Endless, I tells ye!
I started to read The Myth of Sisyphus; in fact, I got most of the way through it. Then my bookmark fell out, and I lost my place and had to start reading it again.

This keeps happening.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 16 May 2008, 9:35, 13 replies)

Flip side
In A level English Lit we had to study "The Bell" by Iris Murdoch. Quite possibly THE most boring, pretetious pile of faeces I have ever had to read. Wooden characters, boring plot...ugh. I cheered when I heard she had Alzheimers (which I am not proud about) but by Christ that book was pure drivel.
(kitescreech still here, Fri 16 May 2008, 9:34, 1 reply)

The Rats
When I was at middle school (about 11-12 years old) I read "The Rats" by James Herbert; by golly I learned some stuff! Havent read it since, and not a fan of Horror but that book had me gripped from start to finish. I read it during my school lunch breaks. I enjoy HP Lovecraft, even if the openings can be very stereotyped.

George RR Martin's "Game of Thrones" series has me hooked, if you like fantasy (not tolkein style, more medieval history) these books are great. Bring on the new one dammit!

Most of my Reading is Non-Fiction; pretty much anything by Steven J Zaloga has been read, especially "Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of WW2" - seriously it is a fantastically readable history of Soviet tank development with some incredibly rare photos. Ive read it about 5 times. Also the Squadron Signal "In Action" series are fascinating (if you like that sort of thing).

If im feeling a bit depressed/low, ill read some Bill Bryson (especially the travel books). I find his style calming and pleasant and fairly uncontroversial. His "A Short History of Nearly Everything" is amazing, I understood most of it. Ive read that about 4 times.
(kitescreech still here, Fri 16 May 2008, 9:31, Reply)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.....
.....is easily the most ridiculous book ever written.

The amount of people I have met who genuinely believe that whether you understand that particular book defines your level of intelligence is incredible.

It's PRETENTIOUS drivel.

I now judge people based on their enjoyment of that book.

Those people who think it's a masterpiece of modern literature - these people are to be avoided at all costs. At best, they are the dullest people alive. At worse, they are literary snobs that will use any old pretentious nonsense to belittle others.

Those who think it's a load of old wank are welcome to progress onto the next level of friendship with me.


Lucky them.....
(Jugular, Fri 16 May 2008, 9:27, 10 replies)

Thanks, mom.
Back in the day when I was 8 (i.e. 1996), my mom came home from the library with this delightful looking book called something along the lines of "Where did I come from?" My mother had only flipped through the first few pages of cheery images of cranes hauling babies and the like before picking it up. Oh, this is worse than what you're thinking. Yes, it was a children's sex ed book. Coming from a somewhat liberal family, the 'rents just laughed and the offending book was not hidden nor immediately hauled back to the library.

Of course it was only a matter of time before I got my greasy little hands on it. It had graphic anatomically correct cartoons of the naked male and female bodies, the genitals, the differences between them, and all sorts of juicy stuff.

Now to get to the part that really changed my life. When explaining that sex was enjoyable, the book described it as being like pleasant tickling for the genitals, just it felt reeeeaally great. Huh. Tickling? I know where all my lady bits are, I could do that... I should try it.

And that's the story of how I became a compulsive masturbator - given some exploration of technique - at the ripe young age of eight. For shame.

Note: when I read this QOTW, the first book to pop into my head was Necrophilia Variations (about, y'know, necrophilia. Rather vivid, I might add), which triggered my intense fascination with paraphilia three years ago. Currently taking bets on how long it'll be before I'm a registered sex offender.
(Exempt OH WOW, VICODIN, Fri 16 May 2008, 9:26, Reply)

Rogers profanasaurus rex
I find this book indespensuable in finding the corect phrase to use at work and in social settings. Only last week i was able to slip the phrase "Its like trying to find a pube in an afro" into conversation. Today i used the phrase "vagina decliner" when describing a lesbian to my boss.
A pay rise surley awaits
(welgar, Fri 16 May 2008, 9:22, 7 replies)

I love to read.
The Lord of the Rings. I loved it. My mother read it to me when I was nine, we were travelling and she would read it to me and my brother at night. It was the only time me and my brother never fought. Of course, once the reading to us stopped, we fought like dogs again.

A Child Called It, The Lost Boy, and A Man Called Dave. These three books documented the life of a guy who had been horrifically abused, reading it brought me to tears several times and really opened up my eyes to how lucky I am to have such a good family and how bad some kids have it.

