NOTE! This is a thread for books that resulted in tangible, real-life changes in your life or life style.

This is not a thread for "I read x book and it made me cry." unless you finish that sentence with "- so much that I stalked and killed the author for releasing such misery onto the world!" This is not a thread for "I read the Great Gatsby and really identified with the characters." unless you identified with them so much that you changed your name to Jay Gatz and bought a mansion in New York.

This is a thread for books that changed your life in some way. Did you read the Communist Manifesto and spend the next month touting the joys of socialism to your friends and family? Did you read Lord of the Flies and develop a fear of deers? (I've never read the book and thusly don't understand the connection but this actually happened to a friend of mine)

What's a book that affected you and how did it do it?

For me I spent about 2 and a half weeks straight reading every Sherlock Holmes story I could get my hands on. I read them non-stop until I couldn't find any new ones and for 6 days after I stopped reading Sherlock Holmes, I was able to use Holmesian deduction on the people I met. It was easily the best week of my life! I correctly guessed the approximate ages, heights, weights and minor personality points of an entire family I had never met just by looking at the front of their house! For six glorious days I was Sherlock Holmes.

Then I had to read the next Harry Potter book and mess it all up. Ever wish you could just go back in time and hit yourself with a garden rake?

Anyway, what's your story? Which books have affected you?

Sun Tzu's The art of war. It has made me look at the world in a totally new way every action people do every thing they say and everything they don't I haven't put it down I've been re-reading it over and over again.

1984 had quite an impact, as did Burmese Days. Orwell's lonely male protagonists and leftward leaning politics always seem to strike a chord with me.

I have to give a mention to star wars novel Truce at Bakura as it was the unlikely book that got me into reading. Although i'm glad to say i graduated from star wars books some time ago.

Terry Pratchet's Discworld series, all of his books have a satirical humor about the world and how it operates, like how one city in a book made theft legal to reduce crime as long as it was "licensed" crime, and un-licensed theft was punishable by death. It was both amusing and enjoyable, and completely changed how i view the world and interact with people i find myself testing people so see if they mirror these satirical characters populating the book and find there more often than not true, but it could be where i live.

after reading Finding Moon by Tony Hillerman I went and bought Battlefield: Vietnam...does that count?

Seconded on the discworld series, the humour in them is nothing short of epic

Catcher in the Rye affected me a bit, mainly taught me to stop being such a whiny bastard and live life for once , lest i turn into Holden before i hit 18.

War Of The World by H.G. Wells. Just the way it is written captures your imagination and it is like you are sitting at a pub with the narrator as he tells his tale of Martian invasion. The way it is written is like a historical account, rather than pure fiction. You also have the subtle criticism of British colonialism.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

And The Republic by Plato.

Rotating Bread:
1984 had quite an impact, as did Burmese Days. Orwell's lonely male protagonists and leftward leaning politics always seem to strike a chord with me.

Programmed_For_Darr:
War Of The World by H.G. Wells. Just the way it is written captures your imagination and it is like you are sitting at a pub with the narrator as he tells his tale of Martian invasion. The way it is written is like a historical account, rather than pure fiction. You also have the subtle criticism of British colonialism.

I think some of you have subtly missed the point of the thread. You have to say what the book resulted in. We've had lots of threads about what books are good, this one is about what books resulted in some kind of change or action.

the monopoly guy:
after reading Finding Moon by Tony Hillerman I went and bought Battlefield: Vietnam...does that count?

It most certainly counts. The book you read resulted in some kind of action thusly the book affected you.

Hmm...

Rules of Play changed how I play and think about games. I realized I was very picky and focused my attention on ways to satisfy that pickiness by tweaking games I played (for video games, this means using mods and cheats).

War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning changed the way I look at history, culture, and every single item of the news -- not to a ridiculous degree, but still significantly.

