Said this before in a similar thread:
The Fall and Rise of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond.
Another vote for The Illiminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, for precisely the same reasons.
Anything by Carl Sagan, especially COSMOS and THE DEMON HAUNTED WORLD. Every doper should read those. SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS is another good one.
Bertrand Russel’s WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN opened my eyes as well.
I read ‘The Demon Haunted World’ and Shermer’s ‘Why People Believe Weird Things’, as well as Gardner’s ‘Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.’ Thing is, by that time they were just preaching to the converted - I was already on the team.
However, James Randi’s ‘Flim-Flam!’ was a big step on my journey to that point.
I thought a little more about this last night and I I should throw a few more in there like Into the Wild by Jon Krakaur
The Dragons of Eden By Carl Sagan
My favorite Quote from Dragons of Eden:
Even thought it scares my intellectual self, the best part of being human is the ability to deceive the self.
All Quiet on the Western Font.
Catcher in the Rye.
Youth in Revolt: C.D. Payne, absolutely hilarious.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: William Shirer, took months to read.
Nothing Like it in the World: Stephen Ambrose, chronicled the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Lonesome Dove.
I started reading Heinlein in the 8th grade (1954) and eventually read all of his work. He was a major influence on who I am. Partly because he got such an early start on me.
I was also strongly affected by Ayn Rand’s “Anthem” and Desmond Morriss’s “The Naked Ape”.
There is a whole raft of others, but this the kernel.
Ya Know? I left out the Bible. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian setting. I grew up believing in God, the Golden Rule and the absoluteness of good and evil.
I now still believe in (hope for?) a universal goodness and fear a universal evil. Absoluteness is a lot fuzzier around the edges than it was when I was young. But, the Bible did have a major effect on my development.
Life can be difficult for an agnostic with fundamentalist leanings.
The two that come to mind for me are:
Atlas Shrugged - I read this at age 13, because Sondra Marshak (co-writer of Star Trek Lives!) recommended it. I was a little daunted by its size (and my English teacher looked at me funny when I brought it into reading period and dumped it on my desk), but I persevered and it did a lot to change my way of thinking at that impressionable age.
Lord of the Rings - Read this in junior high (probably age 11) and it began my lifelong interest in the fantasy genre and, indirectly, RPGs.
i have to join the ayn rand bandwagon and say that the fountainhead, which i read like my sophomore year of high school, definitely made me think about the world in different ways.
the golden notebook, by doris lessing is another really big one for me. it’s at the top of my recommended books list. dense, slow reading, but amazing.
critical practice, by catherine belsey and feminism and postructuralism by chris weedon were huge for me in thinking about language and literature.
Amen brother.
All these books I read young (<18 years old) and had an effect on me. These books actually changed how I perceived the world and operated in it:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence. Great book. The only book I highlighted and marked passages that I still open and read today.
- Real eye opener.
Tom Swift books. Probably caused me to be very interested in science and Math.
The Grapes of Wrath. I know it probably sounds weird but I read this book at the exact right time in my life. It filled me with resolve and determination when I really needed it.
Is everybody here some kind of genius? What an amazing collection of book lists.
GONE WITH THE WIND – I read it the summer after my father died, I was 13, and I didn’t realize until I was about 40 that it’s all about loss and how you go on and that’s exactly what I was processing, that year and for many years following.
all the SHERLOCK HOLMES stories – they taught me to look closely, to question, to draw my own conclusions based on what I saw and deduced
all of EUGENE O’NEILL – because it’s just one big dysfunctional family
Nancy Mitford’s THE PURSUIT OF LOVE – because I read it the first time I went to Paris and it was insanely witty, romantic, heartbreaking, and stylish – all the things I wanted to be in the first year of my career in New York.
ALTARS IN THE STREET by Melody Ermachild Chavis – it’s about neighborhood activism but taught me more about kindness and compassion than any book I’ve read.
Bruno Bettelheim’s book on fairy tales, THE USES OF ENCHANTMENT.
THE CAT IN THE HAT – one of the most wonderful extended metaphors for the creative process ever written.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS – read last year, on every page thought I’d died and gone to heaven with the sheer joy of Dickens’ use of language.
THE CORRECTIONS, Jonathan Franzen – no one agrees with me, but it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read – for the lengths he takes his characters and the way he loves them with all their insane imperfections, quiddities, neuroses, and sometimes repellant personality traits.
KING LEAR – for Cordelia – and MACBETH – for Lady M and her descent into madness, and for all the great lines.
When I read the question I didn’t think I’d be able to answer it – thank you for getting me thinking. I think the list will grow in my head but I’ll stop here.
AR
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes.
** ARLA ** welcome to the SDMB. With the looks of your list, you will fit right in here. Especially with the realization that:
I actually live very close to the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center. I love his work as well.
** Merejane ** This is a very freaky coincidence. I just woke up and was looking at my “need to read book shelf” and Jaynes Book is up there. I guess I should pick it up again and take another gander at it. It has been a while since I read it. At least since I was in College in the eary nineties. 
thanks for the coincidental motivation. Sychronicity is where it’s at.
Sense and Sensibility, when I was 19.
Although I had previously read and enjoyed Pride and Prejudice, it was Elinor Dashwood (also a girl of 19) in this book that made me realize that Jane Austen had a philosophy of life and how to conduct one’s self properly in it.
While I don’t always live up to it (and doubt that Jane did either), I still see it as a good model for how to behave, especially when faced with people you don’t like but have to deal with.
Descent of Man by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Candide by Voltaire
I read these two books during my first year of high school, and it was like a jolt to my mind that reading could be so entertaining.
PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS BOOK
-THE MGT.
Anyone else out there more moved by Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil than Stranger in a Strange Land?
Good book - ever had the experience of extreme drowsiness (or other distraction, for no physical reason) while reading this book, because (oddball theory alert) it seems your brain doesn’t want you to be thinking about the workings?
-AmbushBug
Fat! So?
Since we aren’t apologizing for our choices, I’ll recommend this book for every woman who doesn’t like her body. I’ll never diet again.
A novel called The Sun Destroyers was my introduction to philosophical science fiction, and when I relocated my library, it got lost and I don’t remember who wrote it.
The Dispossessed, by Ursula LeGuin, one of the best novels of the twentieth century.
The Bible didn’t exactly change my life as much as shape it.
Or practically every other book I have ever read. If it doesn’t change you, what is the point in reading it?
Regards,
Shodan
Hugo’s Les Miserables, because it got me reading. Read it the first time at 14. After reading it I went on to his other works, then other French writers, then to the Russian authors. I’ve been a heavy reader ever since.
Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, because they got me thinking.