Fever This is the book that made me want to become an oncologist. Having nearly lost my dad to cancer three times, reading this book (even though it's fictional), kinda made it seem like I could actually save a kids life if I got to work with cancer treatments.
(Poppet some assembly required., Fri 16 May 2008, 9:15, 2 replies)

Battered Penguins
I’ve always been a sucker for battered books from second-hand bookshops, you know the ones that have cracked spines, bent covers and sometimes even loose pages. My theory is that such books have been known and loved for a long time and therefore deserve my attention. This has led to some rather eclectic additions to my bookshelves (the ones I like I tend to replace with new(er) copies so I too can love them for a long time).

It was in this way I found one of the greatest books ever. The Seed and the Sower by Laurens Van Der Post. To my young mind (14) this book defined the results of cultural misunderstanding and created my current mindset that until you understand a culture and the reasons it acts in the way it does, you cannot really judge or even discuss the results of their actions.

Other than that I have loved many books and hope to have many more affairs with literature of all shapes and sizes.

Length? Doesn’t matter as long as the content is exceptional.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Fri 16 May 2008, 8:52, 1 reply)

well...
...No book has really "changed my life", but as a designer and artist, "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger had a profound affect on the way I now interpret visual media; if you are involved in a creative industry, you MUST read that book!

Aside form that, "Next of Kin" by Eric Frank Russell - probably the funniest and most enjoyable book I have had the pleasure of reading. God knows how many times I've read it now, or how many copies of it I have picked up over the years, and I can't recommend it enough!

Oh, and the short story "The Statement of Randolph Carter" by HP Lovecraft - the only piece of written work to make me jump.
( theoriginalsteve <this space intentionally left blank>, Fri 16 May 2008, 8:32, 1 reply)

This is the shittest QOTW
I'm sorry, but it is. Truth hurts!
( RiverBlues Hello, Fri 16 May 2008, 8:20, 11 replies)

The ages of reading...
When I was very young I read a different ENID BLYTON book every week, part of visiting the market with my mum was getting one from the book stall. (Not for me 2nd hand copies, I wanted new hardbacks...)

Then at senior school, thats years 7 - 11 to you young 'uns, I was given "The Chrysalids" by JOHN WYNDHAM as part of English Lit, and that started my sci-fi craze for quite a few years. (Sci-fi included science as well as fiction.)

Recently the nearest I've had to changing my life was the first "Dark Materials" book by PHILLIP PULLMAN. Not because of its religious, or anti-religious, subtext, but because for the first time in many years I actually dreamt about charecters from a book... (the giant polar bears..)
(paof2 Nude might not be rude, but rude could be nude..., Fri 16 May 2008, 8:18, 2 replies)

The Book
changed my uncle's life completely. Havent seen him since they threw it at him.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Fri 16 May 2008, 7:49, Reply)

Therese Raquin
by Emile Zola, didnt change my life, but it certainly got my partner reading after several years since leaving school. She didnt read it, I read it to her at bedtime, much like we read to our daughter. Since then she has gone through my little library of classic and fiction and borrowing books of friends.
As an aside I was travelling home after dropping her off at her parents home and Book at Bedtime came on radio 4, I thought our 10 year old was fast asleep and decided to leave Daphne Du Maurier's Rebeca on. The bit where She is stood at the top of the stairs, and Mr De Winters sees her in the dress of his first wife..... ending with the discovery of a body in a sunken boat.... My little one (ok she's 10) cried out THATS NOT FAIR I want to find out what happens....
£8 later the following day she's reading it, complaining about that horrible Mrs. Danvers.

My daughter has read every Michael Morpurgo book, and owns about 80% of them. I believe everyone about 9 years old should read The Best Christmas Present in the World, and Private Peaceful. One story about WW1 the other set in WW1.

My own books? I'm going through the Forgotten Voices series of books reading the Last Fighting Tommy at the moment, and we think we have it bad....
(lordy lordy, Fri 16 May 2008, 7:42, Reply)

He died with a falefal in his hand
This book is the main reason that i will never live in a share house again. After a few years of sharing i thought that i had met them all. But after reading this book i hadnt even scratched the surface of the nutcases in the world.
This book should be compulsory reading for everyone about to leave the parental home for the first time as a guide to what to look out for.

And its bloody funny as well
(welgar, Fri 16 May 2008, 7:22, 1 reply)

Alan Carr (no not that one)
Alan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking.

I don't smoke, but my wife did and 7 years ago she read the book cover to cover, put out her last fag and hasn't smoked since.

I don't even know where to start on how much that changed my life.
(kna has forgotten everything., Fri 16 May 2008, 7:20, 5 replies)

The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test
By Tom Wolffe, following around the author Ken Kessey and his troop known as the merry pranksters, acid, grateful dead, hippies back when they were fun. I can't really explain how it changed my life, but all of a sudden everything looked different somehow, I suppose my little high school world seemed very small all of a sudden, and my stigma against drugs was completely knocked off its feet. Still haven't dropped acid though...who knows though, I might still. For me the book wasn't about the acid, it was about the rebellion, the philosophy, and the characters of the story, all of whom were real people, it was a non-fiction book after all.

I still carry around my copy with me, just in case I feel like getting back into that high of reading it.

length? just riiiide it out maaaaan.
( Arsonade is saving up for a new box of hummus, Fri 16 May 2008, 7:18, 1 reply)

The Rats
James Herbert. Couldn't sleep for a fucking week after that fucker.

Oh, and the Bible made me see religion for the bollocks that it is!
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Fri 16 May 2008, 5:42, Reply)

A Short History of Nearly Everything
When I was at school I was forced to read an extract of a Bill Bryson book about his travels in England. Being young, and a bit thick, I thought he was having a go and I wondered to myself "who is this Yank who thinks he can say such horrible things about my lovely country?!" As I got a bit older though, I found out that he lived in England for 15 years or so, and that Barnstaple actually is a one-horse dump. Now, I love his travel writing but A Short History of Nearly Everything is a step above.

Every secondary school student should be forced to read this. It changed my life in that it made me want to read more factual stuff and less fiction. It`s simple and compelling and teaches you all kinds of weird and wonderful things whilst making learning fun. It`s full of little anecdotes about the fine lines between genius and insanity and makes you want to spend the rest of your life wandering around Africa or Australia discovering weird and wonderful things.

Love it, love it, love it.
(Bifta, Fri 16 May 2008, 5:32, 4 replies)

The Cyberiad and other tales
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem is one of the greatest SF books ever. Most of the stories are about two robot inventors named Trurl and Klapaucius, and the tales are a weird combination of fairy tales, information theory, philosophy, higher math, and occasionally quantum theory, with the result that you can read it at 10 and enjoy the fairy tale and again and again to learn more.

Bad Acts and Guilty minds by Leo Katz changed the way I thought about people. It looks at "conundrums of the criminal law" including real life-boat situations where people killed and ate a crewmate, and what happened to them when they were rescued.

Grammatical Man by Jeremy Campbell is incredible: reading it was a coup de foudre. It explains the underpinnings of information theory and how it applies to the universe in a way that most people fail to understand.

Against Method by Paul Feyerabend, which is a hilarious philosophical screed advocating "epistomelocial anarchy."

Also, Spike Milligan's war memoirs.
(TommyShanks, Fri 16 May 2008, 4:55, 1 reply)

The Bible
My family inherited an old, old family Bible from 1869. Inside the front cover are all sorts of family tree documents dating back centuries.

Anyway, one time in high school, I opened the Bible and read the first passage that came to my eye. I don't remember how it went, but it basically said this:

"The Jews think they are the chosen people of God, but they are the foot soldiers in the armies of Hell. It is not a crime to kill a Jew."

The wording is wrong, but I know it used the term 'foot soldiers,' and I know the arguments put forth were essentially as I wrote them above.

I've never been able to find any information about this passage. Either it was retconned out, or this was a pirate copy of the Bible or something.

To this day I'm still an atheist. I'd like to thank the Bible for that.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 16 May 2008, 4:07, Reply)

The God Delusion
It didn't convert me so much as shore up what I'd already felt. It's lonely being an atheist in Texas and at the time, there wasn't much pro-atheist literature about. I read it and thought "Yes, that's it!" It has indeed changed the way I see the world and for the better. I'm actually much happier as an atheist than I was as an agnostic.
(vkacademy has made a kitten tank, Fri 16 May 2008, 4:03, 1 reply)

It Would Have To Be
.
DNS AND BIND by O'Reilly Media.

How did it change my life? Well I used to have trouble sleeping until I bought that book. Now, if I can't sleep, I crack open the book and after a few pages I'm away in the Land Of Nod.

It's stultifingly boring.

Cheers

Hey look Ma! I made a new word!
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 16 May 2008, 3:09, Reply)

Books books boooooks!
Mmm, a nostalgic trip down the books of my childhood...

A picture-book version of The Hobbit when i was ~7, which led onto reading the proper book shortly after. Probably the first 'grown up# book I read, and I ripped it off in English lessons for years after with noone noticing :D A few years later I tried my dad's copy of LoTR but never managed to struggle past Tom Bombadil. Shame I guess.

