Currently
Reading QOTW has changed my life - I used to have one before signing up. Now, I find myself unable to resist having a quick look to see if anything has been posted recently, then the next thing I know two hours have passed me by and my coffee's gone cold. This can be a problem, especially at work.

However, on saying that I do find that QOTW has the capacity to be extremely well written, laugh-out-loud-spitting-coffee-at-the-screen funny, poignant, thought provoking, outrageous, occasionally offensive, heart warming, stimulating, nonsensical and arousing - sometimes in the same post.

So for everyone out there that has made me laugh, cry, think, send cyber hugs to, scratch my head in puzzlement, rant or spluff, have a big clicky from me.

Thanks QOTW.

:-)


God, I'm not even drunk. How smushy was that?
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Sun 18 May 2008, 13:06, 16 replies)

The Great Classics changed my life?
I could write all about the profound affect the great classics, modern and ancient alike, have had upon my life, my intellectual development and the way I conduct myself in society.
I could write about reading Jane Austen's Emma at the age of 16 for A levels and loving it…but I'd be lying.

I can be highbrow some of the time but no one seems to have mentioned yet the benefits - for a young girl - of reading the following authors….

Virginia Andrews - The Flowers in the Attic books
I wonder if this has ever been translated into German?

It tells the story of children being imprisoned in the attic of a house…the eldest sister and brother begin an incestuous relationship and produce their own children.

Jackie Collins - Hollywood Wives, Husbands, Lucky, etc. etc.
It's generally recognised that men tend to have a visual sexuality - they're turned on by what they see. Women tend to have an auditory one - turned on by what they hear and by extension, by what they read. I realise these are sweeping statements, blah, blah, blah….

But for me at the age of 12 or 13 Ms Collins was the first bit of smutty writing I'd come across…quite literally.

Danielle Steel -
Going Home (1973)
Passion's Promise (1976)
Now and Forever (1978)
The Promise (1978)
Season of Passion (1978)
Summer's End (1979)
To Love Again (1979)
Loving (1980)
The Ring (1980)
Palomino (1981)
Remembrance (1981)
A Perfect Stranger (1981)
Once in a Lifetime (1982)
Crossings (1982)
Thurston House (1983)
Changes (1983)
Full Circle (1983)
Love: Poems (1984)
Family Album (1985)
Secrets (1985)
Wanderlust (1986)
Fine Things (1986)
Kaleidoscope (1987)
Zoya (1988)
Star (1989)

I've stopped at the end of the 80s because by then I'd realised that her books are formulaic and happy endings don't always happen. I also finally developed my cynicism.



But just about everything I expected from a relationship was formed from these books. I was, I am an unashamed romantic. And these books fed that within me.

So why don't I read stuff like that anymore?

The same reason I don't read Enid Blyton anymore - I've grown up.

But I won't deny that they changed my life. Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Dickens and Shakespeare didn't…

Okay, I'm shallow honest.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Sun 18 May 2008, 10:51, 1 reply)

It had a Loch Ness Monster thingie on the cover.
Truth be told I've read plenty of books that have captivated and entertained me and a few that have given me a better insight into the way the world is and was.
Unfortunately I cannot for the life of me think of a book that has genuinely changed my life. Except possibly for:
I was about ten and from somewhere I had acquired a book about weird happenings. I'm fairly certain I'd never read anything like it before. The two that stuck in the mind were the infamous vanishing regiment of Galipolli and something about a Roman skeleton that was supposedly roaming a museum at night up until it was found one morning with a blade stuck between its ribs. Bollocks, obviously, but at the time it was the most awesome thing I'd ever come across and it steered me into a lifelong fascination with fantasy, Forteana and pretty much anything else that adds colour to a grey world.
Pity I can't remember what it was called.
(Big D, Sun 18 May 2008, 10:47, Reply)

Hmm...
A book that changed my life? Was it Great Expectations? The way I was able to identify with Pip's conflicts and the book that taught me that money doesn't always make you happy, that bitterness is destructive and that your life is what you make of it. Foucault's Pendulum? That kept me in awe of the author the whole way through? Homage to Catalonia that for a short time bridged the gaping chasm between me and my father? The Outsiders? Shadow of the Wind? Wuthering Heights? Hamlet? The Island of Apples? Amazing stories all.