-- Alex

A Million Little Pieces by James Fray made me think about addiction and recovery, really getting into the mind of a drug addict going through his rehabilitation.
And how his addiction stemmed from things that had happened to him by no direct fault of his own. It also helped me get a better understanding of the 12-step program and how it doesn't have to be religious.
I'm not an addict by the way or a recovering addict, but this book made sure I stayed that way!

Ummm...... The Shadow Over Innsmouth made appriceiate killing Murlocs in the 2 days I played a trial of WoW.

The Herbert West stories told to always consider morality over advancement.

Khedive Rex:

Rotating Bread:
1984 had quite an impact, as did Burmese Days. Orwell's lonely male protagonists and leftward leaning politics always seem to strike a chord with me.

Programmed_For_Darr:
War Of The World by H.G. Wells. Just the way it is written captures your imagination and it is like you are sitting at a pub with the narrator as he tells his tale of Martian invasion. The way it is written is like a historical account, rather than pure fiction. You also have the subtle criticism of British colonialism.

I think some of you have subtly missed the point of the thread. You have to say what the book resulted in. We've had lots of threads about what books are good, this one is about what books resulted in some kind of change or action.

the monopoly guy:
after reading Finding Moon by Tony Hillerman I went and bought Battlefield: Vietnam...does that count?

It most certainly counts. The book you read resulted in some kind of action thusly the book affected you.

War Of The Worlds affected my writing style and I actually plan on retracing the steps the narrator took through suburban England. Not exactly world-changing stuff; wait till I get around to reading 'Demanding The Impossible' by Peter Marshall or 'The McDonaldisation Of Society' by Alexander Berkman.

Has anyone read the book "Haunted" by Chuck Pahluniuk (he wrote Fight Club folks), and in particular the story "Guts" extracted from it? Basically it is the single most disgusting thing I have ever read. Chuck would read it to crowds on his promotional trips and 4 or 5 men without exception would pass out. I thought this was bullshit, then when I read it it literally knocked me back and I had to stop, take a deep breath and calm down. It is so gross (it's basically about masturbation stories gone wrong, only much worse than you could possible imagine).

The way it affected my life was that I told as many people about this amazing story about masturbation and I got the impression that everyone thought I was obsessed with masturbating for a while. Haha, that's it.

The Prince by Machiavelli took my paranoid distrust of people and their motives and taught me to use it.

well,the book The Ice Man: confessions of a mafia contract killer( the life story of Richard Kuklinski) made me realize the type of environment that a killer-to-be grows up in effects who he is in the future.so when i hear about a court case of a murder I look up the killer and see what kind of background he came from.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton made me not want to go into archaeology.

HP Lovecraft sort of made me realise how little we know of the galaxy and so tiny and unimportant we are.

ThePoodonkis:
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton made me not want to go into archaeology.

Are you currently studying or just wanted to for a while?

PurpleRain:
Are you currently studying or just wanted to for a while?

Wanted to for awhile.

Hmm. I guess mine would have to be House of Leaves. That book comletely changed my view on how to rate or criticize books. The thing just keeps going around in weird ways and is a mixture of many styles. Now, when I read a book I try to think on what the author was trying to put forward instead on a notion on what should the actor put forward to make me get that notion.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand of course, probably more so than any book I've ever read. I mean, this book completely changed my life's direction, my personality did a 180 after reading it. Prior to reading it I was a regular ol' member of the Religious Right, somehow trying to mix the community minded teachings of Christ with the cutthroat business dealings of the freemarket, and frankly it was driving me nuts. Rand's book showed me how the ideals of capitalism run nearly opposite direction of Judeo-Christian morality. So it was gonna either be one or the other. Turns out capitalism won over supernatural belief and so you can say that book was what turned me into the anti-religious hatemonger I am today(well, 4chan and Richard Dawkins sorta did most of that). While I've since moved on from my Objectivist roots, to Nietzsche's "Eh, whatever" morality, I still have a soft spot in my heart for dear old Ayn. She set me on the path from uptight Christian to the kind of person who can laugh at suffering with the best of any /b/tard, and that is something that's made my life much more enjoyable.

