This book changed my life…..

Shackelton and his crew knew how to deal with a bit of snow and ice. Truly amazing story.

Another vote for Marley and Me (I cried many times) and also for the Feather Men by Ranulph Fiennes

Which is the Vonnegut book with the artist doing a massive mural in it, is that Slaughterhouse 5? Got that here, guess I could re-read it and find out

That’s Bluebeard that is.

All Vonnegut is ace.
Recently have enjoyed Haruki Murakami. Any of them are good, but Norwegian Wood is probably the most accessible.

I’ll go with me’s suggestion. I’ve read books which are far more thought provoking or emotionally intense, but that was the one that really opened my mind to all the silly places you could take a bike, and I guess changed my life because of it.

Another vote for ‘Time travelers wife’, (maybe not life changing but the last book i read that made me weep.)
other good reads,
Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S Thompson
Another for ‘Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’
Weaveworld by Clive Barker
1984
The bridge,The business both by Ian Banks,
Electric cool aid acid test,The right stuff both by Tom Wolfe
Mr Nice ,Howard Marks
enjoy………..

only a little book, Jonathan livingstone seagull i cant remember who the author is ,an exellent read i read it years ago and it still makes sense
cheers

“Blood Meridian or, The Evening Redness in The West” by Cormac McCarthy.

Not sure it changed my life, but I don’t think I’d currently be working as a bounty-hunter on the West Texas/Mexico borderlands if I hadn’t read this book.

Internet access is a bit patchy, mind…

Seriously though, a stunning book if you can deal with the graphic violence and McCarthy’s sparse punctuation.

Second Crow Road and The Wasp Factory both by Iain banks.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

And when I was young, The Dove. Basically about a teenage American kid that bumed a yaucht and to travel the world from kid to man.

I can’t spell yaught FFS.

As mentioned above, Grapes Of Wrath and Cannery Row are brilliant books, though in different ways.

Steinbecks great.Ive always found Norman Mailer a good intelligent writer.Stay away from Cormac McCarthy if u suffer from depression especially ‘The Road’

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Dhalgren by Samuel R Delaney

and funnily enough, another vote for “Systems Thinking in the Public Sector”, if only because it gives you a hint of how much better our lives could be.

My dad was a great Steinbeck fan, and I’ve read a lot of the books. The one that made a great impact on me when I was a child was a short story “The Red Pony”

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

It’s about a sheperd boy who sells his flock to go travelling. it’s really clever and all about things like omens and fulfilling your destiny. translated into 60 languages, sold 30 million copies worldwide and read by the likes of bill clinton and madonna. best book i’ve ever read. That and A Clockwork Orange.

a fiver from waterstones

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas

Richard’s Bicycle Book
Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Slaughterhouse 5
What’s Bred In The Bone
I Claudius
The Catcher In The Rye
The grapes of Wrath.

Some great books mentioned by others that I haven’t listed here but these are the ones that I guess I read at just the right time. I read The Grapes of Wrath over 20 years ago but I still remember getting to the last page on the number 73 bus and managing to control an almost irresistible urge to read it aloud to the rest of the bus. It was an extraordinary experience that I’ve never had before or since. I’ve always said to myself that if it happens again I won’t resist. Is it just me or is the connection you feel with another person over the shared appreciation of a book of a different magnitude to any other art form or shared interest.

RichPenny – Member
Which is the Vonnegut book with the artist doing a massive mural in it, is that Slaughterhouse 5? Got that here, guess I could re-read it and find out

yep that’s bluebeard, when I tried to get hold of it I was told it was out of print, I picked up a second hand copy off amazon.

also another vote here for On the Road and also The Dharma Bums by J K

oh and Enid Blyton.

Love Vonnegut, just ordered Bluebeard for 2.20 from Amazon.

Book that changed my life? Probably A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick, made me realise that getting wrecked, a lot, was not good for the soul.