# What's a NOVEL that has changed your life?



## raychensmith (Jul 11, 2012)

A lot of people talk about books that have changed their lives, but really have they? Especially a novel? I mean, a bunch of vampires hanging out in a Washington high school might give you a couple of hours of chuckles, but they're not changing your life. So . . . let's have a discussion of a novel that has changed your life and then EXPLAIN why it has changed it. 

The book that has changed my life is Paul Theroux's My Secret History. It's about a lot of things, but its central setting is Africa in the 1960s and how the Peace Corps volunteers lived there. I was living in Los Angeles at the time and getting bored and depressed with my life (this was right after college), and I needed an adventure. I read the book, and my eyes were popping. This was what I was looking for. I immediately signed up for the Peace Corps and went on a wild adventure not in Africa but Eastern Europe (Romania) for two years. Since then I've been to 5 continents and roughly 20 countries, and have lived the adventures in the book. To paraphrase a great man (actually, it's Robert Kincaid from The Bridges of Madison County, haha), I marvel that I've actually been to some of the places I've been to.

And if I hadn't read Theroux's book, I would've never joined the Peace Corps and, most likely, never have developed a passion for traveling. So that's how one novel changed my life.

What about you?


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

When I was growing up - the novel that impacted me was Gone With The Wind. I was swept away by the strength of Scarlett..  her philosophy that "Tomorrow is Another Day" and the quote I remember the most:  "As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again".


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## Twofishes (May 30, 2012)

I stopped drinking after I read _Big Sur_.


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## JezStrider (Jun 19, 2012)

This may sound ridiculous, but _The Lorax_ was one of the first books I read that had some depth. I was just a kid and I remember picking it up at the library at school. It made me think about the things we're doing to the world. It's the first book I vividly remember checking out. I was so excited on Arbor Day that year because they gave us a tree at school to plant at home. More than twenty years later, the tree is still there.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

Albert Camus _The Stranger_. There are three important things I learned from the novel.

1. You're responsible for your actions
2. It's OK not to believe in God
3. Nobody, nobody has the right to judge you for who you are


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## charlesatan (May 8, 2012)

The Heritage of Shannara books (it started with The Scions of Shannara) by Terry Brooks.

One of the magic weapons in the series was the Sword of Shannara which forced the bearer to face the truth about themselves. A lot of people are in denial, so the epiphany either broke them or made them better.

Made me analyze my life and look at my self-deceptions.


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## deckard (Jan 13, 2011)

East of Eden.

I can't remember when I first read the book, sometime in high school probably.

The servant Lee talking with Samuel and Adam about his vacation trips to San Francisco and discussing philosophy and religion. "Timshel." A person has a choice of which way to go, which path to follow.

"...this was the gold from our mining: 'Thou mayest.' The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in 'Thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word timshel-'Thou mayest'-that gives a choice. For if 'Thou mayest'-it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.' It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if 'Thou mayest'-it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.'

"...Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win."

Deckard


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Hmm, fantastic question. 

Several books changed my life. First, when I was a kid growing up in a remote dang-hole, the fairy-tales of many nations really ignited my imagination. I couldn't stop reading and dreaming.  

Then non-fiction excited me: a book about the Incas by a Czech explorer whose name I can't recall... I read it at least 5 times over, imagining the life 500 years ago. Books on space exploration, rough travel through the jungle, books about extinct animals, and so on. 

As for the novels, maybe Ray Bradbury and some old Russian science fiction authors (like Alexey Tolstoy) changed my life. Maybe also Bulgakov with his "Dog's Heart" and "The Run".

All those books made me want to travel, so travel I did. For the last 20 years or so, I'm changing countries and continents every 3-5 years, and trying to get somewhere I haven't been at least twice a year. I love it, can't get enough.


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## anne_holly (Jun 5, 2011)

Very school-girlish, I know, but I read SE Hinton's _The Outsiders_ when I was 8 (to help my high schooler brother do his homework), and I was never the same again. I started keeping my stories in notebooks after that, and it really did switch a light on in me for writing.

When I was in, I think, the 8th grade my English teacher forced _Catcher in the Rye_ into my hands, and I consumed it. I had never read anything like that before. That, too, changed me. I started to embrace my eccentricities after that, and appreciate that I wasn't like everyone else - and that was okay, and possibly awesome.

