered down into the ditch and given me a helping hand back up the embankment to Point A. His poetry helped me compose a new outlook and move on from there.
I suspect I’m not the only reader for whom any mention of your city, Barstow, triggers memories of Hunter Thompson’s masterpiece of performance art journalism, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” It was around Barstow that the drugs took hold, the first sentence explains. By the final sentence, he is walking into a bar feeling like “a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger.” Thompson may have briefly visited the Palace of Wisdom. From there, his itinerary turned increasingly grim.
Most eagerly awaited books: When I was a kid, “The Chronicles of Narnia” were coming out in a new paperback edition, one at a time. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on each new installment.
Best paperbacks to take on long train rides in a foreign land: John D. MacDonald’s colorful series chronicling the adventures of Travis McGee. In India, you could usually find used copies at large train stations. Sometimes you had to settle for Harold Robbins.
Finally, the sexiest book I’ve ever read: “A Sport And A Pastime” by James Salter. And it’s a long, long way back to second.
Remember the question is “changed your life” not “favorite”. For me, “The Power of Now” was life-changing. That yesterday is finished and tomorrow does not exist, so why worry about it, is a powerful way to think. The book shows you how to be present and exist in the moment, even if the moment is painful. Highly recommend.
6
@AGJ That's my life changer, too. I keep it in a basket under my nightstand and reach for it whenever I need a reminder.
2
Rereading 'A Brave New World', I now understand where our world is headed.......
not happy about it but things are much clearer now.....
declining sperm counts and increasing female infertility are leading to lab born children..... no family structure, sex as a diversion, rampant drug use to escape reality and alter moods... a focus on consumption... everyone conditioned to accept their place in life
Of course Orwell's 1984 provides a view of the back-up plan for those that do not embrace their servitude.
7
In my very early twenties, Baba Ram Das wrote the book, the philosophy, that changed my perspectives-BE HERE NOW.
Very few things are truly important became my own mantra. I refused to be plunged into my family’s constant stories about their family member’s pasts. Why would you need or want to live your precious own life jawing on and on about dead people- gossip and slander, vicious stuff. Just BE HERE NOW.
So I have.
Thank you.
3
@Madeleine and his later Still Here was good also. a major impact on my life.
2
I have taught Russell Banks's "The Sweet Hereafter" in my freshman writing class for 20 years. The novel explores how people cope and why they assign blame, and students tend to see in the characters people they know in their own lives. They develop, as I did, sympathy for desperate people in severely challenging situations, people who persevere and ought to be commended for it despite their faults. We may not like everyone we meet, but it's instructive for us to try to understand on what basis they make the decisions they do. Banks does so masterfully.
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@Chris The Sweet Hereafter is a strong novel. You'd need a stone for a heart for it not to move you. Atom Egoyan made a very good movie of it in the late 90s.
2
"A Pocket Book of Modern Verse: English and American Poetry of the Last 100 Years from Walt Whitman to Dylan Thomas by Oscar Williams"
This was a college textbook, but I read the poems in it many times. They have comforted me and informed me over the years. The rhythms and cadences in poetry have always lived in me in a different way from prose. Many I have learned by heart. I love many other poets and poems, but these first ones have a special place.
I love prose, too, and it's hard to choose just one book. My mother and father read to me and my brothers each night before bedtime, as well all through our childhood. My mother read my elderly grandmother from one of her favorite authors one night just before she went to bed as was her habit. In the morning my grandmother was gone, she had died in the night. The power of stories is strong, from the first part of life to the last.
Finally, Diet for a Small Planet is a nonfiction book that changed the way I looked at food. I remember distinctly being amazed by Lappe's point of view, so different from what I knew before reading it.
6
@Kathleen Glad someone mentioned Diet for a Small Planet -- it set me on my career path decades ago, and it is as relevant as ever today.
1
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston is the powerful book that profoundly changed my perspectives on the past, the present and the future... as well as the importance and value of diversity.
10
Stoner by John Williams is beautiful and poignant. The illusion of worldly success contrasted with personal integrity and kindness. Certainly a book for our time, and for any time.
