I almost listed Shogun. I read it in Japan when I was 19. I don’t think there could’ve been a more perfect time and place. The whole thing blew me away, not just the end. I did love, though, how you were left guessing about Toranaga until literally the **very last page. **
Thirded on Shogun. The first book I read which I wished had gone on longer. I didn’t want to finish.
The LOTR Trilogy, of course.
Solaris the novel. Very different from both movies. I actually read a Russian translation after trying and failing to get though the English translation, and I was glad I stuck it out. I thought it vividly portrayed what an actual alien encounter would be like, and I loved how it explored alienation, the natural distortions of memory, and the futility of trying to right past wrongs. It just worked on so many levels, and it actually helped clear up some confusion in my personal life.
The Trial by Franz Kafka, particularly Before the Law. I read this book during a very unstable, emotional period of my life, and it helped put things in perspective. Thanks to this book and an unhappy relationship, I was able to get to the next phase of my life. I owe Franz Kafka a lot.
Sex Tips for Girls by Cynthia Heimel. Don’t let the title fool you; it’s for everybody. Cynthia basically explained to me what I had been doing wrong in relationships all those years, and while I don’t owe Cynthia quite as much as I owe Franz, I still owe her quite a bit.
For Whom the Bell Tolls blew me away too. I’m not sure if it’s Hemingway’s best work, but it’s my favorite. People do really weird things after reading Hemingway. I read this book very soon after I read The Trial, and then I went out and joined the army. Thanks, Ernie! :dubious:
John LeCarre’s Karla Trilogy changed my thinking too. I read it during my last year in the army, and I liked George Smiley right off the bat. I was going through another turbulent period, and LeCarre’s hero taught me that you don’t have to have biceps and washboard abs to be a man. I just enjoyed reading how a short, fat, old guy basically saved England’s ass without so much as a thank you in return. I did want to smack him over his wife, though. George should have kicked her ass to the curb.
What can I say? I’m eccentric, and I love to read.
I was blown away by The Terminator. I was not expecting anything near that good and well thought-out. It was very well conceived and executed, with wonderful touches of dark humor throughout (many of which you don;t pick up on the first viewing), and at the end Cameron ties up loose ends you hadn’t realized were there. From the TV ads, I’d been expecting a low-budget film with people in rubber masks running around LA.
Then a couple of years later I got hit again. I expected RoboCop to be low-level stupidity, especially after I saw the ads. Once again, I got a savvy dark comedy. The sequels never came close to the effect of the original.
There are lots of films I like better, but it was the unexpected excellence of these two that really blew me away.
Star Wars, too (as mentioned above), really drew you into its universe. And, again, I hadn’t been expecting anything so good. The trailer I’d seen the previous January had a brooding musical score (not John Williams), didn’t use Lucas’ crisp yellow-piping-on-black logo, and chose poor scenes to give a taste of the film. It certainly didn’t convey the adventure and exuberance of the movie. SF films in the years immediately preceding this were certainly not action-adventure this involving (We had things like Logan’s Run, Rollerball, Demon Seed, and the Planet of the Apes sequels. The subversive Dark Star hardly made a ripple.)
In books, I was blown away by T.H. White’s Once and Future King.
Many years later, I was startled by The Best of Cordwainer Smith. I
'd read Scanners Live in Vain and The Ballad of Lost C’Mell, but didn’t realize that they were connected, or part of a connected universe.
For the Hemingway fans here, may I recommend Joe Haldeman’s The Hemingway Hoax, which is simultaneously (1) an interesting meditation on Hemingway’s continuing influence on Western culture, (2) a clever crime story, and (3) a delightfully twisty-turny alternative-universe story.
It was Life of Pi for me. The end just gives me chills.
Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human
The definition of “friends” near the end of Chapter 1, the subtle psychic command that took me 50 pages to realize was a command, and defeating the bad guy by “opening his monkeysphere” all seemed like such wild, out-there concepts that were so well done, I was nearly in tears from them.
Also, his short story “A Saucer of Loneliness” was amazing when I was 14, though I can’t remember why.
And Seconding Flowers for Algernon, as it made me tear up a bit at the end.
I’m a big Batman fan and after watching the Batman series fall apart, I didn’t even plan to see Batman Begins. It was the only thing playing when we got there though, so we decided to watch it. I was blown away with it. I still think it’s better than The Dark Knight just because I wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere near that good.
I can think of a few books that floored me simply because their message was so utterly different from everything that I had learned growing up. The first was Catch 22, which I read when I was a sophomore in college. The idea that anyone might criticize America’s role in World War II clashed completely with my mindset. Further, the portrait of life in the military and the bureaucracy was so true to life that I couldn’t ignore it.
The other example was Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, which I started reading during senior year. Before that time I had only been exposed to positive portrayals of academics and taught that anyone who was anti-intellectual was merely stupid. It was a complete shock to see an intelligent author like Pratchett using professors as clowns. Once he let the cat out of the bag, however, it was hard not to see some sense in it.
When I was a teen it was Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light.
Another vote for Flowers for Algernon, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (book and movie).
Dittoes to Star Wars, No Country for Old Men, Pan’s Labyrinth and more recently, The Orphanage.
And Raiders of the Lost Ark – not only did we forego popcorn and potty breaks, I don’t think we breathed. Talk about nonstop action, and funny! We knew when we left the theater that we’d seen something original and different.
Also the first Nightmare on Elm Street and the original Night of the Living Dead, Jaws, and American Graffiti.
That’s starting to look like a favorites list, but really, those movies made me grateful I was able to see them. Very special.
A few for me (this is definitely an incomplete list):
Short fiction: “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” and “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges.
Long fiction: The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison; The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson.
Nonfiction: The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman; The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte.
Film: Cremaster 3 by Matthew Barney.
Art: The Laguna Art Museum display of works by Stanislav Szuklaski. (One reviewer wrote that walking out of the museum was like waking from a fever dream.)
Wings of Desire, the Wim Wenders film - “Als das Kind Kind war…”
Blade Runner, the Ridley Scott Film - “Time to die.”
Atmosphere - the Joy Division song - “Walk in silence. Don’t walk away, in silence”
Salterello - the Dead Can Dance version - indescribably beautiful.
Blue Bell Knoll - the Cocteau Twins song - again, indescribably beautiful
Good Omens - the Pratchet/Gaiman book - just perfect, and perfectly funny
Watchmen - the Alan Moore comic - “Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise!”
After the final scene in Memento, I sat in silence by myself in my bedroom, unaware the credits had already finished rolling and it was pitch black. It took me at least ten minutes to come back to my senses and realize it was just a movie and I was now back in the real world.
The Stars My Destination picked me up, shook me around a bit, and dropped me, breathless with excitement, back on the couch.
That reminds me: The last short story I read that blew me away was Fondly Fahrenheit, by Alfred Bester. Knocked me right on my ass. 
Lonesome Dove was an amazing reading experience for me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so completely drawn into a setting as I was with this book. And the characters! It’s the only book I can recall where I cried when one of the characters died.
I’ve been blown away by a lot of short stories. I think it’s an grossly underrated medium.
Yeah, a lot of Stephen King’s early short stories blasted my head too.
Another short story, The Man Who Folded Himself, really got me thinking about decisions I’ve made in my life and how things might have been different whether for good or for bad. I was thinking about that daily for a good couple of weeks after I finished it.
Picked this book up today at the Salvation Army based on this.