What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you?
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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.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, turned me on to travel, philosophy. I was about 14 when it came out.
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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 @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!
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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 Thicker Than Water by Leonore Davidoff, which I read ahead of a colloquium with the author at the beginning of my Master's in 2012, when I was 23.
It's a monograph about siblings in history that's super engaging because it's such an interesting, human topic and she wrote it in such an accessible way. Not only did it open my eyes to the fact historians are 'allowed' to write like that, but it made me think 'what about only children?' – giving me a topic for my PhD!
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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!
@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon @alicemcalicepants also an honourable mention for Lord of the Rings which gave me a lifelong appreciation for tabletop role playing games and also started me on the path to studying historical swordsmanship which I now teach
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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 Watership Down, which I tried to read for the first time in around 4th grade (on my own, not assigned for school or anything). about halfway through I made the conscious decision that I was missing a lot, that I would probably understand it more fully when I was older, and put it aside. read it again all the way through... not sure exactly when but definitely before or in high school, because that was when I started compiling a Lapine (rabbit language) dictionary. over the years I read multiple copies often enough that the paperback would fall apart, and I'd get another copy and do it again. I have no idea how many times I've re-read it, but I have large chunks of it basically memorized.
it was possibly the first book that showed me what a written masterpiece was, and the fact that it was about rabbits, *from the perspective of rabbits*, made it deeply precious to me. (cont)
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon A random handbook about setting a storefront for a shoe repair business. It was the first (and to a large extent last) time i saw an end to end description of how a work becomes a workshop. How visible and invisible tasks interplay, the role of appearances and underlying reality, balance of flexibility and record keeping, importance of maintenance and tool placement and ergonomics... it also taught me a fair bit about fixing my shoes.
@feonixrift That sounds absolutely fascinating!
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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 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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Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta was real in ways I desperately needed to hear when I read it, back in 2021-22ish. I suspect a reread now would be incredibly insightful.
A lot of the stuff I've seen bringing modern systems and Civilization into question is written in ways I struggle to get my head around. But I remember this felt like walking with a friend, not a scholar flexing all the knowledge they have that you don't. Heady, thinky, sleep-on-it ideas, sure... but the writing style itself was approachable, and I wasn't struggling to 'keep up'.
I think reading it was a push in my current direction, and especially with how thoughtfully I relate to my environment. It was a big influence in lots of tiny ways, I think.
@mouseless How did you first come across the book?
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@ShaulaEvans "The Book of Form and Emptiness" by Ruth Ozeki [2021]:
• one of the first books I read after a long period during which reading itself was difficult for me... reading has always been one of my favorite things, so it helped me reconnect with myself at a time I needed to relearn who I even am
• my mom (who recommended it to me) and I bonded over the similarities between our lives and the MCs' (a teen who starts having psychotic symptoms after his father dies, a now-single mother doing her best to support her son) and we appreciated the perspectives it offered us of each other's experiences (my psychiatrically troubled upbringing, her parenting me through my psychiatrically troubled upbringing...)
• I felt so... seen... like, I've definitely met actual folks like these characters during my own stints at the mental hospital (and dealt with this degree of incompetency from various institutions!!!)
• this is one of those stories that's about everything: surviving adolescence, overcoming bereavement, environmentalism, workers' rights, critiques of the psychiatric system, the importance of libraries...
• The Book itself is a character, and a delightful one at that... I'd like to think all books feel the way about us that This Particular Book does 📚🖤
• the story references—and is what got me into—Jorge Luis Borges, who is quintessential schizo reading material (and has inspired several of my favorite authors... which makes me feel like I'm creatively headed in the "right" direction with my own work)@gemsmoke You are *definitely* on the right path with your work. xo
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Pratchett, for me.
"Like an exercise bicycle it takes you nowhere, but it just might tone up the muscles that will."
Terry Pratchett on fantasy, from The Discworld Companion.
@falcennial I'm with you. I deeply love this books. And I came across them at exactly the right moment for me.
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Watership Down, which I tried to read for the first time in around 4th grade (on my own, not assigned for school or anything). about halfway through I made the conscious decision that I was missing a lot, that I would probably understand it more fully when I was older, and put it aside. read it again all the way through... not sure exactly when but definitely before or in high school, because that was when I started compiling a Lapine (rabbit language) dictionary. over the years I read multiple copies often enough that the paperback would fall apart, and I'd get another copy and do it again. I have no idea how many times I've re-read it, but I have large chunks of it basically memorized.
it was possibly the first book that showed me what a written masterpiece was, and the fact that it was about rabbits, *from the perspective of rabbits*, made it deeply precious to me. (cont)
@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon it's always been very difficult for me to "see myself" in media, for whatever reason--I just don't identify with protagonists very easily, most of the time--and Watership Down's non-human focus showed me that it was possible to write something beautiful, that could be taken seriously by the general population, that didn't center a "normal" human perspective.
over the years, I've come to appreciate it like an exquisitely well-made piece of furniture. I know the grand arcs and the fine details like the smooth sweep of polished woodgrain under my fingertips. I've examined its construction, seen how the parts are fitted together, the craftsmanship that connects each piece to the others. I don't know if I will ever be able to make something so beautiful or enduring in my life, but it's the high mark I will always aspire to.
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@chestas I propose a toast 🥂 to all the Alephs and the Bottlemen out there! to the Bennys and the Annabelles and the Kenjis!!
and, of course, the Books! (which Books...? ALL the Books!!)
@ShaulaEvans -
@chestas What a beautiful and circuitous route to a good place!
I read a lot of Heller and Vonnegut (and other men traumatized by war) around the same age. Heller stayed with me, too. (Most of them did.)
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon @falcennial
I can’t remember the title or the author but I remember reading a non-fiction book in 1984 about rainforest depletion and it made a major contribution to me becoming vegetarian
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Anne of Green Gables. It showed me that it's ok to be ambitious in school, and that wanting to write stories is, if not perfectly normal, at least not unheard of either. I read it at about 7-8 (for the first time, but I've of course read it countless times since).
@kgjengedal @bookstodon I believe that earns you an honorary Canadian passport!
(I can say that: I'm Canadian.) 🍁
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, turned me on to travel, philosophy. I was about 14 when it came out.
@uc @bookstodon It was one of my dad's favourite books! I read his old copy when I was in high school. I loved it then but I'm sure would read it different now (not worse, just very differently).
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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 @alicemcalicepants That is amazing, Neil. Bravo!
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Thicker Than Water by Leonore Davidoff, which I read ahead of a colloquium with the author at the beginning of my Master's in 2012, when I was 23.
It's a monograph about siblings in history that's super engaging because it's such an interesting, human topic and she wrote it in such an accessible way. Not only did it open my eyes to the fact historians are 'allowed' to write like that, but it made me think 'what about only children?' – giving me a topic for my PhD!
@alicemcalicepants Wow! That's amazing, Alice.
I find it inspiring and terrifying in equal measure to consider the random events that can go on to shape a life.
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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.
@bookstodon @ShaulaEvans There are several, but I'll offer up two:
Jean Merrill, The Pushcart War (1964)
Read in the sixth grade of elementary school. It taught me the positive power of subversion, and the importance of solidarity in the face of corruption.
Donald Knuth, The TeXbook (1984)
Read while working as an early-career legal academic. It unlocked in me a passion for, or obsession with, grasping programming logic and putting it to use.
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@kgjengedal @bookstodon I believe that earns you an honorary Canadian passport!
(I can say that: I'm Canadian.) 🍁
@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Ooh! That makes me unreasonably proud :-D
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