9
There are great books in both the main article and the comments. Of those in the main article, the one that most influenced me was Catch-22. It is universal in speaking to deep but usually unstated ambitions: Orr’s and Yossarian’s wish to escape and the higher-ups desire to be liked.
Some others to contemplate: The Pelopponesian War. Thucydides’ book is the first western history of consequence, more so than Herodotus, IMO, because he explores the human motivations to a devasting conflict. The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway deals with love and despair using only 1 and 2 syllable words. Let Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Social climbing and human nature in rhyming couplets with humor. Macbeth. The ultimate tale of lust for power.
6
What an invaluable, fantastic article. So much to be gleaned from it: ideas for future books combined with each reader’s personal and deeply intimate perspective.
For me, there are too many books to whittle it down to a few favorites, but if I had to name one, I’d go with “The Tao of Pooh.” As simplistic as that may seem, given all the wonderful, deep and life-changing books there are out there, this is one I’ve returned to time and time again. To me, its wisdom is timeless, its message is resounding, and its main points are thought-provoking...
15
@Guitar M Oh, me, too. I live by that book. As an engineer in a family of philosophers, our dinner table discussions mostly went right over my head. But "The Tao of Pooh" spoke to me and showed me the way of the uncarved block (pu).
1
The moment I realized a novel could be capable of changing a reader’s mind—-
Fourth grade: The Cay by Theodore Taylor
published in 1969
(Includes a dedication to MLK)
For once a topic I genuinely like--books. My answer is also easy- the book that changed my life is A Night To Remember, Walter Lord's classic bestseller about the sinking of the Titanic. It inspired me to embark on researching the Titanic disaster, a passion that's lasted over 50 years. A Night To Remember has withstood the test of time. It's a book to remember.
14
@sharon5101 I agree. I will never forget that book!
4
A few books have "affected" my life. Change is another matter. That properly belongs in the realm of psychology, specifically Dr. Albert Ellis, who taught me how to think.
8
WALDEN, I have found, is not just one book. Unpack its leaves and it is an introduction to our entire cultural heritage. Thoreau was a very widely educated scholar, with full access to Harvard’s immense library of first editions, and made exceedingly good use of that privilege. One can start at a reference that Thoreau makes to a particular episode in world history, such as the Battle of Waterloo, and explore from that out into an entire universe of links, to Napoleon and to France and to the French and the American revolutions, into an infinity of associated materials. Then one can start at a reference that Thoreau makes to a particular species of bird, and explore from that out into an entirely different universe of links. And so on and so forth. Each time you re-read WALDEN, you can explore outward from this book into a new universe of linked materials. I have re-read WALDEN once a year for fifty years now, and each year I discover something new.
24
@Ashley Meredith
I agree. I hope you got to see Thoreau’s papers from the Morgan Library exhibit—The Ever New Self. To see his handwriting and his detailed field notes ... He matters more than people realize.
5
Orwell was highly praised for 1984--That said, Animal Farm is an extremely accurate prediction of Trump and the GOP.
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@Don Beebe How right you are, unfortunately
3
Two principles: All reading is good; and,There's no accounting for taste. That said, it is puzzling to see that this list of influential books does not include any of the acknowledged pantheon of Great American Writers except for Henry David Thoreau. None of our Nobel winners are there. No Melville, Dickinson, Hawthorne, Emerson or others of their era. I don't pretend to know what this may mean, but while I stand by the two principles I stated at the outset, I find it disquieting.
8
@Robert LaRue This is a spotlight on a handful of books that meant something to a tiny cross-section of random people. Good grief it doesn't represent anything more than that. It's not meant to be a comprehensive list of Great American Authors, or in any way bound to them.
Sometimes the small and quiet speak loudest to a person's heart and soul. I found these essays to be deeply moving - beautiful portraits in which the people who spoke about them were more interesting even,
than the books they described.
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@Robert LaRue Not to forget that any pantheon of great writers should extend beyond the U.S. and Europe. Any college professor of global literature could easily compile a massive lis of poets, philosophers, and novelists from India, Japan, China, Middle Eastern, Latin American and African lands that have shaped countless lives for the better. The published list's limited vision is pretty sordid especially in the 21st century.
