Is there a particular book that has had a strong impact on you?

Question

It doesn't have to be your favourite book, but something that stayed with you for a long time after reading, or something that means a lot to you.

Surely people can be a little more original than saying the Bible?

Some of mine would include (in case you wondered):-

Emile Zola - Germinal
Bronte - Jane Eyre
Jean Rhys - Good Morning, Midnight
Richard Brautigan - In Watermelon Sugar
Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon

Answer 1

This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
The Condition of the Working Class in England by Frederich Engels
120 Days of Sodom by Marquis De Sade
The Best Short Stories by Guy de Maupassant
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
William Gibson's writing
A porno book I found in my my aunt's bookcase when I was 14; calling it an erotic novel would simply flatter it, it was porn in written form. I say this "impacted" me not because it was a form of sexual discovery but rather the realisation that adults, like me, were perverts. I don't consider myself to have been profoundly effected by another person's work (although that might just be my own romantic vision of myself) but I consider all of the preceding works to have affected my approach to life, my belief about human nature and even my own writing style.

Answer 2

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I read this book a few years ago, it is about a group of young teenages in a gang that went around raping and beating people up just for the fun of it - it was extremely violent (as was the film which was banned until the directors death years later). The reason it has had an impact is at the time of reading it - many years ago, it was chilling - now well over 30 years after it was written it is actualy quite a true reflection of our society. Rather like the Lord of the Flies.

Answer 3

I've just ordered the God Delusion, so I look forward to reading that when I get a chance, (one of my work friends told me about it) On a similar theme 'the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail' impacted on me when I read it, (first time round, not post Dan Brown). it was the first time I heard about the Magdalene theory etc! Being brought up in a unquestionable Catholic school left me ripe for questions!! So this book was fascinating, if not accurate

Fiction wise I remember my mother used to give me her old 'romance novels' which even at the age of 14 I knew were rubbish. So I remember going to the local library and picking up the World According to Garp' by John Irving, and I never read a romance novel since. Thank god....will I be saying that post God Delusion? LOL

Answer 4

"Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West" by Cormac McCarthy, written in 1985. I enjoy most of his novels very much, but this seems to be one of his best. It's about a teenage runaway identified as "the Kid" who gets involved with the Glanton gang's depredations against Americans, Mexicans and Indians in the border areas in 1849-1850, but it is also very much a fixed stare into Hell, in the person of the evil and perhaps inhuman Judge Holden, who devotes his life to conflict and destruction. I first read the novel at least 15 years ago, and have reread it many times since: It remains very powerful still.

Answer 5

David and the Phoenix by Edward Ormondroyd
http://www.amazon.com/David-Phoenix-Edward-Ormondroyd/dp/1930900015/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-0237530-4560701?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190161405&sr=1-2

Papillion by Henri Charriere

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Love Story by Erich Segal

The Hobbit by JRR Tolken

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer

The Trixie Belden series by Kathryn Kenny

Where the Sidewalk Ends/The Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure series

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

The short stories by O. Henry (especially "The Last Leaf" and "After 20 Years.")

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Answer 6

The Bible of coarse.... =]


But King of the Wind and My Friend Flicka has always been special to me ever since I have read it. Also a book my mother received about horses when she was young I have kept also. It always made me cry because at the end, the girl got a horse....I didn't have one at the time and it was so sad. Now I have a horse and all is well!


Also I have a few other books of my mom's that I have kept:
Sword of Shananra series
Scions of Shannara series
and some Margurite Henry books that are really old...=]

Answer 7

The Stand by Stephen King. It's armageddon told by King. A classic tale of Good versus Evil. I was rooting for Stu Redman and the crew in Boulder Colorado like it was happening before my eyes. Great book.

Answer 8

The Gunslinger by Stephen King got my mind wandering in the fantasy direction and that's how I discovered my current project's protagonist.

A year later I sat down and wrote the first line of my first book, so I would call that a strong impact.

Answer 9

Meena: The Heroine of Afganistan, a truly remarkable biography of an amazing woman. It is written by Melody Ermachild Chavis...Or A Handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood

Answer 10

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson