Your Three Most Influential Books

[Whateverist]

Not your three favorite books.  Not the three books you think are the best written.  Not the ones you enjoyed the most.

What three books have had the biggest influence on your world view and who you are?  I suspect the time in your life you read a book probably will have a lot to do with its influence.  All of my most influential books -as well as my one honorable mention- were read in my mid to late twenties at a time of crisis and transition.

In the order I read them, here are mine:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - by Robert Pirzig
The Wisdom of Insecurity - Alan Watts
Six Non-Lectures - e e cummings

With honorable mention going to: 

Re-Visioning Psychology - James Hillman

[Mudhammam]

Tough question. Besides the Bible, which was drilled into my head from infancy and will always remain there, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye definitely shaped my attitudes and thoughts as a youth. I often found myself writing like that afterwards as a teenager. George Smith's The Case Against God was the first book that really challenged the Christian indoctrination I received growing up... so much so that my parents felt compelled to take it from me (I was 15 at time) and demand that I only read Christian authors. I never was able to finish it. I think I'll have to pick it up again sometime, if only for the sake of nostalgia. Finally, I would probably say Dawkins' The Greatest Show On Earth, which I read in 2011, really revealed to me the simplicity and beauty of evolution which I had never much understood or appreciated... so those are probably the books that immediately come to mind as sparks that expanded my thinking in a positive way.

[SteelCurtain]

1.

2.

3.


Honorable mention:

[c172]

I'm horrible at reading books. I just have no attention span for it. But I remember liking A Catcher in the Rye as a teen. I'd frankly love to look up all the books I was exposed to in English class in HS and redo them again (90/91 through 93/94). I was so, so bad in school.

I do like Sarah Vowell and Sam Harris, though. Not sure they really shape me, though.

[Whateverist]

I'm horrible at reading books. I just have no attention span for it. But I remember liking A Catcher in the Rye as a teen. I'd frankly love to look up all the books I was exposed to in English class in HS and redo them again (90/91 through 93/94). I was so, so bad in school.

I do like Sarah Vowell and Sam Harris, though. Not sure they really shape me, though.

I asked this question of my wife on our way home from a walk this afternoon.  It occurred to me that books needn't be very influential in our development.  A conversation, a movie or an experience can do as much or more.

Her choices for books were all read very early on.  Anne Frank in elementary school. Some book by a guy who taught method acting.  I forget her third choice now.

[vorlon13]

Might be considered odd, but here's one of mine:

HEATHKIT MODEL GC-1005 DIGITAL ELECTRONIC CLOCK ASSEMBLY MANUAL


I assembled one of these kits in 1973 or 1974. I was a sophomore or junior in high school. Probably wasn't really that complicated, but at the time, it seemed just amazingly complex to me. Anyhow, I earned the money for the kit ($60 as I recall, a significant sum in those days for a high school student) and ordered it, and when it arrived I tore in to it like there was no tomorrow. I soldered all the connections, put in all the switches, assembled the case, plugged it in, and bingo, it worked first time out.

The clock worked for 30 years, only needing a single neon display element replaced over the years.


Anyhow, the gist of putting the assembly manual here is, I learned by doing something complex that I could do complex things. Accurately and precisely, and have something interesting and useful to show for my efforts. In those high school days, electronic digital clocks were pretty scarce. I saw the kit reviewed in a magazine and had to have one. And I did. I've still got it; the display lights, but as a clock, it is erratic in it's operation these days. Most likely the integrated circuit that runs it (at the time it was made, it was virtually the most complex IC in the world) has developed some issues after over a quarter of a million hours of operating.

I realize as I am typing this, I can probably take the case off the clock, get the numbers off the IC, and go get another one on Ebay, and make the clock work again . . . .

[SteelCurtain]

East of Eden opened my eyes to writing. Real, serious, figurative, incredible writing. Samuel Hamilton and Lee are so real you feel like you know them. I can still see the photo of Steinbeck on the back. He's almost serious, with a sick moustache, and a lit cigarette. I remember thinking, yassss motherfucker. You know you're the shit.



There it is.

[Minimalist]

The Bible Unearthed - Finkelstein and Silberman


The Campaigns of Napoleon -Chandler


The 900 Days - Harrison Salisbury

[Whateverist]

The Bible Unearthed - Finkelstein and Silberman


The Campaigns of Napoleon -Chandler


The 900 Days - Harrison Salisbury

Do any of these also make the grade as a page turner, would you say?  I'm looking forward to doing a whole lot more reading soon.

[Minimalist]

For that, the 900 Days is amazing.  It's about the Siege of Leningrad.  It was influential because it was one of the first books I'd read about the Eastern Front.  Until then, I was subjected to the usual propaganda about how the US "won" WWII.