It was The Wisdom of Winnie the Pooh. Having been kicked out by my father, put myself through my A'Levels when living with and the having a spectularly nasty breakdown with a highly unsuitable boyfriend I read this little book. It contains the line, 'When your house doesn't look like a house and looks like a tree that has fallen on a house, it is time to get a new house.' If things are bad, get out and move on. Simple but effective. It took me years to see the end of the tunnel but I'm there. And I'm not ashamed to say the humour of that book helped.

I've actually come full circle. I'm happy. I'm getting married to a fantastic man and now the last lines of Great Expectations are more significant than they have ever been.

But I'm not going to tell you what they are. You have to read it for yourself. :)
(Medibot, Sun 18 May 2008, 10:39, Reply)

What should I do with my life by Po Bronson
I was working in a fairly high pressure job, flitting between two countries every two weeks. the money was good but I had lost my passion for it and I had NO life outside of 'the job'.

Then I read Po's book and came to realise that I was not 'stuck' and had the freedom to do whatever the hell I wanted.

I sold my house, quit my job and for the past year have been seeing the world. Europe, SE Asia, the U.S.A and more to come.

I am also getting married in a month. I am 35.

I don't miss any of my old life, don't miss the money and I get up every day wanting more. What better way is there to live your days?
( BadBadman saw an incorrect comma placement on, Sun 18 May 2008, 9:45, Reply)

reading Nietzsche would have changed my life,
except that when I read it I was already an arrogant, emotionally immature 15 year old.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 18 May 2008, 5:03, Reply)

The Second Half of My Life
It's the Renee Richards story. It changed my life because I FINALLY knew I wasnt a total freak! :) Thank You Renee for writing that book!

Renee was a professional tennis player and a world reknown eye surgeon and in 1976, she changed genders. It was quite an ordeal! But its pioneers like her that made MY life so much more possible.

YAY Renee!
Ciao!
(ThatGirl The Girl Formerly Known as A-man-duh, Sun 18 May 2008, 4:39, Reply)

There have been a few books that have inspired me over the years.
The one that stands out in recent memory is 'Dangerous Parking' by Stuart Brown. It is without doubt one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. It's a story of a man who overcomes alcohol and drug addiction, and rebuilds his life only to be faced with a bigger battle when he is diagnosed with cancer. It's funny, honest and not mawkish or sentimental - yet I cry every time I read it.

In the book there is a little piece about him being taken to a bar by a guy named Tiny who had been sober for many years. The bar is a dive, full of big hairy bikers and the like - the kind of bar where everyone stares at you before spitting on the floor. Tiny (a 6'2" hairy Hells' Angel with a beard) walks up to the barman and asks for a pint of milk much to the consternation of the barman and the derision of the rest of the punters. He eventually gets his pint,, drinks it and then leaves...and outside the pub tells the protagonist that it is far more important to do what you know is the Right Thing rather than to do what is expected of you and considered 'normal'.

'Go for the milk' is one of the best bits of advice I have ever been given.

The man who lent me the book was a man who I had fallen in love with, but who was due to fly out to Australia to work for a year. I couldn't join him due to commitments at home, and everyone told me that I was wasting my time. We'd not been together long, and there was no way we could survive a long distance relationship. People all around me told me that I should forget it, walk away from it and concentrate on finding a man nearer home.

Logically they were probably very right, but I knew I had to follow my heart and my instinct regardless of what everyone else had to say. Everytime I wavered, every time I doubted, the phrase 'Go for the milk' would pop into my head.

My boyfriend never went to Australia. He didn't want to leave me. He went for the milk too, and now we live happily together. I like to think that Dangerous Parking had something to do with that :D
( Wicca'd Witch needs ideas for a new sig on..., Sat 17 May 2008, 22:16, Reply)

'I Hate It Here.'
'Hi. I’m Spider Jerusalem. I smoke. I take drugs. I drink. I wash every six weeks. I masturbate constantly and fling my steaming poison semen down from my window into your hair and food. I’m a rich and respected columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper. I live with two beautiful women in the city’s most expensive and select community. Being a bastard works.'

After a solid year of reading as many classics as I could (and now I firmly believe that every sixteen year old girl should have Pride and Prejudice thrust upon her, so that she can fall in love with Darcy and all things regency, as I did) I got a bit bored and whilst Wikiing came a certain comic series.

There is no way that a misanthropic gonzo journalist (based on Hunter S. Thompson himself) who lives in a dystopian future full of transhumans and kitchen appliances on drugs can ever be a bad thing, right?

Right.

Transmetropolitan.

