# What is the single most influential book you have read? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 24, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759 "2016-09-24T20:29:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759/61 "2016-09-28T04:14:39Z")
_The Razor’s Edge_, by Somerset Maugham. I credit it with giving me the gumption to leave Texas and get out into the world. ---
**Author:** ![Sassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@Sassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sassy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759/62 "2016-09-28T20:16:36Z")
_The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test._ Not so much for the book itself, but for all the other books referenced which I ended up reading: Hesse, Heinlein… It was a turning point in my reading and in some ways my life. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759/63 "2016-09-28T20:48:36Z")
If I had read _Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman_ when I was in high school or college, I’m sure that it would have been most influential on my life. But, regrettably, it hadn’t been written yet. So I’m thinking either James Randi’s _Flim Flam_, which provided me with skeptical tools that I’ve used throughout my life, or possibly James Steranko’s _History of the Comics_, which made me realize that my passion for the comic book medium was not unique, and revealed to me the rich legacy of what has become a lifelong obsession. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759/64 "2016-09-29T11:08:25Z")
I read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse as an early teen, around the same time I was introduced to Buddhism in general. I read lots of books on the subject at the time, but that’s the only one that expressed itself as a fictional novel. It helped a lot of very new ideas really click for adolescent **Fuzzy Dunlop**. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759/65 "2016-09-29T12:05:12Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > In the specifics of Communism, or in the more general sense that there was an alternative way to look at social/political systems? Both, I guess you could say. Within two years of reading it I was an active member of a revolutionary socialist organization I stayed with until I left the States (and still actively support), and the whole perspective of Marxism I’ve tried to deepen myself in and understand further since then has helped me figure out where I stand on some very thorny issues (both current events and more generally philosophical ones). ---
**Author:** ![Mixolydian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Mixolydian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mixolydian)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759/66 "2016-09-29T13:40:28Z")
Robert Pirsig’s _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759/67 "2016-09-29T14:01:13Z")
The singularity is near by Ray kurzweil. It is arguably religion for smart atheists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-you-have-read/766759.md?page=3)