Books that changed my life

[elad12]

There are a couple of books that had a huge impact on my life. The first was "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. It really helped me to get in touch with and work through some childhood trauma I needed to deal with.

The second book, actually 2 books that I read more recently: "Gypsy Boy" and "Gypsy Boy on the Run" by Mikey Walsh. I loved these two books. I came out after reading "Gypsy Boy" which I think was significant as it took me 60 years to finally come to that point.

Anyone else read life changing books?

[AdrianMarcus]

Has anyone read "How I learned to snap?" by Kirk Read

I'm in the middle of reading that book on my ipad now, and I am loving it. My friends and I started a book club focusing on books that feature gay characters. I've also read some very great books by many indie authors. There was a great poem in the front of the one book by an unknown author, James Ash, about free will which made me decide to come out. Not going to violate copyright, but the poem basically said "think for yourself or suffer the consequences" and I am tired of living a lie so, that poem by an unknown guy changed my life. I was at a poetry reading with a friend yesterday, and there was an elderly woman reading some of her work and I was also impressed how moving it was, so I might start reading more poetry books once I get through the mountain of books on my list.

I've also been reading some of the more graphic indie books. There is one that is a spoof on 50 shades of gray. It's called "50 shades of gay for pay". There is a guy in our book club who is big on erotica so I am reluctantly reading these books, but I am surprised that they aren't all as cheesy as I thought they might be.

I have never watched any porn. I've always been paranoid that I'll get busted with it on my computer. I'm not a computer whiz, and I have to take my laptop with me to conferences and plug it in to projectors in front of hundreds of people. I witnessed one person accidentally have a mishap with that. It was just pictures of their kids but that was right when I got my first computer that I wasn't sharing with anyone else, and I became paranoid about being found out. I'm also cheap so I use the internet at work for most of my larger downloads. I was just talking about this with my best friend and she offered to let me use her internet to download porn now that I have an ipad. That was an awkward conversation which is very off topic so I'll skip that.

I also read a book in college called Paradise, which was from a professor from I think Princeton. She was a nobel prize winner, and I think pulitzer as well. Also many books by Maya Angelou sustained me while I was growing up. I believe she writes about the human spirit in a way that is very unique and she does a very good job portraying her characters.

[SolemnBoy]

The Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings series. Sounds silly I know. They didn't really inspire me in the sense that any message within them caused me to rethink things. They changed my life in the sense that they introduced me to literature, something that would expand into a general interest. If I hadn't fallen in love with their stories at a very early age (7 or so) I probably wouldn't have developed an interest in books. Today I've moved on to what you might call more "mature" literature

[Kiid]

I advise all teenagers to read the book 'Go Ask Alice'

It's a girls diary and she writes about her life and her drug use. It describes it in great detail. It is a very good read and I think all teens should read it especially in school and the subject should be discussed.

[Pix]

I've read so many that I think inspired me, but offhand I'll with The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane.

I was 16 and living in a world of adult control that was callous and impersonal at best, sometimes malicious and hostile, and I felt bitter & helpless over it when one rainy day after school (as Mom slept off her liquor) I caught the movie and LOVED how the 13-year-old named Rynn managed to trick the adults and live independently. I was so in awe of Rynn, so inspired, that I went to the library and found the book it was based on and read it (all within a week of having seen the movie). I then began thinking about how I could do similar things, to take control of my own life, and as a result I started to be less apathetic and resigned, and that did wonders for me and my growing depression. (I also got into Emily Dickinson, Liszt, and Chopin because of the character.)

It may have even saved my life and/or sanity. For example, when the principle and counselor tried to have me committed to a very abusive place I used my new inspired cunning to think of how Mom would see it and say, "I bet Dad wouldn't make me go." And she knew it, Dad would fight for me if it meant getting me and thus not paying child support and Mom wasn't willing to risk that so she told the school to go screw themselves. And then when they tried having me committed anyway and citing a law Bush signed I checked into it as Rynn would've done instead of blindly believing it (though unfortunately it wasn't a bluff, they really did have the power). And so I ran away from home for a 2nd time, but this time with a plan as Rynn would do, changing my appearance and my name (in such as way that accidentally saying my real name could be explained away), and made Rynn my middle name of my alias in honor of the character and the hope I could be just as clever and strong-willed in the face of adversity.

So perhaps no other book by itself has made more of a difference in my life.

[trywait]

i <3 books! the first book i can recall that started my voracious appetite for reading was the giving tree by shel silverstein. got lost in the story and now im on that never ending journey

[Matrim]

The wheel of time best fantasy series ever

[EternalYouAndI]

I wouldn't say the books CHANGED my life, but they injected such extra passion, wisdom and strength for my work within the special education school I was in at the time, working in a severe autism class with six teenagers, and in the evenings and at weekends working in after school clubs and on a one-to-one with an autistic boy. The books are:

One Child,
Tiger's Child,
Silent Boy,
Somebody Else's Kids,
Twilight Children,
Just Another Kid...

by Torey Hayden. They made me recognise quite how personal and special I felt about my work with MY students and kids.

I miss that school <3

[Mushroom]

Yes, there's one book that I considered the most interesting I've always read in my life: The Three Sirens (1964), by Irving Wallace. Thanks to this book I got a liking for reading. I haven't read a book in so little time. I also got interested in sexuality topics. It's really an art masterpiece.

It's about a group of experts of diferent fields (Anthropoly, Psychology, Sociology, etcétera) that go on a journey to an unknown island to study their peculiar way of living. The oldest island inhabitants decided to leave the civilization many years before in order to found a new comunity where they could have a better life. One of the main pillars of this society is how they live sexuality (in a more natural and inclusive way), so there are no prejudices, no rapists, no perverts, no double moral acts.

I'll never forget what I felt when I started reading this book...I got hooked with the story very fast. How nice are these memories of a book that changed my life.:p