It's a bloody awesome series: the politics aren't the crux of the plot but are definitely enthralling; the characters genuinly develop and the pace is almost too fast to hold onto, but it just makes the whole thing that much better.

I read through the whole series in two days and cried at the end. Laughed my head off, but cried like a baby. It's made me a happier person. I'm angry at everyone, all of the time, but it's taught me that the truth is the best thing there is.

Simply put: this comic book series made me stop lying. Even those weeny little white ones. Which is, you know, pretty cool.
(The Disillusioned Starburst, Sat 17 May 2008, 22:13, 1 reply)

Wife for a Day
When I was 10 or 11, I picked up a trashy romance novel, "Wife For a Day," at the library's monthly used book sale. I expected it to be like any romantic comedy: gooey and tame. It was, up until two-thirds through the book, when -BOOM- sex scene. Two more quickly followed. My semi-pubescent body didn't know what was happening, but was quite excited.

It hurts me to say this as an English major, but it's the truth. I have since shared the book with other undersexed friends.
(I bape rabies Let's go get Chick-fi-A!, Sat 17 May 2008, 21:51, Reply)

The goggle box.
When I was about four, I was already addicted to the television, watching all manner of programs as a lot of kids do... I'd bully my mother into telling me what was on.

Eventually she said to me "If you want to know what's on telly, learn to read and then you'll be able to find out for yourself".

So yeah, the Radio Times changed my life, and led me into the wonderful world of books.

The other book that changed my life was by a french comedian/writer called Pierre Desproges, the book was "Dictionnaire superflu à l'usage de l'élite et des biens nantis", which doesn't exist in english and probably never will 'cos it's the sort humour which can't be translated... but I picked it up in my school in Toulouse's library and spent my subsequent lunch hour giggling and pleased to know that I wasn't alone in having a strange sense of humour, and made me want to read all of his books, which I did, and use the french language the way he did (which i sort of still do, albeit in a more crap way).
(Alaning, Sat 17 May 2008, 21:16, 2 replies)

I've had to have big thinks about this...
The Chronicles of Narnia, not because of the religious, pro-Christ conotations, but because it was the first set of books I read myself, at the age of 4. Being able to manipulate, and be manipulated by, the written word was a wonderful new experience and made me the word-hungry, book-loon I am today.

The Scent Of Dried Roses - Tim Lott. An account of dealing with personal depression and the depression suffered by his mother. I know everyone feels the "This book is about ME" moment, but never have I felt that level of understanding by another human being.

Girlfriend in a Coma - Douglas Coupland. For starting a novel so normally, and then taking it off at such a tangent. Books were always about set-in-stone things before I read this, and it made me think about what would happen if everything *stopped*. Would those that were left be able to handle the responsibility?

The Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake. Because he makes the written world such a wonderful tool to create whole universes that are close to, but completely separate from ours.

The Very Hungry Caterpilar. Because I was a fat child.
(sarcasticgirl, Sat 17 May 2008, 21:09, Reply)

Fight Club.
Even though it's cliché now, the phrase "Only when you have lost everything are you free to do anything" opened my 16-year old eyes. It's a nihilistic book, but in the best possible way. I like to think that it changed me for the better.
( spangolin - the odds are good but the goods are odd, Sat 17 May 2008, 20:44, 2 replies)

Ted Simon - Jupiters travels
Picked up a copy of this book in a secondhand bookstore in Greece while on a package holiday in 1985.

Got home, bought a Honda and rode around the world for several years. Met thousands of wonderful people and learnt a lot about self sufficiency and myself ...... and to think I nearly bought a Steven King novel.

Charley and Ewan...its more fun doing it wiyhout a camera crew.
( bane, Sat 17 May 2008, 20:41, Reply)

Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov'
First, a bit of back story.

The only reason I read this book in the first place was because my brother decided it would be good to purchase some obscure Russian literature from t'internet. I'm not 100% sure about why he did it, but buy them he did.

Along with 'The Brothers Karamazov', he bought 'Crime and Punishment' and 'War and Peace'. I think he just got them to see what all the fuss was about. Anyway, I digress.

A few days after he had bought them I found myself looking for something to read and I decided to give them a go. He had already started Crime and Punishment, and War and Peace looked slightly too epic, so I opted for the only one left.

I thought it was quite slow moving at first, but I persevered and I'm glad I did. You see, something about the character of Alyosha really spoke out to me. Maybe it was because he seemed so certain of himself, but was really very unsure, maybe it was because I'm never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie, and hurt you.