2
@Robert LaRue I am also shocked that no one listed the Bible or Shakespeares plays - two cornerstones of our literary heritage.
5
Bravo to Barbara Lipkin for reminding me of what I long ago felt was the phoniness of Ayn Rand's view of society, as expressed in Atlas Shrugged. It struck me then that all Rand had missed in her depiction of society was society itself, in all its intricacies. Ms. Lipkin noted the absence of children, the sick, the disabled, the old.
To my way of thinking, we had an earlier figure, Emerson, who was so totally devoted to "self-reliance" as the essence of human betterment (and even definition), that in graduate school I argued that he had basically resigned from society.
Nowhere in the world has extreme individualism ever sustained life. The influence of these writers that has seeped into the American character is a major reason that the U.S. continues to have such a hard time recognizing that we, the people, have always been and remain in the same boat. It helps to explain why no important social problem has ever been solved in this country during my nearly 85 years. We simply cannot understand reasoned mutualism along with individualism.
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@BF
Emerson's "self-reliance" is more properly termed "Self-reliance," deriving from his devoted study of Indian classics like the Bhagavad Gita.
"Self" is a poor English translation of Atman, that infinite, unbounded, timeless, spaceless Consciousness/Being which is the substratum of this and all possible universes.
"Substratum" does not, as it may seem, refer to something separate from the universe. Just as "marble" is the substratum of a statue built entirely of marble, so Conscious-Being is the substratum of a universe built/made entirely of nothing but Consciousness.
Unfortunately, the word "Consciousness" in our modern minds seems to irrevocably refer to a subject viewing an object separate from itself. In dramatic contrast, "Sat-Chit" - Being-Consciousness - is not only simultaneously subject and object but transcends them both (as the marble "transcends' the marble statue).
7
@BF
In Ayn Rand was never troubled by trivialities like REALITY.
Children? The elderly? The disabled?
Pfaugh!
6
When I was ten years old, in 1956, I went to see George Stevens's film version of GIANT, pirmarily because of Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, two of my favorite movie stars at the time. I was so besotted with the movie, I went the day after to the library and checked-out Edna Ferber's book. Being my first "adult" book, to this day I remember the ineffable elation of understanding and appreciating a book written for "grown-ups." That experience changed my reading life forever.
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Victor Hugo's Les Miserables is the book that impacted me the most because it exposed the narrowness of the law and the trans formative nature of forgiveness.
It, however, was one of many books that brought me to tears after all-nighters as a young teen. Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth," Mitchner's "Hawaii," Arthur Hailey's "Hotel" and "Airport." Of course, growing up 2 miles from the Mississippi River in eastern Arkansas, Mark Twain's Huck Finn and Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's' Court also were in the reading diet.
It ended up being a bad habit because, at that age (12-17) and time (HS in mid 1960's), when presented with a good book, once I got into it couldn't put the suckers down, consuming them in a style today's youth associate with binge watching.
From college on through the so-called productive years, I rarely had such a block of time available on a whim.
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Les Miz for me too! In French - such gorgeous prose.
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"... for suggesting this idea."
Well, it's not especially original and more akin to asking people to call the radio station with their requests or to comment on air. So this "idea" is really a version of a call-in radio show.
And for a cynical take on that, see Eric Bogosian's 1987 play, "Talk Radio", which features an abrasive Cleveland radio host who routinely baits and insults his callers, yet whose personal life is falling apart just as his show is about to go national.
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I am STUNNED by the omission of writers of color from this list. Toni Morrison? Ralph Ellison? James Baldwin? Gabrielle Garcia Marques? Isabelle Allende? the Dalai Lama? V.S. Naipaul? Derek Walcott? Kenzaburo Oe? I don't know if this is a failure of the American education system (and I am an educator, so I can, in the words of Toni Morrison, "still love what I criticize") or what, but it only adds to my despair about the direction in which our national intellectual and emotional life is headed.
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@Holly
There are authors of color mentioned in the recollections. Look again.
