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

[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

[frantasaur@mastodon.ie]

@troodon @ShaulaEvans @bookstodon I first read this book when I was 9, and stopped counting rereads after 52. I still read it once every few years. The thing that really resonated with me was the non-human perspective. Since then I have always sought out these kinds of books (Martha Wells is great at this, especially her Raksura books)

[frantasaur@mastodon.ie]

@Printdevil @kgjengedal @ShaulaEvans @bookstodon where do I get this? I have to have it 🤣🥰

[frantasaur@mastodon.ie]

@kgjengedal @ShaulaEvans @bookstodon another one of my favorite reads. That and the Emily books (I identified strongly with her description of “the flash” which I also experience but have never seen described anywhere else).

[cainmark@mstdn.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon

Richard Bach's "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" got me to think "wider". I'd always thought deeply internally, but not about how each of us affects one another. I was 12. I hadn't heard of "Plato's Cave" yet, which would have been a similar experience.

[rmiddleton@mastodon.art]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein was assigned to me in a first year college seminar. It broke my brain in the best way. My lifelong struggle is with meaning, expectations, "shoulds." This book length prose poem is "abstract writing" or dada or deeply symbolic. Or all or none of that. I can understand that some may hate (be disappointed in) abstract art. To me it's life affirming. Time spent playing with thoughts is valuable. Art for art's sake.

[rmiddleton@mastodon.art]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon

I love it so much I made a fedi bot that posts it @tender_buttons

[cainmark@mstdn.social]

@pdcawley @ShaulaEvans @afewbugs

That's beautiful.

[inkyschwartz@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Hmmmm. No one book, but a lifetime of reading has set me down a path that brings me to who I am at present.

[samueljohnson@mstdn.social]

@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Teach Yourself the Slide Rule by Saffold and Smalley.

Random find in local public library as a late teenager. Without acquiring the knowhow I wouldn't have survived first year physics at university (new subject for me) in the last year calculators were still banned. The failure rate was 50%. I scraped an honours, avoided repeats, spent the summer in NYC.

Still have that slide rule.