Oh yes. You just got text rick roll'd.

You would think I have something better to do with my time, but, alas, I don't.
(littlenipple hate's bad grammar, Sat 17 May 2008, 19:50, 4 replies)

Read this if you don't read anything else
Lone Brit on 13 by Christopher Chance. This will change your opinions on Spanish Gypsies and holidays on the Costas, especially if you like puffs on herbal.

I'm tking this chance (no pun intended) to promote the most fantasic book I have ever read time and time again

Chancer is a rivetting writer with no holding back on his opinions of how he was treated with the most fabulous attitude to adrenalin fuelled lifestyles

Sorry chaps, not a witty retort but this is a must. Get on Amazon and order it
(ElGatodeBarco, Sat 17 May 2008, 19:05, Reply)

*Looks sheepish*
Although I whine a little on here about some people's obsession with proper grammar and spelling. I feel I must admit that if I bought a book and there were spelling mistakes and incorrect grammar, (if I noticed it that is), then I would probably be a little miffed. I accept defeat in this battle and will try to improve the quality of my posts.


But I also accept that some people are more skilled in this matter than others and the quality of someone's grasp of the English language should never detract from what they have to say.
( girlinthehole, Sat 17 May 2008, 18:53, 12 replies)

The B3ta Sick Joke Book.
Because of that book alone, there are several local taxi drivers who refuse to pick me up.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Sat 17 May 2008, 18:07, 1 reply)

Ooooh how could i forget?
Doubtless been mentioned, but I'd thought I'd throw my two pennies in. Catch 22 is one of the best books I've ever read. It's probably the most obvious source for my love of dark humour, and probably why I like B3ta. The combination of brilliant, sharply observed humour and wordplay (Major Major Major Major anyone?) and the sudden shock tactics and genuinely upsetting deaths is absolutely stunning. The contrasts also happen very quickly, within one page in one case, so you are laughing one minute and crying the next. It shows war, and the world to be completely bloody insane. Brilliant
(Urban Hermit Exit, pursued by a bear on, Sat 17 May 2008, 17:58, Reply)

Instant Confidence
by Paul McKenna certainly hasn't, not yet at least. I bought it thinking "what harm can giving it a go do?" Perhaps the fact the I didn't bother reading it might have something to do with it, I just steamed straight into the CD.

Now this is absolutely true! I listened to the CD, and afterwards the only thing I noticed was an extreme desire to tidy the house and do all the dishes. Why this was, I cannot say, but I went into a tidiness frenzy.

Still got no self confidence though.

Pah.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Sat 17 May 2008, 17:52, Reply)

a few
Last Exit to Brooklyn - Tra La La made me cry
Hitchhikers Guide - I was young and it was different and funny
Animal Farm - again I was young - good intro to corrupt politics (ie the only kind)
The Color Purple - invoked full range of emotions in me and I never tire of it.
Fight CLub - anarchy love it
Of Mice and Men - total classic
(Siouxfan I'm not staring at you, I am just short sighted, Sat 17 May 2008, 17:51, Reply)

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
I do not have any religious opinions and still don’t, but after reading this book it made me realise that even so called high brow academics can be totally biased and patronising. Does anyone else think this book is a phenomenal pile of wank for the docile masses?
(CaptainCuntyBollocks the man who can with a frying pan full of lamb, Sat 17 May 2008, 17:28, 16 replies)

Jack
Thanks to CaptainCuntyBollocks. It's worth reading the "friendly hint" on the question here, and not including just a list of books (I am well aware that my previous reply makes me guilty here. Maybe this can redress the balance.)

The book that really changed my life was On The Road by Jack Kerouac. The contents are insane, and stuck as a sixteen year-old in South-West London with no access to endless roads, continents to unwind in every direction and friends of different persuasions and thoughts to explore these with, the book did the obvious on my mind. I drowned myself in American literature, pausing to breathe only rarely with the odd European volume, which invariably seemed somewhat pedestrian in comparison.

The effect of American literature was not permanent. I went through all Kerouac, mainlined some Burroughs, got wired out on Hunter S. Thompson and had a nasty McInerney/Ellis habit for quite a while. In my quieter moments, I flirted with Didion, Donne, Keillor, Frantzen and many others. I got high on Dirty Realism, and took quite a while to come down. My use was chaotic, and whenever I quit, a relapse was never far behind.