The Art of War for the way I now look at people.

Probably the biggest one is actually 12 (14) in the Wheel of Time Series and tolkeins two most famous works, The LotR and the Hobbit. I speak, and act, like a lot of the characters in those books.

*shrugs*

I know this will sound strange, but Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, because it's what actually got me into reading in the first place.

"The Shack" by William P. Young
"7 Habits of Highly Successful Teens" by Sean Covey

God, where to start.

Crime and Punishment, for the incredible portrayal of guilt, punishment, responsibility, etc.

Neuromancer showed me stream-of-consciousness and used it to express thought itself, in ways I only had a tentative grasp on previously.

The Trial, for encapsulating the full breadth of what Kafka could communicate - the ineffability of guilt, of alienation, of paranoia, of resentment. The Metamorphosis may be considered his magnum opus, but The Trial affected me far more.

Any number of Poe's stories, but Berenice, The Tell-tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat, and The Masque of the Red Death taught me to write horror from a young age. I can't really say anything in particular about how I learned from them; that'd be like trying declare which half dozen out of hundreds of nails hold a house together.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for being nothing more than the narrative of one day of a man's life, one of 3650 days that were all the same, and making a masterpiece out of it.

Many, many more, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately.

John Galt:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand of course, probably more so than any book I've ever read. I mean, this book completely changed my life's direction, my personality did a 180 after reading it. Prior to reading it I was a regular ol' member of the Religious Right, somehow trying to mix the community minded teachings of Christ with the cutthroat business dealings of the freemarket, and frankly it was driving me nuts. Rand's book showed me how the ideals of capitalism run nearly opposite direction of Judeo-Christian morality. So it was gonna either be one or the other. Turns out capitalism won over supernatural belief and so you can say that book was what turned me into the anti-religious hatemonger I am today(well, 4chan and Richard Dawkins sorta did most of that). While I've since moved on from my Objectivist roots, to Nietzsche's "Eh, whatever" morality, I still have a soft spot in my heart for dear old Ayn. She set me on the path from uptight Christian to the kind of person who can laugh at suffering with the best of any /b/tard, and that is something that's made my life much more enjoyable.

You were a Rightwing-Relgious-Jesus-praiser?!
Not only have you stunned me that you're still only 15, but you have also now stunned me that you have made such a huge change for yourself.

You restore my faith in humanity

John Galt:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand of course, probably more so than any book I've ever read. I mean, this book completely changed my life's direction, my personality did a 180 after reading it. Prior to reading it I was a regular ol' member of the Religious Right, somehow trying to mix the community minded teachings of Christ with the cutthroat business dealings of the freemarket, and frankly it was driving me nuts. Rand's book showed me how the ideals of capitalism run nearly opposite direction of Judeo-Christian morality. So it was gonna either be one or the other. Turns out capitalism won over supernatural belief and so you can say that book was what turned me into the anti-religious hatemonger I am today(well, 4chan and Richard Dawkins sorta did most of that). While I've since moved on from my Objectivist roots, to Nietzsche's "Eh, whatever" morality, I still have a soft spot in my heart for dear old Ayn. She set me on the path from uptight Christian to the kind of person who can laugh at suffering with the best of any /b/tard, and that is something that's made my life much more enjoyable.

Now, see, I knew someone would say that. Someone always does, and then swarms of people go 'AYN RAND HAET RAAAAAAGHHHHH'. It seems to be an exceptionally divisive novel, and I know for a fact that it is an unholy brick of a book. But say I'm feeling masochistic one day and want to test my endurance with something on par with The Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace; what would I expect from Atlas Shrugged in terms of literature, objectivist philosophy aside?

Well, 1984 turned me from a communist sympathiser to a person who doesn't like socialism what so ever. I know that wasn't its in intention, but still, I feel that capitalism is the way to go.