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@Holly Some of the best books today are by people of color, those you mention and others. Kazuo Ishiguro is a favorite of mine, as are Alice Walker, Arundhati Roy, among others.
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@Kathleen James Baldwin's books moved me as did Chaim Potok's; 'Night' by Elie Weisel and "Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl, also.....many others but these touched my soul. I have 'When Breath Becomes Air' and, for some reason, I haven't gotten to it. I agree that some of the best books are, not only, by people of color but by other natonalities. They all enrich our lives. I loved Pearl Buck's books also,.
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ok might be splitting hairs here -- and I admit several times, after casually flipping through pages of Ayn Rand's novels, I put them down due to a lack of nuance. however, I'm not keen on an either/or framing of belief systems. I think the ideal systems are ones that are inclusive -- providing space for 'both.'
for instance, some people may be wired to carve out their own path -- and resist groupthink, perhaps even taking it to the extreme. ayn rand's background -- a socialist revolution leading to her family business being confiscated probably was formative-- people's lived experience naturally informs their 'mental model' of the world. the benefit of the doubt should be that people have a reason, as valid as anyone else's, of why they believe the things that they do.
in contrast, others may be exceptionally nurturing, which in our society means unpaid labor (problematic), and not as motivated by achievement and goals. should people with one belief system dictate what others should believe? should we belittle those people and make enemies of them?
my sense is that real progress will take place when we can see how all of these worldviews fit together, providing the texture and complexity inherent in life.
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@TK You are so correct, and I'm gonna have to save your comment because you said it well. We ought to try to understand the "story" each person has that brought them to where they are. Just like we have our own.
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I don't know exactly which book changed my life but I remember some of my favorites -- Look Homeward Angel, How Green was my Valley and As I Lay Dying. How Green was my Valley was a great one. Last year I only read Russian classic literature. I still have to read The Gulag Archipelago -- that book can supposedly change one's life.
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@Carol
It does change your life. Incidents come back to me from decades after I read it through in the seventies. The communist activist who ended his life by smashing his head on the stone cell floor. The old prisoner who tapped endlessly on the plumbing "Arie[sic], Ye Wretched of the Earth." The prisoners on the long march through the icy cold, just laying down to die in the deep snow. Solzhenitsyn has contempt for that. But why is Survival the highest ideal? As with Primo Levi (Survival in Auschwitz), it's the survivors who write history and articulate our ideals.
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@Carol Very interesting!
This article is truly one of the best I have read in such a long time. Thank you NYTs. I hope this will be repeated. Having been an avid reader since childhood it was so wonderful to be reminded of the impact some of these books had on my own life. I cannot even imagine a life without books in it. As I think another commenter said even a mediocre book can impart a kernel of wisdom if the reader is paying attention. Read on!
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‘Siddhartha’ by Herman Hesse has been a powerful guidepost at various points in my life, illustrating the inevitability of change and impermanence and the beauty of simple moments.
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@Sandi
“Narcissus and Goldman” was my touchstone for most of my life.
Now in my sixties, I read it yet again. This time, I mostly felt excluded by Hesse’s objectification of women in this work.
The years can change your perspective.
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I'm a reader. Since I've been a little girl I've adored books, and often they can be as cherished as friends. There are so many books that have influenced and transformed my perspective, that I could never choose just one, but I have to say that upon the recommendation of a dear friends suggestion, I read Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Series this past summer and I was riveted. I have yet to find a novel since that fills the void. Incredible story telling. A beautifully written feminine perspective.
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@Fromjersey
I'm seventy and have never been to Italy. But Ferrante's Naples of the sixties is as weirdly alien but familiar to me as Prachett's Ankh Morpork. I don't care if I don't get her. It's a wonderful trilogy. Her translator makes music from the two dialects of Italian and Neapolitan.
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My choice was Homer's Iliad, but it was not included in this article. I think the Iliad has influenced Western thinking more than any other work of literature with the exception of the Odyssey. The Iliad illustrated humanity's tragic existence in contrast with the eternal happiness of the immortal gods; the Odyssey was the first and best adventure romance and is the mother of all subsequent literary adventures.