I am better now. I can take it or leave it (but occasionally relapse, and enjoy the old thrill enormously).

Throughout all of this, On The Road was still there. To be honest, the book doesn't really hold up to reading once you're beyond a certain age-like The Catcher In The Rye, it's book you read when you're in your teens, and then refer to as having read, without re-reading. Some friends gave me a copy of the "scroll" for my birthday last year, the original wild, raggedy madness that Kerouac wrote on speed in a fortnight or so, which I love as a book, but haven't read.

But the book which changed my life is still there. It's a 1958 American paperback version, bought by my father in San Francisco on his wanderings across America. For some reason, the place that it was bought and its battered state (the spine has all but gone and is held in place with brittle, aged sellotape, meaning that chunks fall out whenever it is opened) give it its attraction- a change from all the predictably-bound Penguins and Picadors, a racy charm compared to the other spines on offer.

That's the one I read as a teenager, over twenty years ago. That's the one whose pages I can see, when anyone mentions the book, and the cover (a crumby coloured-in line drawing of a guy in a striped t-shirt, standing in front of background scenes of funky women, cars and a Mexican-looking building) the one that inevitably comes to mind. It is far from a first edition, just a book bought far away and brought back, which fired my mind when I picked it from the bookshelves all those years ago.

I might well rescue it if the building were burning down-it was worth 60 cents when bought, but now a hell of a lot more to me now.
(groover j lazerus, Sat 17 May 2008, 17:23, 3 replies)

Is anyone else
using this question as a sneaky way of finding out some good books to read?

Having got a bit drunk last night, I awoke this morning to discover I'd tried to pay for Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye, HHGTTG and Nineteen Eighty Four with the wrong debit card..... I hold b3ta personally responsible for my drunken internet shopping shenanigans now! I still bought them, though :P

I haven't mentioned my love for all things Tolkien yet either. I know squillions of people have already mentioned it, but LOTR and the Silmarillion are possibly my two favourite books of all time. I know, I know, the characters may seem a bit two dimensional, but they are fantasy novels, not gritty true life tales, the characters are supposed to be Good or Evil. The sheer depth of the world which Tolkien created over many years and the history and mythology of Middle earth are just staggering.

I especially like the bits where he's obviously realised he's made some sort of error and has revised a part of the book, usually involving two of the characters having an argument about how something might not make much sense but in actual fact.... aaaaaah, you see, it DOES make sense. See? See? Charming :D

Also, the films weren't a disappointment either, probably about as close as you could get to the books. They don't capture the sheer scale of the story though.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Sat 17 May 2008, 17:04, Reply)

IMPRISONED FOREVER BECAUSE OF ONE BOOK
Oh Hi! I'm Fletcher, I'm twelve weeks old. My brother Ozzie and I live with Mummy Snakes.

Our lives were altered forever after we ate the telephone directory. It took us all day, but we managed to shred and chew each page individually with our tiny teeth and claws, and spread them inch deep across the whole floor of her study. We had our own local advertising foam party. It was like yellow snow.

Then we pissed *all over it* Also like yellow snow.

For the next six weeks we were locked in the back porch whenever she went out, until we were old enough to be let out into our garden.
But it was worth it, LOL.
(hahasnakes, Sat 17 May 2008, 16:55, Reply)

How to Win Friends and Influence People
changed my life.

Then Morrissey changed it back.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 17 May 2008, 16:34, Reply)

The forever war -Joe Haldemann
I think I was 14 or 15 when this popped up in the library. great ideas including the "minimum necessary change" which works for engineering too.
But in some ways it was also an allegorical airing of some of the authors Vietrnam war experiences and thoughts on war.

Much of the nitty gritty in there has been ripped off by subsequent literary borrowers, and Hollywood Films/ tv productions.
(tootired Is searching for a funny sig, nothing good so far, Sat 17 May 2008, 16:25, Reply)

My top ten books.
www.amazon.co.uk/Books-of-importance/lm/2E2QDMORB1ZF2/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full
Is my list on Amazon, specifically:

Catch 22
American Psycho
1984
The Crow Road (and many other Iain Banks')
Consider Phlebas (and other Iain M.'s, use of Weapons is excellent),
His Dark Materials
The work of Nietzsche
The Secret History (Donna Tarrt)
Lots of JG Ballard but High Rise is my pick
Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
Moby Dick- I don't blame anyone who skips the boring bits.
(Calfderno, Sat 17 May 2008, 16:21, 1 reply)