Everything by Roald Dahl

The Dark Portal. First in a trilogy of books about 'The Deptford Mice' and their travails against evil rats who live in the hearts of the dark sewers. The first book I ever remember being frightening - so much so I had to stop reading first time round. It helped me realise that literature has the power to do more than just entertain you.

Memoirs of a Dangerous Alien. It's been such a long time that I can't even remember the plot any more, but I do remember that as soon as I picked it up I couldn't put it down and when I'd finished it left me feeling like no book had done before. Or perhaps I'd had dodgy prawns or something.

Culture Shock. Edited by Micheal Rosen, it's a compilation of poems and random lines selected for children, but not in a patronising way. It helped me realise poetry doesn't have to have rigid form, perfect rhymes and proper English to be entertaining and insightful. I found it battered and neglected in a dusty bookshelf at school and stole it - a school is no place for good books.

Germinal. The story of Étienne Lantier, an itinerant worker in rural 19th century France who gets a job down the mines and becomes caught up in the fevour of working class revolution. My mum's always pushed me to read 'proper' books, and this was one of the first she gave me. I fell in love with Zola's work and it introduced me to some of the wonders of European (particuarly French) literature.


Finally, to steal a couple which other people have already mentioned

Adolf Hitler - My part in his Downfall. The first book which left me frequently laughing out loud
Catch 22. Probably my favourite book of all time.
( Cassius Kray floats like a butterfly, stings like a trout, Fri 16 May 2008, 3:08, Reply)

Harry Potter!
Ok, Ok. I don’t think I can honestly say that it changed my life. I do remember sitting on the floor of the 24hr ASDA after a night out in Southampton and getting our driver mate to read the first chapter of Order of the Phoenix to us. Then waiting like a slack-jawed yokel in the morning for the postie. Doing the same for book 6 and actually taking the day off work for book 7.

Sad, I know, however I think they deserve a mention. Not for changing my life, but for getting millions of kids around the world into reading. This, in the times of Wii, PS3, $500m films and such, deserves a round of applause. When the film was on at Christmas a couple of years ago, my 10yr old cousin piped up, "This is rubbish. The book’s MUCH better."

I’ll happily admit that it’s not the best writing in the world but the plots are great and compelling and you can while away train/plane journeys in no time.

Hats off to Miss Rowling for getting kids to read.


My favourite book`s probably Tai Pan by James Clavell. I`ve lost count of the number of times I`ve read it, and every time it makes me want to be a pirate. Gaaaar.
(Bifta, Fri 16 May 2008, 3:03, Reply)

First rule...
Fight Club: Chuck Palahniuk

There is so much depth to this book. Commercialism, consumerism, fascism are all touched on. Not to mention the best twist in popular fiction.
(Slatts If you cant remember it didnt happen, Fri 16 May 2008, 2:45, 1 reply)

The Alchemist, Paolo Coelho
...didn't change my life but having referred somebody else to read it, it did.

It's a book about destiny and encourages you to act on signs to realise your destiny...I was on holiday on a boat sailing through the dalmation Islands summer of 2005 with 8 people including a friend who I sahll call R - having read the book and liked it I told her to read it - she was in one of those 'should I, shouldn't I' situations having met a guy one week previously in a bar in Germany - their eyes met, she felt a connection, they talked, spent the night and went their seperate ways - however there was enough to suggest that in some ways their meeting was fate, she had initially asked him to pretend to be her boyfriend to ward off an unwanted male admirer and their night started from there....anyway, she was agonising - she felt the connection but never got round to asking him...the added complication was she was living in Australia, he in Europe - would it ever work...

Anyway, the book convinced her to act on the signs and last year she realised her destiny by marrying her now husband.

If you are in a similar quandry, I suggest you read it...
(zit, Fri 16 May 2008, 1:57, 1 reply)

Captain Wow
suggested I should read "Fear and loathing in Las Vegas", and so I did.