10th grade: Two Canadian books, _Generals Die in Bed_, by Charles Yale Harrison, and _The Mountain and the Valley_ by Ernest Buckler. The former solidified much of my pacifism, and the latter amazed me that my boring old leg of Nova Scotia could look so meaningful on paper - I really connected with that book, as I was sort of a "zebra tied to a plow," as well. That's when I really started to become dedicated to Canadian lit, along with Farley Mowat and Margaret Laurence.

In the 11th grade, I read _The Bell Jar_ by Sylvia Plath, at the same time as _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_. Not very similar books, I know, but somehow they formed a cataclysm for me about what you are forced to endure in the world, and what you have power over, and what you can say no to. That was when I really began to question everything.

There are many, many others, but those are the ones that stand out in my memory right now.

ETA: A big nod to Mordecai Richler (esp _Song of a Lesser Hero_), Isaac Bashevis Singer (esp _Enemies: A Love Story_ and _Shosha_) and Chaim Potok (esp _My Name is Asher Lev_ and _The Chosen_) should go in here, as well. These writers were vital to me in high school.

ETA2: Also highly agree with _The Lorax_ - all of Seuss has always been meaningful for me.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Was _Winnie the Pooh_ a novel or short story collection? In any case, it was the first "real" book I read all by myself, so you'd have to say it changed my life.

Later in life, _Catch 22_ and _Slaughterhouse Five_ did a lot to remove the glamor of war and help me see it for what it is.

_The Guns of Avalon_ changed my life, in that after I read it (a paperback one of my roommates at the time had left lying around), I then had to find the first book, _Nine Princes in Amber_, and since then have read the entire 5-novel series on a nearly annual basis since the late '70s -- that amount of time has to count for some sort of change.


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## Tony Rabig (Oct 11, 2010)

Robert Heinlein's _The Puppet Masters_. I read that one around 1964, and started devouring science fiction and fantasy -- those genres made up nearly all my reading for pleasure for nearly a decade, and a LARGE portion of it for nearly two decades.

Whether this was entirely a good thing, I've never quite decided, especially when I think of all those I-really-oughtta-read-that-before-I'm-planted books that I haven't read yet.

But Jeez it was fun.


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## bikiassam (Jul 13, 2012)

Alchemist - without any doubt. One of the best books I have read.


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## Anthony Sunderland (Jul 7, 2012)

TV show changed mine.

Who said the 'idiot box' was totally useless?

The season one Finale of Buffy TVS blew me away. I just wanted to write something so good that Sarah Michelle Geller would want to play the part.

Hey guys, I can dream


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

There isn't a single novel that changed my life, but Enid Blyton's children's collection had the biggest impact. I learned to read on them and they stirred my creative imagination. Without them, I may never have developed such a strong love of reading, which led me to write.


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## Nebula7 (Apr 21, 2011)

Safely Home by Randy Alcorn. Incredible story based on real events.

Things I've learned from Safely Home:

1. You are responsible to God for your actions.
2. It's okay to believe in God. 
3. It's okay to judge but Jesus Christ will be your final judge so judge according to His Word.
4. American's have it way better then we can ever imagine.
5. Life does not always hand you roses so rise above it in God's power.


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## Natasha Holme (May 26, 2012)

Not quite a novel, but Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet.' Having been brought up by a hardcore Bible-basher, this was the first book I read that made any real sense to me. I stopped being afraid that anything horrible would happen to me when I died.


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## jeffaaronmiller (Jul 17, 2012)

This is probably going to be a weird answer, but I have to say Stephen King's IT. I read it in high school. First of all, I was way too young to be reading that book. There were some truly disturbing scenes in that book for a fifteen year old. However, the characters, particularly when they were kids, seemed so real to me and, ultimately, their bravery and strength actually inspired me to have a little more courage in life.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2012)

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne

I read this book whilst on a plane travelling back from Poland, where I had been to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  The book was brought to life by the events of the previous days.  It was the first book that ever made me cry.

Great post!