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@J.Sutton Yes, even these days, when Homer's one of the oldest DWMs, he still matters. After having read a number of translations of the Iliad, including newer ones, I still prefer Richmond Lattimore's. As for the Odyssey, let me put a word in for Emily Wilson's translation, the first, I think, by a woman, and she does a wonderful job it. Although I had tried several times to reread the Odyssey over the past three decades, not until I opened hers did I succeed.
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‘Lord of the Rings’ because it gave a narrative to the beauty of nature and the wonder found in journeying through it.
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@Navin Mithel Just finished the trilogy and I feel exactly the same way!
“For Our Vines Have Tender Grapes” by George Martin. I was ten when I found this “grown-up” book on my grandparents’ bookshelf. Then came “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith which I devoured when I was about eleven.
I now realize I needed to read about girls with loving, affectionate, demonstrative fathers. Decades later, when my own father was dying, he told me that he had loved me “beyond measure.” I believe that he did. He, himself, had been fatherless and didn’t know how to show his love. But those two books, which I occasionally re-read, showed me that there are nurturing fathers in the world.
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn- Oh, the character of Johnny Nolan! Bittersweet, in that he was overwhelmed by his fatherly responsibilities, but tried, desperately and unsuccessfully, to overcome his flaws in order to rise to them. A wonderful being, and a wonderful book.
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@Danielle - you totally “got” Johnny. Find “For Our Vines Have Tender Grapes” at the library. Another wonderful father to a sweet little girl. I think not many people read it anymore. There was a pretty good movie of it with Edward G. Robinson and Margret O’Brian.
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@Kathryn you "believe" he did? I promise you he did. Not a day passes when I don't tell my daughters I love them beyond measure. Literally. But I can tell you that had I not taken the time to tell them, I would have loved them the same. It would be a shame to grow up believing your father might not have loved you (beyond measure). Again, I promise he did.
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these are all good books. but the one that not only *changed* my life, but *saved* it was "One Day at a Time in Alanon."
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@Judy Hill glad you broke the ice. i plucked The Big Book of AA from my then girlfriend mother's bookcase one night when i was very drunk. i somehow found chapter 2, there is a solution, and shortly afterward found myself on the journey to sobriety and a new life. other than that i suppose winnie-the-pooh changed me life because i can still remember being ecstatic when realized the words i had just been looking at actually told me something.
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A far better list in most ways than any I've ever seen by critics and academics, though no mention of anything by Mark Twain grates. Read "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" and be amazed.
Noteworthy is how many of the contributors talk about reading the book more than once. I'd bet that had something to do with their coming across a physical copy of it, whether their own or at a yard sale and the like. I know the percentage of e-books has leveled off to around thirty percent and most prefer a bound codex, but this article, for me, reinforces that.
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@Bridgman I love Twain and remember what an impact "Pudd'nhead Wilson" made on me when it was recommended to me as a teenager. It's a great send up of the idiocy of racism and racial stereotypes. So too is the incomperable "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" which I have read several times. Toni Morrison has a great appreciation of it in "The Mark Twain Anthology" published by the Library of America. Her own "The Bluest Eye" which I finally read in my 60s is a book everyone should read, hopefully at a much younger age than I.
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@John Collinge
Huckleberry Finn. Twain. English. Drifting down the long river of life to no purpose.
George Eliot’s Middlemarch did something odd to me at 21. It felt like my skull was cracked open in a way that opened me to other people. Rarely does an author achieve a similar feat of describing the complexities of a fellow human being. And importantly Eliot’s writing is beautiful. Reading her works are one the greatest pleasures I can think about. But to think that loving other people and feeling sympathy and gazing at the complexities of another person’s subjectivity can be both so beautiful and good fills me with so much hope.
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I have read many of the books people cited as contributing to their character, their appreciation of language, their philosophies of life. What so impressed me in these little book reports is the insight each provided in the transformative role literature can play in human life. As colleges and universities are closing English departments across the country, it's important we remember what literature can do to create human connections. It opens worlds to us we would otherwise not visit; it allows us to enter the minds of people we would not ever know; it offers solutions to problems we might be shouldering; it challenges us to appreciate fine, insightful writing in both fiction and nonfiction; it gives us quiet in the midst of chaos.