Utterly fantastic! Film's not too shabby either.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Fri 16 May 2008, 1:45, Reply)

brace yourselves
i like my books, i do.

first off, no one has mentioned shakespeare so far. what's up with that? possibly the most celebrated figure in literature and for a very good reason. macbeth is one of the best things i have ever read. even gcse english couldn't kill it off. you can never go wrong with a bit of the bard.

like many other b3ta members, a mention to the bible. when i was small, nothing terrified me more than the graphic illustrations in the my first bible we owned. i could understand a picture of the crucifix as this image is so significant in christianity but the pictures of wicked jezebel being pushed to her death out of a window, cain smashing abel around the head and job strewn across the pavement, covered in painful sores, all in painstaking detail, seemed unnecessary. needless to say, they stuck in my five-year-old head.

the first proper book i read was the hunchback of notre dame. what attracted my attention to it was that it had the same name as one of my favourite disney films at the time (with the gargoyles). i was only eight but a week in the countryside surrounding leicester had me desperately grappling for things to do. its actually still one of the best books i read even though im sure a lot of it went over my head. not as good as the film but yeah!

my favourite book is the master and the magherita by mikhail bulgakov. not particularly any story behind this. just yanked it off the bookshelf and read in one sitting. has basically everything in it. absolutely surreal and brilliant. basically, the devil and his henchmen arrive in Soviet Russia and start messing around with everyone's heads. old bulgakov had a bad time of it as well as he was unpublished during his lifetime and banned as well as the first manuscript being burnt and having to be rewritten from memory.

the last book i read was brighton rock by graham green. fantastic.

the worst book i have read is the wasp factory by iain banks. its good, yeah. i just cant read it again. couldnt deal with the bit with the baby. nightmarish. felt nasty for ages afterwards, actually ill but that could be because im a weakling... particularly with gory stuff.

first to say that the bell jar was just ... nothing. didn't really get anything from it. surprised it hadnt come up already. sorry guys. or lord of the rings. hours of my life im not getting back.
(ladyintheradiator, Fri 16 May 2008, 1:37, 2 replies)

Three Books in One
Note: QOTW Reply almost as long as a book...

Am I allowed to choose three books? It's really one long story which had to be split into three (originally four as the first one was published in two parts). No it's not Lord of the Rings.

All right, let's just say the first book was the important one, and that I had to read the next two to finish the story (or something).

Having read all three books of Lord of the Rings in slightly more than a week, whiling away the hours at work, on a night shift in a quiet petrol station, I decided that long books were good, preferably with wizards in them.

It was another late night, I was at the time out of work, and doing some voluntary work at my local Heritage Railway, running the buffet car. Too skint to drive a car and too late for the last bus, I elected to stay the night in the old caravan which was used to store extra stock for the second-hand bookshop. How I found the book in question still remains a mystery. I think I must have just spotted the cover while clearing my bed of excess volumes but I picked it up - the cover illustration was a little old-fashioned, but it had a big city, men on horseback, and distant mountains. "A bit like Lord of The Rings?" I wondered. I was wrong - but also right.

It's got wizards, talking dragons, elves, dark elves, goblins, orcs, great heroes, rags-to-riches, ancient legends, people from distant worlds, kings, dukes, local-boy-makes-good, and so much more.

The book? "Magician" by Raymond E. Feist. If you've never heard of it before, give it a try. It's part one of "The Riftwar Trilogy" (part 2: "Silverthorn" and part 3: A Darkness at Sethanon"). I'd never heard of the books or their author but I decided to start reading. I made myself a cup of hot Bovril in the buffet car (bear in mind it's 9pm, dark, in the middle of nowhere and I can't afford a pint), and started to read.

I read about a young boy, saved from a storm, and how he was taken in by the local wizard (or Magician as such men are known in that world), and his decision to learn the path of magic. I read page after page (I won't spoil any more for those yet to sample this literary delight) and before I knew it I was on my fourth cup of Bovril (and third visit to the Gent's) and then I heard a sound outside and realised it was the morning birds singing as the sun came up. Retiring to the caravan I tried to sleep but couldn't, so I opened the curtains and let some light in to continue reading, eventually falling asleep with the book open. When I woke later my finger had never left the page.

The next couple of nights continued in a similar fashion until I got to the end and found myself without a sequel. Turning the caravan upside down (not literally) I went through boxes and boxes of books to find it, in my desperation putting them back in something far removed from the Dewey Decimal System. I eventually found the entire trilogy for sale as a bound volume (wrapped in an elastic band) at the local market for a fiver and settled back in to the story.

There are many other trilogies and standalone books by the same author set in the same fictional universe. I have not read them all - just some - but good things come to those who wait.

So how did this change my life? As a lover of long stories, contained in books thick enough to get lost in, I thought Lord of the Rings and some of Stephen King's thicker works were about the best one could get. Now I know better.

I'm currently reading a six-books-in-one guide to php and mysql, in case anyone's interested...
( Amos E Wolfe makes vinyl signs and things like that, Fri 16 May 2008, 1:37, 2 replies)

Introduction to Sigmund Freud
completely failed to change my life. What a load of complete mother it was.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 16 May 2008, 1:24, Reply)