VANITY... Books That Have Influenced You

[185JHP]

"The Caine Mutiny" - doing what's right is *always* right, no matter what it costs...

[lowbridge]

Archie Comic Books

[concentric circles]

I was going to include Classic Comics but I self censored, does that make me Danish?

I will add:
The Story of Civilization - Will and Ariel Durant

[irv]

There've been many, many books, but a few stand out. In no particular order:

• Dune -- Frank Herbert
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress -- Robert Heinlein (also Starship Troopers and even Tunnel in the Sky by the same author.)
• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich -- William L. Shirer
• The Nazi Doctors -- Robert Jay Lifton
• Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 -- Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier
• Isaac Asimov's Foundation series (the 3 original books only)

[Junior_G]

The Emperor's New Clothes

[irv]

With great power comes great responsibility.

I think that's a yes.

[patton]

an occurance at owl creek bridge

And, the most disturbing thing I have ever read...

the jilting of granny weatheral

[TheMole]

Many of the already mentioned, plus a few more. I majored in American History at a Canadian university, where we were assigned as a textbook The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, a 700-page book edited by Adrienne Koch that contained the Federalist Papers and many other essays and letters by the Founding Fathers, especially John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. Students had to read at least some of the material and do class presentations and term papers based on it. I was fascinated by the high quality of thought in so many of the pieces, and wound up reading the entire book a couple of times. Prior to that I had had little direct exposure to the writing of any of the founders of the U.S.A. Reading their arguments helped me understand why the United States has been such a durable and successful democracy, and why other countries rarely imitate its constitutional institutions (because doing so would take too much power away from established elites). The book made a major impact on my thinking.

Two other biggies, IMHO: pretty much anything by V.S. Naipaul (both fiction and non-fiction, because he always writes to understand) and pretty much anything by Paul Johnson, although I'd particularly recommend Intellectuals and Modern Times.

[BruceysMom]

The Bible
H. Vernon McGee's commentaries
A Wrinkle In Time-Ursala L'Guin
Steppenwolf-Herman Hesse (not in a good way)
The Source-Michner
Anything by Dean Koontz

[BruceysMom]

oops almost forgot!
Golda Meir's biography

[Trinity5]

Unintended Consequences by John Ross

[lndrvr1972]

Catcher in the Rye. Read it in Military School,loved it.

[JoeSixPack1]

The Good Earth.
Old man and the Sea.
The Third Wave.

[Jack Deth]

P.J. O'Rourke: With a wit just as acidic and sharp as when he wrote for and later edited "National Lampoon" magazine!

"Republican Party Reptile"
"Parliament Of Whores"
"Give War A Chance"

Ross Thomas: No one wrote more knowingly and well about Policticaal intrigues, antics and back door deals!

"The Cold War Swap"
"The Back-Up Men"
"The Fools In Town Are On Our Side"
"Yellow Dog Contract"
"If You Can't Be Good"
"The Money Harvest"

Tom Wolfe: The man is a National Treasure! "Radical Chic..." is a Textbook Primer on the liberal mindset that surfaced in the 1960s and hasn't changed much since.

"Radical Chic And Mau-Mauing The Flack Catchers"
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test"
"The Right Stuff"

Jack.

[investigateworld]

Death Valley and the Amargosa, by Richard Ligenfelter.

[AlienCrossfirePlayer]

Carnage and Culture and An Autumn of War by Victor Davis Hanson.

[phantomworker]

A Wrinkle In Time-Ursala L'Guin (Thank you! I've been trying to think of this book for some time now.) I read it with my son in about 3rd-4th grade.

Steppenwolf-Herman Hesse
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Great Gatzby- FS Fitzgerald
Gone with the Wind-Margaret Mitchell

[phantomworker]

The works of Orwell, both 1984 and Animal Farm.

Yes, plus Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

[MitchellC]

The Bible, foremost.

'What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?' by D. James Kennedy. As far as a lot of the details and exact arguments Kennedy used go, in retrospect this is a bit dinky, but I agree with the overall point (that Western culture and thus the world benefited directly from the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and without Him the world today would be unrecognizable to us) now as much as ever. It really shook up the way I viewed the world and created a huge stumbling block on the path to Liberalism (I read it not long after I'd gotten out of high school).

'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis.

'The Case for Christ' by Lee Strobel.

'Apologetics: An Introduction' by William Lane Craig.

'A Conflict of Visions' by Thomas Sowell (this book should be required reading at every university).

'Conquests and Cultures' by Thomas Sowell.

[celestine phophesy]

An occurence at owl creek bridge, yes! the moment right before his death!

Similarly, Waiting for Godot. The moments that last an eternity. Both can be considered existentialist stories.