What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you?
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I can think of three books that I think are a big part of who I am.
The Discworld books influenced my ethics and morals quite a bit, while being at the same time being funny and witty.
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain was the book I read in college and instead of going to university I ended up working as a kitchen hand. I did eventually tire of the work hours and bad pay, but it was in a kitchen I learned what work ethic looks like.
And of course, The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy taught me to always know where my towels is.
@stojg I always just assumed that you always knew where your towel was.
I have a few friends with serious kitchen backgrounds and their work ethic is in each case ferocious.
I find the Discworld books are a bit like The Far Side comics, in that I usually do very well with people who like either one (and I'm guessing there may be a fair bit of overlap in those two groups, too).
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon @afewbugs Pratchett’s Guards books. Sam Vimes taught me how to be a better man
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@aliide It's wonderful that you found this so young. It's such a gift to "reverse the lens" and learn there's more than one version of the the world.
@ShaulaEvans especially when that region is still "part of Russia" after what Russia did to it. So coming in, having been too young to really have learned about Chechnya at the time, then realising the scale of Russian brutality there but also its ...banality? was hugely revelatory.
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@ShaulaEvans @afewbugs oh, indeed. But as a bloke, Sam’s non-toxic masculinity (and his constant drive to Be Better) was, and remains deeply resonant and inspirational.
One can always be more Sam.
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon @afewbugs Pratchett’s Guards books. Sam Vimes taught me how to be a better man
@ShaulaEvans @afewbugs I know you said “book” and I’ve already answered with a series, but my real answer is “the library.”
I even wrote a bloody song about it. https://youtu.be/PsYB4tyTCEQ
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@falcennial I'm with you. I deeply love this books. And I came across them at exactly the right moment for me.
@ShaulaEvans @falcennial I was seventeen when The Light Fantastic came out and already a fantasy fan, so when someone lent me their copies of those first two books I was hooked.
The “reading order” debate for me is easily solved: in the order they came out, as they came out. I feel kind of sorry for anyone’s who didn’t get to experience them like that and I always hope that another generation will get to experience something similar with a different writer. It’s magical.
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Oh my, this is a very difficult question, as I was long a book aficionado.
I guess I would have to say a biography on Jane Goodall. It opened my eyes to the larger world, and showed that kindness can survive and thrive in the world. This was 19-20 years ago.
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
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!
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
@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
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
@ShaulaEvans Simone de Beauvoir - All Men are Mortal. Completely changed my outlook on life and death. I read it at 17. @bookstodon
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
@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. ❤️ -
What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
@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
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
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. -
@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon spell of the Sensuous by David Abrams. Most of the book is about the origination of language and how our environments shape our sounds. It helped me open to the possibilities found in relating to my environment, to keep me open to hearing new forms of language, to keep me listening for song lines from the Earth.
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon @alicemcalicepants Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter convinced me to start an Open University degree in my 40s which led to me switching jobs and being a lot happier!
@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). -
What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
@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. -
@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.@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.
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
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.
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
"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.
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
@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.
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