Yeh, and The Fountainhead taught me that I have to look out for myself, and not depend on others to make me achieve all that I can achieve. The owrld is my oyster, and I'm the one going to crack it. By myself.

Rob Sharona:
Has anyone read the book "Haunted" by Chuck Pahluniuk (he wrote Fight Club folks), and in particular the story "Guts" extracted from it? Basically it is the single most disgusting thing I have ever read. Chuck would read it to crowds on his promotional trips and 4 or 5 men without exception would pass out. I thought this was bullshit, then when I read it it literally knocked me back and I had to stop, take a deep breath and calm down. It is so gross (it's basically about masturbation stories gone wrong, only much worse than you could possible imagine).

The way it affected my life was that I told as many people about this amazing story about masturbation and I got the impression that everyone thought I was obsessed with masturbating for a while. Haha, that's it.

'Guts' is an excellent short story, I genuinely felt queasy while reading it, Haunted is a good book but I felt it got a little convoluted at parts but Guts more than makes up for it.

I recently read 'Eight O'Clock in the Morning', it's a short story that inspired the movie 'They Live', it made me think about how much can be fit into such a small space, give it a try....(http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/9412/8oclock.html)

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dovstoevsky

I wouldn't cite any specific change in my life due to it (except a strong desire to visit a certain grave in St.Petersburg) since it doesn't focus on any one idea. It is the most epic and huge work of philosophy I have heard of. I will reread it a thousand times and discover something new each time.

The Great Divorce - C.S Lewis
Probably one of the most fundamentalistic Christian books ever written. It showed me the very essence of my religion and it has changed the way I think about it for the better.

The end of the last Narnia book also painted a very apealing vision of heaven that I hold to this day.

Ulysses - James Joyce
Showed me the value of freid kidneys for breakfast, something I must try out some day!

John Galt:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand...

while i haven't read the book yet (it's has been laying in my book shelf for a year or so now :/ ) i have read the sword of truth series by terry goodkind, and since he gets a LOT of inspiration from atlas shrugged. and not only is it the BEST fantasy series I have read in my life (so far).
it did change how i thought about politics, life, justice and every other thing i can think of...still i probably only did a 90 degree turn compared to you, having already read some Nietzsche's (I HATE spelling his name!), sun tzu and some other lesser (to me) important writers.

P.S. oh...and a book called "the dwarf" (not sure if that is the English title.) for proving it to me that western nation still employ torture (was forced to read it in school and DAMM that was a painful book to read!)

1984 shaped my political outlook more drastically than anything else. It caused me to go out and actively support Ron Paul solely because of his promise of smaller government.

The Redwall series wins the award for awesomeness, as well as it is what made me want to read. It is the only series that I actually waited intently for the release date of the next book. It is also what made me such a medieval warfare freak. Forget guns and tanks, give me a game about longbows and swords and I'll stay preoccupied all day.

The ragged trousered philanthropists.

One section in particular just made me laugh at the absurdity of the world.

'Owen saw that in the world a small class of people were possessed of a great abundance and superfluity of the things that are produced by work. He saw also that a very great number - in fact the majority of the people - lived on the verge of want; and that a smaller but still very large number lived lives of semi-starvation from the cradle to the grave; while a yet smaller but still very great number actually died of hunger, or, maddened by privation, killed themselves and their children in order to put a period to their misery. And strangest of all - in his opinion - he saw that people who enjoyed abundance of the things that are made by work, were the people who did Nothing: and that the others, who lived in want or died of hunger, were the people who worked. And seeing all this he thought that it was wrong, that the system that produced such results was rotten and should be altered. And he had sought out and eagerly read the writings of those who thought they knew how it might be done.

It was because he was in the habit of speaking of these subjects that his fellow workmen came to the conclusion that there was probably something wrong with his mind.'

As daft as it sounds, White Wolf's Werewolf: The Apocalypse was deeply affecting to the younger version of me. As a teenager, I'd never read anything with such a dark tone. It was quite the eye-opener and that one volume has affected the media I've enjoyed for years.