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## froboy69 (Jul 17, 2012)

Harry potter is the reason WHY I fell in love with fantasy and magic since I was a little boy. But especially reading in general. After I witness the final movie adaption, I was moved to tears wanting to write something as amazing as this series.


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## John Blackport (Jul 18, 2011)

_The Floating Opera_ by John Barth.

And no, I'm not explaining it. Read it yourself.


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## Nicole Ciacchella (May 21, 2012)

One of the books that's made the biggest impact on me is Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.  It really made me think about how important it is to look at people from a variety of perspectives, and to try to understand the circumstances of someone else's life before rushing to judgement about them.  It's an extremely compassionate, lovely book.


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## Miriam Minger (Nov 27, 2010)

Kristin Lavransdatter by Norwegian author Sigrid Undset. Oddly enough, the trilogy has echoed my life.

Miriam Minger


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I guess I would have to say JAWS, since it was the first novel I really ever loved and it gave me the idea that someone could write stories for a living.  In short, it was the book that made me want to write.  Then Cujo was the first Stephen King novel I read and that started me toward loving King's work.


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## Loren DeShon (Jun 15, 2011)

Atlas Shrugged.  In college.  Holy crap.

And it's happening today.  Faster and faster.  Scary.


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## Daniel McHugh (Aug 15, 2011)

I'll go with *Frankenstein*. Shelley delivers on so many levels. Horror, ethics, philosophy, morals etc. The novel opened up my experience of reading. Not only could I engage in the visceral experience of the story, but my detached intellect pondered all of the questions she posed concerning the depth and breadth of man's future. A great read that has lasted a lifetime.


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## Aaron Scott (May 27, 2012)

As odd as it may sound...a Fantastic Four big little book called House of Horrors, it first inspired me to write, when I was 21. Just kidding, when I was about 6. It also fueled my love of stories with houses and castles full of traps and secret passageways.

As far as grown up books go..._Sophie's Choice_ by William Styron actually provided my first look at "literature" and actually contained a reading list - James Joyce, Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe - that shaped my tastes and perceptions.


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## Alexandra Sokoloff (Sep 21, 2009)

It's kind of cool and also inevitable that so many people's choices are children's and YA books - of course those are the ones that really shatter us and rebuild us into who we really are meant to be.  So I'll say Madeleine L'Engle's classic A WRINKLE IN TIME.  I was reading Stephen King and Shirley Jackson and Louisa Alcott and Ray Bradbury at the same time, but WRINKLE not only made me want to act, direct, write, ANYTHING to create a story like that! - but it also made me, raised in total agnosticism and distrust of organized religion, made me absolutely certain that the Universe is benevolent and actively loving.

What a gift!

(But I have to say also - Ayn Rand?  Equally shattering when I found her in college, in a different way.  What a storyteller...)


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## Stephen T. Harper (Dec 20, 2010)

deckard said:


> East of Eden.
> 
> I can't remember when I first read the book, sometime in high school probably.
> 
> ...


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## Nova_Implosion (Jul 20, 2012)

I remember reading Catch-22 for the first time during September, 2001 and thinking, "Where am I?" The surrealism and frustration of both the plot of the novel and the events of 9/11 left me with an otherworldly feeling--like I needed to get out but had no where to go. Every now and then I get echoes of that feeling. We do live in very weird times . . .

I also loved the book's dark humor, something I've tried to incorporate in my own writing.


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## John Blackport (Jul 18, 2011)

I know I've already answered this question. But I have to add _The Death of Ivan Ilych._

And, since its title gives away a lot more than that of _The Floating Opera,_ I might as well explain this one (in terms of what it meant to me, anyway).

It told me that finding happiness is simpler than we think.

And also of course, that we're all going to die. It's okay, though.


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## Ergodic Mage (Jan 23, 2012)

The Lord of the Rings is what started my love for reading. But Shōgun is where I first truly understood that there are other cultures with real people, both good and bad.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

'The Old Man and the Sea' by Ernest Hemingway. I checked it out of my school library when I was about twelve, attracted by the cover, which showed a man standing up in a boat obviously trying to land a big fish (I was heavily into fishing at that age and went every week). That's all I thought it was, just a fishing tale. By the time I'd reached the end of that short book, I was sitting wide mouthed with all the breath knocked out of me, thinking, _Holy hell, so THAT'S what real literature is!_


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## Nonono (Jul 26, 2012)

I hate to say something similar to the person who posted right before me, but the most influential book on me, and my personal favorite was Hemingway's _The Sun Also Rises_. It really made me think about storytelling; it focused on the characters and their relationships to one another, more than what they did or where they did it. The plot was meandering, but the interactions really drew me in. The prose is sparse and open, but everything has a subtext, the characters all have personalities and lives--little is said, but there is so much there.


