What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you?

[rowlandm@disabled.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon

One Minute Nonsense by Anthony de Mello.

I don't remember when but I do remember where.

Lifeline bookfest in Brisbane. I bought it for $1 and I still have it!

[jimmyb@mas.to]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon I’ve had a few… The Prophet, as a precocious 16 year old: I realised that other religious folks believed stuff as deeply as I did, so how did I know what was true? Silent Spring which was my beginning of understanding quite how fucked we are by the corporate world. Maybe the Hobbit when I was 10 and I had an epiphany about how literature could seriously hook me (again with Day of the Triffids). Been a reader since. So many books have shaped me

[fiederels@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans Simone de Beauvoir - All Men are Mortal. Completely changed my outlook on life and death. I read it at 17. @bookstodon

[tremenne@mementomori.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon
The Hobbit set a path for fantasy literature when I was a kid, but most profound change happened after reading When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone. It was a starting point for pure spiritual rebirth and joy. ❤️

[mpaola@mastodon.nl]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon I think the book that shaped me the most was Treading Lightly, KE Sveiby, T. Skuthorpe. I was a corporate Knowledge Manager at the time and read this book from a renowned KM professor: it was supposed to be about storytelling, a rather hot topic in KM at the time. The other author, the storyteller, is an aboriginal elder, and that's what changed me: his point of view on knowledge and human interaction with nature is what turned my life around #books

[fritzoids@mas.to]

@ShaulaEvans

the Discworld series, of which Small Gods is the first one to have made my brain go "oh!"
Simon Winchester's Krakatoa and Outposts which made me realize that non-fiction could be an entertaining read.
Isabel Wilkerson's Caste because it gave me a different way of looking at how people interact with each other.
And Ursula Markham's How to Deal with Difficult People; it is a weird choice for a 13yo and deals with office life... but it helped me deal with my family a lot.

[falcennial@mastodon.social]

@MamaLake @ShaulaEvans @bookstodon amazing!

[davidramirer@wien.rocks]

@satsuma @ShaulaEvans @bookstodon @alicemcalicepants
Gödel, Escher, Bach "switched my mind on" when i was 15 years old; i did not understand all in the book, but my mind was altered, and in a positive way. since then i check and double-check everything i read or see (or think).

[herbz@cyberplace.social]

@bookstodon @ShaulaEvans The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - I read the book the first time maybe 8 years ago. Since then, I return to read it again every other year.
It came at a rather bleak time in my life and started me on a path to reevaluate my values and act more towards how I want to be. I treasure this book because it finally made me realize that how I was and how I am are not how I will be or must be.

[herbz@cyberplace.social]

@bookstodon @ShaulaEvans Another great book for me was "Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging" (read maybe 5 years ago the first time) - I felt like it put into words what I was feeling missing in my environment at that time. It gave me a way to say / describe what I am looking for.

[golgaloth@writing.exchange]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Read that in my early twenties and it helped consolidate what a load of old bullshit the right wing of politics are pumping out. Such a blatantly awful book. I couldn't even finish it.

[juergen_hubert@mementomori.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon

"Cosmos" by Carl Sagan, back in grammar school. It motivated me to study physics, and even though that's not the career I ended in, it nevertheless set me on my path.

[steveclough@metalhead.club]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon It is a hard one to find a single book. So I will have to go with my favourite book, which is Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Why? Because it introduced me to imagination, to fantasy, to the idea that there was something else other than this world.

It told me that there could still be wonder in the world.

Also, it is a whole lot of fun.

[nusher@mastodon.scot]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon There’s just too many! Reading a book of Sylvia Plath’s poetry when I was about 11 or 12 affected me deeply. Nevil Shute’s book On the Beach also made a huge impact re nuclear holocaust,read at a similar age.

[elessimo@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon

'Germinal' by Emile Zola, paperback, read when I was 17; helped reinforce my nascent anti-capitalist outlook that I still have today, 50 years later.
Extraordinary book.

[nicelymanifest@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon 'The systems view of life'. About systems and their unpredictable behaviours. Sounds dull but very much not. Human body, society, politics, economics - all complex systems - yet simplistic proclamations made with scant regard to that complexity.

[leguinian_utopia@union.place]

@ShaulaEvans I was about 14 years old (of course I read a lot of books before that and they probably influenced me as well, but this is the first example that came to my mind) when I read The Last Unicorn again and again and again, for the tiny school library (that was also the theater performance room) had a copy. I read it so many times and it influenced me deeply on mortality, surrealism and storytelling. When I was smaller The Neverending Story and Momo did the same

[bovaz@misskey.social]

@ShaulaEvans@zirk.us @bookstodon@fedigroups.social Almost anything from the #discworld by #terrypratchett, but if I have to pick "mine" I'd say it was probably "Guard! Guards!" that cemented a lot of what I think of people and what I want to strive to be able to think of myself.

[frantasaur@mastodon.ie]

@bovaz @ShaulaEvans @bookstodon also for me, that and #terryPrachett night watch should be required reading for everyone in schools (or the US: Did you get a receipt for that prisoner?)

“ You took an oath to uphold the law and defend the citizens without fear or favor," said Vimes. "And to protect the innocent. That's all they put in. Maybe they thought those were the important things. Nothing in there about orders, even from me. You're an officer of the law, not a soldier of the government.

[gsymon@mstdn.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon

Not a book... but a poem:

My grandpa ran away from home when he was 16yrs old, to another village in the Scottish borders where he wasn't known, so that he could join the army to fight in World War I.
~60yrs later, when I was also ~16, I studied *Strange Meeting* for my English Literature, school 'Higher' exam. I knew it well. Nothing has changed.

#War #Fascism #Putin #Trump #Poetry #StrangeMeeting #WilfredOwen