Thanks to the non-professional writers for helping us enter the worlds of these authors. You are their dream readers!
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I am a voracious reader and 74 years of age. It would be close to impossible to choose one book that changed my life. But two stand out in my mind. The first is Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. I read it in college; and it shocked me, a young sheltered, middle class, Italian-American whose hardworking parents provided a home, clothing, nutrition, and an education through college. I believe that was what first triggered my quest and dedication to social justice.
The second book dealt with religion. My education, grammar, high school, and college, included the precepts and dogmas of Catholicism. It wasn't until years later as an adult I read James Carroll's Constantine's Sword that I finally understood that the church in which I was born and raised, in a sense, robbed me of my individual identity as a person, as a woman. To put it bluntly, it was wrong to dare to think for me and take over my personhood. I learned that it is not "organized" religion that guides me but instead a universal moral code of goodness and compassion that I must heed. That is within all of us, I believe.
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From Meditations to Seuss, what an amazing diversity of books. One never knows! Long live the book, preferably in paper form.
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@PJM yes to paper form!
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@PJM, it still makes my head explode when I think that our alphabet has only 26 letters and look at how they have been arranged over the years!
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Interesting that only one man identified a book by a female author - and that was a children's book with a squirrel as protagonist. Woman picked books with both male and female authors, male and female protagonists.
I wonder how much different our worlds would be if more men would read and relate with stories written with female protagonists and perspectives.
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@Sherry Jo , I'm a man who counts among his favorite books Carson McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, and George Eliot's Middlemarch, not to mention the stories of Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. Of course, to most of these authors the sex of the protagonist is not the most important thing...
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@Sherry Jo Interesting observation. I know more than one guy my age (in his70's) who admits to not reading women authors. I think this attitude is a sad, but hopefully dying, part of our culture.
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@Sherry Jo -You note that some men are reluctant to read books by or about women.
(Indeed, didn't J.K. Rowling's editors tell her to use initials rather than her full name, Joanne Rowling, because boys won't read a book written by someone called Joanne?)
I'm a high school English teacher. I remember one year, about eight or nine years ago, I had taught the usual texts on our curriculum for that grade level: A Tale of Two Cities, Othello, The Sword in the Stone, Antigone, Catcher in the Rye--all books written by men with male protagonists. Toward the end of the year, I introduced Austen's Pride and Prejudice for the first time. My giddy aunt, you would think I had declared war on American manhood itself. The boys in the class just would not read it. When they got poor grades on their text-related assignments, many of their parents and in some cases their private tutors wrote in to complain. How on earth could I expect their son/client to be interested in a book like that? Of course he's failing: what boy is going to want to read a book about a family of young women from the 1800's? What on earth was I thinking? Could I please provide him with an alternative text? Etc., etc.
Pride and prejudice indeed.
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I am amazed to see no one mention the I Ching, the Book of Changes.
It is perhaps the oldest book in the world and one of the wisest and most well used over its 3000+ year history since it was "revised" by Confucius 2500 years ago.
Perhaps people don't know about it, or are scared away by new age medicine peddlers who tout it as a kind of ouijia board.
What it is is hard to say, because it encapsulates change within it, so that the book itself is a shimmering, unsteady reflection of nature, mountains, lakes, thunder, wind, etc.
What it means to me is an avenue for understanding my own life crises from a different perspective. If you use the oracle protocols developed for it, the book offers only and always the prospect of change mutating in time into other situations.
Perhaps its frustrating to people not to get a definite answer to their questions, but I find the book always throws the final decision back on me. I am the one that needs to see things a bit differently in order to understand where I am.
That's not escapism, it is the the essence of our place in the moment.
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@Dennis
I was given a translation of the I Ching as a gift 15 years ago. At the time I was a bit mystified, but now I am forever grateful for it. It is dog eared, yellowing, and remains on my nightstand. I cherish it. I also treasure the Tao Te Ching.