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## Joel Arnold (May 3, 2010)

I read Wilson Rawls "Where the Red Fern Grows" when I was a kid, and I think it was the first time I got so immersed in a novel, I never wanted it to end. I felt I was right there in the story with that boy and his dogs, even though his life was completely different than mine ever had been.


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## LadaRay (Apr 6, 2011)

OSHO's Hsin Hsin Ming is a revelation.  Shows that we're a nation of sleepwalking zombies!  Must Read!


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## Craig Halloran (May 15, 2012)

All of my books have changed my life entirely. 
All of the details are so consuming.

Which books have had an impact on my life?
Conan stories.  I honestly think that is why I played football and began weightlifting.


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## Vincent (Jun 25, 2012)

_To Kill a Mockingbird_ by Harper Lee.

It made me a better man and father.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

_The Charioteer_ by Mary Renault. In spite of being female (the protagonists are male and there are few women in it), it was a bolt of lightning that made so much clear about my own life and feelings.

Edit: I was rather young. I have to suppose I would have figured things out eventually anyway. I hope so, but that novel changed my entire life.


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## Louie Flann (Aug 3, 2011)

Works that changed my life:The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Something of Value/Uhuru, Robert Ruark; Atlas Shrugged/Fountainhead, Ayn Rand and the film, Lawrence of Arabia. David Lean.

Before college, I hadn't even thought of reading. I mean, that's like schoolwork. I was pleasantly shocked, however, when we were assigned The Most Dangerous Game for English. It was both interesting and exciting--the two things missing from all of my other classes.

I can't remember any novels that I read in HS. I spent my off hours reading car magazines--Road & Track, Car and Driver, Sports Cars Illustrated--cars, my true love at the time.

Dostoyevsky's The Idiot was recommended to me when I first got to college. It showed me what a good story could be. That turned me onto reading for pleasure. I was a reader.

I didn't have time for recreational reading, my time should have been spent studying and preparing for class. I did sneak in a few novels now and then. The one I remember most was Catch 22. Everyone was reading it. On the train, in the student union, that was all that was being talked about.

Robert Ruark and Ayn Rand were very popular in the early sixties what with the unrest in Africa and the emergence of free thinking here at home. Couldn't have people complaining and rebelling against the status quo now could we? This was in the beginning of my Republican period. It took about two years to outgrow.

And Lawrence of Arabia awakened me to the possibilities of movies above and beyond cowboys and comedies.

Today, I read about three hours a day, almost exclusively mysteries. My son buys me serious non-fiction for my birthday but it takes almost to the next birthday to finish the book. Oh well, at least once I had pith.


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## Miriam Minger (Nov 27, 2010)

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset.  My grandmother as a child knew the Nobel prize-winning author in Norway.

Miriam Minger


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## ksmmike (Aug 7, 2012)

I would say 2 books, "A Catcher in the Rye" because it was the first book that was school work but one I really enjoyed.  The second would be "A Beautiful Song" because it changed my life for other reasons.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I always have to say it's JAWS.  One of the first adult novels I ever read (I had a shark obsession at one time - OK, still do), and it made me want to be a writer.


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## Steven Lee Gilbert (Mar 21, 2012)

Joel Arnold said:


> I read Wilson Rawls "Where the Red Fern Grows" when I was a kid, and I think it was the first time I got so immersed in a novel, I never wanted it to end. I felt I was right there in the story with that boy and his dogs, even though his life was completely different than mine ever had been.


I'd have to agree, this was the book that changed me, or at the least awakened in me the power of storytelling. Watership Down was another one that touched me. And for some reason, The Thorn Birds (though that had more to do with where I was in my adolescence than the book itself, I think).

