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.
@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.
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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 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
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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@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. -
@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.
@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.
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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.
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
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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)
@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)
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There is a lovely new edition of Anne of Green Gables out, with hand drawn ephemera which while it doesn't change the text one bit, it is a delightfully self indulgent gift to self if you enjoy the book.
@Printdevil @kgjengedal @ShaulaEvans @bookstodon where do I get this? I have to have it 🤣🥰
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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 @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).
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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.
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.
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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 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.
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@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.
I love it so much I made a fedi bot that posts it @tender_buttons
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@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
@pdcawley @ShaulaEvans @afewbugs
That's beautiful.
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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 Hmmmm. No one book, but a lifetime of reading has set me down a path that brings me to who I am at present.
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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 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.
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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 George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I first read it in high school, and it made me deeply suspicious of “liberators”. It should be mandatory reading in #SouthAfrican schools.
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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 New Mutants #45
The story is about a kid who commits suicide after years of being bullied. His eulogy is performed by a girl he met once because none of his actual classmates ever bothered to get to know him. She uses the platform to excoriate hate just because someone applies a simplistic label like "geek" or "mutant" or "Jew" to someone else.I first read it in high school; I was maybe 15. I was in a very homogenous area where ANYTHING perceived as different (like myself) was mocked and bullied, and the story really resonated with me, making me really understand and appreciate how insanely stupid labels like that are. I judge people on who they are as an individual, not on some broad categorization.
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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 As a kid, my desire to understand every word (English is not my first laanguage) in this book was the beginning of a fulfilling path for me.
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@satsuma @alicemcalicepants I used to know people in historical swordsmanship circles! I wonder if you've ever come across Brad Waller?
@ShaulaEvans @alicemcalicepants I’m in the UK but I think we might have a connection via Prof Mark Donnelly who started the group I was involved with before moving back stateside
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@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).@davidramirer @ShaulaEvans @bookstodon @alicemcalicepants I got started with an online lecture series from MIT that introduced some of the ideas
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undefined oblomov@sociale.network shared this topic
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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.
I feel like the books that I most treasure are the ones that slotted perfectly into voids within me. They didn't change my shape so much as they gave me substance.
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