Books are different. I know at least two, right, off the bat for me. Plato's Dialogues and Howard's "Mystic Path to Cosmic Power". Include, also, the works George Seldes. These books shifted my thinking. Showed me something about myself and the world that I'd not been aware of.

 Re: Books that change our lives. - evl bnkr 08:53:08 10/10/04 (0)
 Plato's ideals is silliness and has been influential for too long - Timbo in Oz 19:00:19 06/25/04 (0)
 Re: Books that change our lives. - mes 13:38:42 06/25/04 (0)

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 Re: Books that change our lives. - evl bnkr 08:53:08 10/10/04 (0)
 Plato's ideals is silliness and has been influential for too long - Timbo in Oz 19:00:19 06/25/04 (0)
 Re: Books that change our lives. - mes 13:38:42 06/25/04 (0)
 Re: Books that change our lives. - suretyguy 19:22:23 06/13/04 (1)
 If you've been "outside" you'll know where I'm coming from. - edta 19:06:37 06/16/04 (0)
 Far From The Madding Crowd - Hergest Ridge 15:25:17 06/13/04 (1)
 Stories are important to us, right? - edta 18:18:38 06/13/04 (0)
 Re: Books that change our lives. - Grillcloth 06:02:29 06/13/04 (3)
 Re: Books that change our lives. - edta 19:04:31 06/16/04 (1)
 Re: Books that change our lives. - W 00:06:40 11/10/04 (0)
 And of course - Grillcloth 06:05:13 06/13/04 (0)

Thomas Hardys classic. Nothing profound, just a great story but like generations before me and since any form of literature was ruined at school by endless studying grammatical concepts, sentence structures etc. etc. as if the story being told was of a secondary nature. The result for many of us was a strong distaste for literature of any kind.
5 or 6 years after leaving school i picked up the copy above of Far From The Madding Crowd in a Penguin Classic edition because the wonderful painting on the cover had caught my eye and i started the first page and never stopped. In the 20 years since then i haven't been without a book of some kind close at hand and devour good writing like a hungry man.

Regards
Paul

I know what you mean about literature. I was an English Lit. major who learned to write (somewhat) in school. Some authors are incredibly evocative.

I said that I cut my teeth on Plato and he changed my life. Well, he did. Now that I remember back to when I was a freshman, it was Prof. Johnston and our readings of Aldous Huxley essays that really got me interested in fine writing. I think most of those essays are out of print. I should look them up on ebay.

Be forewarned: These books generally-but not all-have a decidedly political bent, so if you are a big supporter of the current administration in Washington or have spent the past week in deep mourning for Ronald Reagan, you probably won't enjoy them. But you will miss some great literature.

We have let 'the guardians', and their descendents run things for WAAAY too long.

My list.

Recently

3 books by J. Ralston Saul, One is a sort of sceptics dictionary, deliciously cruel about managerialism, and market theory.

discovering Bierce in all his cruel insight, and rediscovering Mencken

Early on,

the bible, esp. the New Testament,

The Book of Common Prayer

Ovid, everything I could.

Virgil - ditto.

Rabelais

Hardy

George Eliot.

Henry Lawson.

Judith Wright.

TS Eliot,

Tolstoy,

Dickens,

Shakepeare's (fully workshopped!) plays.

Dr Johnson and Boswell,

plus Pepys,

John Aubrey, now he's a riot. Actor Roy Dottrice did a one-man show of him in old-age, I wonder if the Beeb ever recorded it?

Diary Of a Nobody.

Thurber, anything.

Milligan, everything

Das Kapital - K. Marx.

Bertrand Russell, everyone on OUTSIDE should read his short dissection / essay of being a POLITICAL person, esp. party political. thanks to him also for "undecideability" and a bunch of good bullshit filters.

And my son's want me to 'get off the net'

Timbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
Peace

Cheers,
W