1st - Hi 
, hope this is the correct section for this …
2nd - I have never read a book that I can claim changed my life. All the books I have read have been either for information or entertainment purposes. (And I know, getting new info changes your life, but I am talking drastic eye opening change)
So has anyone read a book (other than the Bible) like that and how did their life change?
Thanks
Yes, I read Catcher in the Rye when I was 18 and it confirmed me in my stupidity and basically ruined my life (i.e., the one my parents had hoped for me).
Then I read Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces and looked at the world through that prism 'til I found out he had a strong antisemitic streak in him.
And then I read Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet and that re-confirmed me in my stupidity and reassured the ruination of my life.
Then I dropped acid and books haven’t bothered me much since, although I am always reading them. And my life is still ruined. And I’m still stupid.
I don’t know if I could go so far as say “changed my life” - I didn’t re-direct my life and join the Peace Corps, but “The Magus” by John Fowles certainly grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a strong shake when I was about 22 or so. It was the perfect time to read the book, which is about a young man about that age who, through an intriguing adventure on a Greek island, learns more about himself and what it means to confront himself than he ever thought possible.
Another book that affected me in the same way is Stendhal’s “The Red and the Black” - what a great book.
boobka, welcome to the boards!! Nice to have you here.
I suspect this thread has been done before, but since I’m a Newbie too, I’ll join in.
Your criteria is interesting… books that have changed my life. That is much more restrictive than books that are fantastic or books that are memorable. That list is long and interesting. However, in order for a book to change one’s life it would have to result in a change in behavior or change in how one views life.
Here a a few books that have literally changed my behavior upon reading them…
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey)
…my interactions with other people changed significantly
Punished by Rewards (Kohn)
*…the way I was raising my children changed *
Think to Win (Cannayo)
…I now can recognize illogical thinking
Mythical Man Month (Brooks)
…what can I say, I’m in software development
Here are a couple books that changed my outlook in life…
Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut)
…came at a time in my life when predestination was a comforting concept (an idea I’ve since rejected)
Metamagical Themas (Hofstadter)
…there is an essay on the Prisoner’s Dilemma which helped me understand the actions of others
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
The Dwarf by Par Lagerkvist
Independent People by Halldor Laxness
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom
Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. At the time I read it [age 14], I wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand it as more than really good fiction. That book lead me to read some of her other books, including Atlas Shrugged, Anthem, and We the People. I never fully subscribed to Objectivism, but what I gleaned for myself from the mounds of her philosophy injected into her texts was a certain sense of individuation from the mass populus, and a fair amount of skepticism. This is what I needed at that age: confidence in my own ideas, and the confidence to make my decisions as I saw fit and not soley according to the trend.
However, I never went to the extremes that she advocated [because I approched her ideas with the skepticism she encouraged and it backfired] and I didn’t become her kind of crazy. I’m crazy in my own way ;).
Personally, I think that when you scrap away all the prosletizing she did in her books, they were still rather good stories, albeit long ones…
Slaughterhouse-5 gets a second.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The history of the human race from a gorilla’s perspective.
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. I just finished it a couple of months ago, so I’m not yet sure if it’s changed my life. Perhaps if I read it again.
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
DarkRabbit
Hunger - Knut Hamsun
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (someone had to mention it sooner or later)
Yeah, I read Atlas Shrugged, The Republic of Plato, and The Catcher in the Rye. But those books didn’t change my life…
I can’t say a particular “book” did it, but a magazine sure shaped me during my formative years (not 1-6, but 12-18) that magazine was Playboy. Oh the memories I have. In it’s slick pages I learned:
First and foremost, what women look like without clothing.
Second and perhaps more important that #1, how a lady should be treated. I know most people probably view Playboy as just another skin magazine, but there is some serious advice in there. Through the numerous editorials and “self-help” advice columns, not that kind of self help…, it taught me that women should be treated as a queen should be.
It taught me how to eat and dress with sections on holiday cooking and football party appetizers and stylish sections on clothing.
It taught me how to appreciate movies. In between the naked pictures there often were movie reviews of the current releases.
And finally it taught me how to be a responsible adult. In the letters to the editor and some of the submitted stories I got a view of the mistakes some couples make in their relationships. Mistakes that can be seen ahead of time and mistakes that didn’t need to compound into disasters.
It’s a great magazine.
Aside from that, I think Of Mice and Men change my view of human relationships and really made me appreciate all I have and all I’m capable of.
“Titan” by John Varley
Before I read it, I was pretty much adrift, with the secret dream of becoming a science fiction author. As soon as I finished it, I began writing SF seriously, eventually getting published. Along the way, I developed my writing skills so I could get work as a technical writer, which got me working with PCs, which got me my present career.
However, I can’t for the life of me explain why the book had this effect on me.
When I was in college, a group of us fast-living Bright Young People discovered and fell in love with Evelyn Waugh’s “Vile Bodies.” Patterned opurselves after the characters and LIVED that book and and night for about three years.
We were really annoying.
The Man in the Brown Suit, by Agatha Christie.
Actually, that book always leaves me feeling very depressed.
(a) because I’ve just finished the amazing experience of reading it yet again, and need to let some time go by before the next read (so I don’t learn it by heart)
(b) because all I want to do is BE Anne Beddingfeld, and meet the Man itBS, but I can’t, because they never actually existed
My answer hasn’t really changed since the last time the subject came up: here’s the thread with it.
There was also at least one earlier thread.
Both threads went to two pages, so it’s a popular enough topic, and there are always enough new folks around, that it’s probably worth doing again.
Something completely off the wall for me: Ivan Stang’s High Weirdness by Mail. Basically, the book was a collection of addresses for doomsday cults, self-proclaimed messiahs, visionary artists, UFO abductees, scientific kooks, etc. This book kept me entertained - and my mail box stuffed with some very very peculiar mail - all throughout high school, and helped me to develop an appreciation for the bizarre and unusual.
rackensack, thanks for providing those links. Before I posted my reply above I also did a search, but I didn’t go back far enough (partially because of a little trepidation of consuming computing resources by doing big searches). I appreciate it when dopers who’ve been around longer provide these links.
C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. He showed me that you could believe in a literal God and Christ without being an ignorant fundie.
Starship Troopers by Heinlein. Don’t laugh at me 
Anyways, it was the first book I ever read that gave me a radically different view of political philosophy. It kinda jolted me out of my beliefs of what is “right”. I’m still trying to poke holes in it please don’t do so for me, and I’m not sure if I believe it, but it was the first really different thing I ever read.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe of course, because in it I learned the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything!!!
The Canterbury Tales – I had to read some of it in my tenth-grade English class. It was such a wonderful, eye-opening experience to learn to decipher what Chaucer was really saying about those characters – I think that was the first time I really felt involved in the study of literature. And then we read Romeo and Juliet for the same class, which was my first Shakespeare play. So that course has pretty much influenced my entire academic career… 
(The second semester wasn’t nearly as much fun, though – that was mostly Victorian novels.)