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Books that changed your life
lifelesseyes:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - everyone I know who's read this says it changes their life, and it's true.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Harry Potter (shut up, they're good)
The Art of Fiction by Ayn Rand - changed the way I write forever, and she's less creepy than her fiction
More, I'm sure
calenlass:
Hitchhiker's Guide ftw! I used to love to read, and then people started forcing me to read books for school. This reintroduced me to the reasons books are such wonderful means of entertainment.
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. If you've read it, you know what I mean.
Black Sun Rising by CS Friedman. I just finished this, and I can already tell it will have a tremendous impact on my writing style.
Twelfth Night by Billy Shakespeare. The first of his works that ever made me laugh out loud.
Midsummer Night's Dream. It was kind of the thing that introduced [what I later found out was] Freudian mentality to me: everything can have a sexual connotation. And when you vocalise it, it's usually funny. My sense of humour was never the same.
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. The first book I ever read that someone had to force me to read, seriously (shortly followed by A Separate Peace).
The Lord of the Rings (all 6 [3] books) by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. My aspirations as a writer are to be as successful at creating a world, and all its details and cultures and depth, using just plain and simple words, the way he did.
Nemba:
I bothers me a little, just really very slightly, that so many people say Of Mice and Men. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, and it was definitely epic, but it seems to me so many people only ever read Of Mice and Men, but don't read The Grapes of Wrath, and especially East of Eden which, I personally at least, found far more moving, more life-changing.
Oli:
I hated of mice and men. I think mostly because we did it in my english class and I abhor the ripping apart of novels we have to do to create a critical evaluation. I mean it's good to find meaning in a book, but not when you get told "This is the meaning, find quotes that show it"
Books which changed my life/reading habits are:
Animal Farm + 1984 - George Orwell
Notes from a big country - Bill Bryson (Hilarious travel writing FTW!)
The Hobbit - J.R.R Tolkien (I read it before all this film nonsense. The Hobbit owns. I used to be able to recite the first paragraph and the last sentence. "In a hole, in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a (and I forget the rest of the paragraph nowadays)" "'No, thats not for me' he said, laughing, and handed him the tobbacco jar.")
Varioud Garfield Comic books - Jim Davis.
deborah:
kate chopin's the awakening (much better than flaubert's madame bovary)
margaret atwood's "rape fantasies" (short story told in the first person with quirks)
salinger's franny and zooey (f holden caulfield; the glass family is way cooler)
the one adult book that i've read that really makes me think there's hope in the world and washes away whatever cynical dirt i've gathered is e.e. cummings' i: six nonlectures. he is the most uplifting and positive person i've ever read without feeling like there's a lot of smarm and cheese involved.
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