On a side note: When my oldest daughter read Where the Red Fern Grows and she got to the part near the end, she was sitting at the kitchen table and she looked up at me with tears welling up in her eyes and I knew right away where she was in the book and I felt like crying with her.


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## George Hamilton (Dec 14, 2010)

This is a great question. I love how the books have led to different experiences for those who have responded.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck would be one of mine. I think I was reading it on the train going to work many years ago, when I was playing about at being a writer. When I read the last scene about what Rose of Sharon did for a man dying of hunger, and realized how it related to the theme of the book, I clutched the book to my chest and could hardly breathe. I then desperately wanted to be able to make readers feel as deeply touched by a novel, and spent the next years refining my craft.


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## Elizabeth Black (Apr 8, 2011)

Two novels made a huge impact on me and changed my life: "Siddhartha" and "Gone With The Wind". "Siddhartha" because it taught me to live in the now. It also taught me that what I'm looking for in life could be in my own back yard. I considered Scarlett O'Hara a role model because she was such a survivor. Nothing ever got her down. She was a very strong woman, and I wanted to be like that.


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## Elizabeth Black (Apr 8, 2011)

bordercollielady said:


> When I was growing up - the novel that impacted me was Gone With The Wind. I was swept away by the strength of Scarlett.. her philosophy that "Tomorrow is Another Day" and the quote I remember the most: "As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again".


I loved that second quote as well. "Gone With The Wind" made a huge impact on me.


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## Capri142 (Sep 25, 2009)

All of Ayn Rands books but esp
  
  The Foutainhead
  Atlas Shrugged
  The Anthem

    I read these books back in the 60's when I was in college and probably would never have gone into business on my own nor have been able to retire at the early age I did (to start another business ?) had I not read these books.


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## IB (Jan 31, 2012)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It showed me that there was another take on western civilization before Plato and Aristotle came to define it.


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## FrankZubek (Aug 31, 2010)

With me, it's more an author than any ONE book

And to be fair for the purpose of the thread- it's MISERY by Stephen King. It was the first of his books that I had ever read and several parts in the book made me squirm!

And I have followed most of King's work ever since.

I also admire his work ethic. I mean- he doesn't HAVE to write anymore because he has oodles of cash and yet he enjoys it so much so he just keeps at it

I have to also add Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo. The whole first half of the book has so many humorous passages


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## NancyHerkness (Aug 1, 2012)

Georgette Heyer's novels (my favorite is VENETIA) made me want to write romance...and here I am doing just that. So I would say her books changed my life.


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## vikiana (Oct 5, 2012)

No one novel can change your life drastically but what you have read is a very good information for your mind. Sometimes even some kind of very important events can not turned your life in another direction. But books are these very intimate friends which only reveals their pages for us and give us all they've got! So I think although a novel can not change completely our life it can give us the neccessary "experience" and we can enjoy this proccess for sure.


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## vikiana (Oct 5, 2012)

JezStrider said:


> This may sound ridiculous, but _The Lorax_ was one of the first books I read that had some depth. I was just a kid and I remember picking it up at the library at school. It made me think about the things we're doing to the world. It's the first book I vividly remember checking out. I was so excited on Arbor Day that year because they gave us a tree at school to plant at home. More than twenty years later, the tree is still there.


 i haven't read that book! Can you give me a little bit of information about it?


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## vikiana (Oct 5, 2012)

anne_holly said:


> Very school-girlish, I know, but I read SE Hinton's _The Outsiders_ when I was 8 (to help my high schooler brother do his homework), and I was never the same again. I started keeping my stories in notebooks after that, and it really did switch a light on in me for writing.
> 
> When I was in, I think, the 8th grade my English teacher forced _Catcher in the Rye_ into my hands, and I consumed it. I had never read anything like that before. That, too, changed me. I started to embrace my eccentricities after that, and appreciate that I wasn't like everyone else - and that was okay, and possibly awesome.
> 
> ...


 I wanted to great you and still wonder how you manage to change your life because of a book?? ) It is realy interesting for me,if you have the time to write ))


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## lvhiggins (Aug 1, 2012)

What a great thread!  I've added Catch-22 and The Alchemist to my TBR pile.

For me, it was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.  I read it four times in high school, and each time I got something more out of it.  It made me realize that stories can be read on many levels--that great novels contain deeper truths, buried in the plot.  Magic!