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@Dennis
The question was: "what book changed your life?"
That's why you have a number of children's books mentioned.
The list is not indicative of what books the respondents have been reading the rest of their lives.
There is not room for discussion. The titles cited are personal experience. For you it seems it was the I Ching...... or was it some book you read as a child?
No one book.
But, back in the 60s, reading all the counterculture literature contributed to the development of identity. One aspect was trying to find a way to do some good in the world in one's work. I've tried to do that ever since.
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The book that has changed me personally the most is probably Johnny Cash's first autobiography (he wrote two), Man in Black. This book details a lot of Cash's struggles with drugs and self-destructive behavior. I've never had that problem, but I appreciate Cash's vision of grace for a flawed, broken self. I think in having felt myself felt deeply flawed, there was something I could connect to in Cash's struggle to imagine himself a worthwhile human being. I also appreciated his statement that "god is love." Of course I've heard that before, and I'm not even particularly religious, but somehow in the context of that utterance in Cash's words, it really resonated with me. It did not convert me to religion, but it showed me that there is something in love itself of the divine. It's a strange book for me to pick because I'm generally skeptical of the "self-help" genre. I teach literature and as my students frequently remind me, I'm almost always drawn to darker subject matter. Perhaps I was so moved by Cash's autobiography because it embraced its own darkness, but also found itself comfortable in light. I haven't read it in years, but think of it nearly daily.
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I was waiting for someone to mention Proust. Remembrance
Of Things Past (In Search Of Lost Time) is my favorite novel.
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@nickdastardly I have the novels of Remembrance of Things Past and haven't read them yet. Really looking forward to them.
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@nickdastardly
Somebody did. Look again. (also forgive me for nitpicking but Remembrance of Things Past is not a novel)
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@nickdastardly The last reviewer, Robert A. Picken, cited "À la recherche du temps perdu" ("Remembrance of Things Past") as his most influential book(s).
I was about 13 when I first got addicted to H.L. Mencken.
Mrs. Rossi -- a very pretty blonde lady teacher who I was infatuated with in the ninth grade -- assigned my class to write an essay on Lord Byron. So I went to the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore and assembled a pile of books about him. They bored and stupefied me. So I started looking around for something better to read. There was an open copy of one of H.L. Mencken’s books -- it might have been one in his “Prejudices” series” -- on one of the library tables. I picked it up and began reading it. It made me laugh, and I have been reading Mencken ever since.
But that is not the end of the story. Next day, I asked Mrs. Rossi if I could do my essay on Mencken instead of Lord Byron, and she said just this once I could. I got an A+ from her on the essay. And that is why I still am infatuated with Mrs. Rossi.
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"... on one of the library tables."
That's a really great way to find new books.
I routinely browse the stacks at my library, pulling out books that look interesting and briefly reading them. If they appeal to me, I check them out.
My library used to have recently returned books on shelving carts where anyone could browse them. That was another great way to find books until the library's efficiency experts decided that shelving carts should be confined to the back room until a shelver gets to them.
A 2018 Times essay says:
"So much of what we encounter each day is designed to influence our decisions and purchases, but the books on this [recent returns] shelf have no agenda. They are not being pushed by the publishing industry. There is no marketing budget behind them. They’re not trending on my social-media feeds or selected by a recommendation algorithm. They were not chosen to signal anyone’s intellect or righteousness or in-the-know-ness. They are often old and very often ugly. I’ve come to think of this shelf as an escape from hype, a kind of anti-curation."
Letter of Recommendation: Recently Returned Books
By Elisa Gabbert
Sept. 5, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-recently-returned-books.html
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Leo Buscaglia's Books: LOVE and The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages.
During 1972 (or thereabouts) I went to USC to attend a lecture by the above author. I witnessed something I had never seen before or after.
As I neared the classroom I saw the author coming towards me; with two students (one black, one not)
They both had their arms entwined around the shoulders of Leo Buscaglia; I moved aside as the passed. I recall little of the class; titled LOVE. The above images, however, are with me even now, as I near my 79th birthday.
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@A. Stanton And that is a great teacher!
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