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## Jarrah Loh (Oct 8, 2012)

The Outsiders and the whole SE Hinton Series.

They were the first books that I'd read as a young teen that showed a world closer to mine and problems that I had.
Also, SE Hinton showed that even a young teen can write these amazing books.
I rediscovered them as an adult and I probably wouldn't be working where I am without them.


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## Brian Dockins (May 22, 2012)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower


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## RichardMercer (Oct 13, 2012)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's an interesting book that made me think about how we as humans could so very easily slip into a mere shade of life. Though I didn't really enjoy the book, it was very enlightening.


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## Jenni Norris (Oct 10, 2012)

Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot had a profound effect on me when I was first discovering feminist literature in my late teens. It tells the story of a woman who leaves her family to live alone in the wild, at one with nature. This book demonstrated for me the possibility of an independent life for a woman when I was at a formative age. It was a sad book but it was life changing. 

I don't go out of my way to find feminist books these days, but there are new books out there - the Millennium Triology for example is strongly feminist.


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## daveconifer (Oct 20, 2009)

Wow.  I expected to be thinking "Oh, brother" as I read through this thread, but there are some pretty good answers here.  I must be shallow, I don't think any novel has ever made me budge.  Maybe the next one...


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## Kevin Fernandez (Aug 31, 2012)

How to make friends and influence people is the book changed my life, its awesome.


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## Anisa Claire West (Sep 19, 2012)

Too many to list.  Let's start with Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.  A genuine portrait of the controversy of colonial life in Africa, written by a Nigerian author.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

Great question…

For me it has to be Of Mice and Men, or more specifically the opening pages. When I read those pages I never looked at writing the same way.


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## AanFrazier (Oct 15, 2012)

Charlotte's Web changed my life because of how it drew me into the story. It was a literary adventure that touched my heart as a child . I loved books ever since!


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## dkrauss (Oct 13, 2012)

Alexandra Sokoloff said:


> It's kind of cool and also inevitable that so many people's choices are children's and YA books


Isn't it? I think that's due to how influenceable (is that a word?) we were (are) through middle school. I had 2 that I was reading around 8th grade- Alexander Key's _The Forgotten Door_ and John Fox's _The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come_. _Door_ is the story of a kid from another dimension who falls into ours and brings an Earth family back to his peaceful world. I wanted to go with them. _Shepherd_, despite the nauseating title, is a great story about an orphan who chooses to enlist in the Union Army, contrary to his adoptive family's wishes. That one taught me things don't necessarily work out for the good, and maybe I should stop counting on a happy ending.


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## KM Logan (Jun 2, 2012)

I don't think I could ever choose just one, but I love the Inkheart trilogy, it puts into words why I love reading so much and sets it all in a fantastic world that is merely created by an author's and reader's imagination.  It takes what reading is literally and creates a story around it.


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## J.L. McPherson (Mar 20, 2011)

Deliverance, James Dickey.


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## Devin Smyth Author (Sep 14, 2012)

George Orwell's 1984 opened my eyes to the power of language--how it can be manipulated to control, or at least guide, thoughts. Not that I've ever used that power to my advantage.


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## tahliaN (Nov 6, 2011)

This thread proves that fiction isn't a waste of time. I've heard people say they only read non-fiction because they think there's no value in fiction. Clearly there is, if a novel can change your life for the better. I like books that do more than just make us aware of issues, but actually inspire us to do something about them.

One reviewer said of my book, 'You Can't Shatter me' - I really feel like this book has helped me take a step to really put it [being bullied] behind me. I feel like this book could really help people with their lives, and that they won't even perceive that they're actually learning something because of the cute story that covers it up.


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## Melanie13 (Oct 19, 2011)

Any of Elizabeth Goudge's novels, but particularly The Castle on the Hill, Green Dolphin Street, Gentian Hill, and Pilgrim's Inn.  She had such an amazing understanding of character, and she's the only author I've ever read who can write from the points of view of an eighty-year-old woman, a fifty-year-old man, teenagers, five-year-olds, and sheepdogs, and make them all thoroughly convincing.  Her books remind me of what I want to be, as an author and a human being.


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