How can a mere Book change your life?
Our lives go through all kinds of changes - but books seem so small, in the scheme of things. Falling head over heels in love can change you as a person. If you go further, if you move in together, get married, have kids - huge, life-changing events. Moving from one place to another closes some doors of opportunity, and opens others. The school you go to, what college you end up at, can determine the friends who mean most to you for the rest of your life. One great teacher, or one lousy one, can push you into a field of study or work. Jobs, promotions, bosses, career path - these can define you, enable you to become a whole new persona in the world.
In truth, everything you do counts a little, every choice you make might turn out to be crucial, might wreak a butterfly effect on your future, and lead to a hurricane of trouble, or a gentle breeze, precisely when you need it most.
Reading the right book at the right time might feed you just the inspiration, just the insight into life, or just the character you can believe in, to change your life. When you turn it around that way, dozens of books have changed your life, by feeding you with new ideas, by stretching your feelings or imagination, by adding to your inner world.
Some books hit the zeitgeist like a meteor, and change the imagination of a generation: 1984, Lord of the Rings, Fear of Flying, Roots, Harry Potter. Some books change how we see others, how we define humanity. After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe. In her Uncle Tom's Cabin, she had written black characters who were more sympathetic, more fully human, than most of their white readers had ever perceived in real life. Lincoln said to her, “Is this the little woman who made the great war?”
Something similar happened in Russia. Turgenev's first novel, A Sportsman's Sketches, was a series of close observations of life in the country. Turgenev showed serfs more realistically, in more human detail, than any previous Russian writer. The book had a huge impact, changing how many upper-class Russians perceived serfs. Nine years later, the serfs were Emancipated. When Tsar Alexander II met Turgenev, he told him that his book had helped move him to emancipate the serfs.
But here, closer to home, we have Kossacks writing every Friday morning about Books That Changed Their Lives.
We have a lot of good writing in Readers & Book Lovers' diaries, which is why 1250 Kossacks follow this group. And the diaries tend to be a thoughtful, friendly break from politics and pie-fights. I read most of the Readers & Book Lovers' diaries. As you can see in my tip jar, there are more than 20 weekly series. Books That Changed My Life is my favorite series.
I like reading a series that has a new author, and a completely unexpected book, every Friday. So I find a lot of different styles, approaches, and flavors of writing in this series. My favorite thing about these diaries is, people write about books that really matter to them. I like finding writing that tends to be sincere, heartfelt, thoughtful or deep.
If you think back through all the books you've read, and find one that meant the most to you, you'll discover that that book's been living in your subconscious ever since you read it. It has become a part of your worldview. If you take the time to collect your thoughts and feelings about it, you'll find that you either have a lot to say about it, or that the few paragraphs you write mean a lot to you.
What thrills me as a reader is, people who are writing about something that matters deeply to them tend to write compelling diaries. They come at the books from many angles: Analyzing, reminiscing, digging into one or two details that struck them, or painting a picture of themselves in relation to the text. But they tell me something real, something interesting, something I'd never have thought of on my own. They take that book that was buried in them long ago and, when they dig it up to show me, it has become a piece of themselves.
The message of this diary, if you haven't inferred it yet, is: Follow the Readers & Book Lovers Group; and write your own Books That Changed My Life diary. If you wrote one already, start thinking about your next one. You will learn something about yourself in the process, and you may write better than you know you can. Just take a little time to look inside, and then tell us something true.
I hadn't intended to link to one of my own. But it's a bit unfair to ask you to show me yours, without showing you mine first. So here's one I wrote, which isn't so much about The Golden Notebook, as about one thing I learned from it.
And here are ten better ones, the ten Books That Changed My Life so far, which have received more than 75 recommendations:
The Hitchhicker's Guide To The Galaxy Anton Bursch
The God Delusion boofdah
Atlas Shrugged & The Grapes of Wrath Susan from 29
Howl CityLightsLover
A Wrinkle in Time plf515
The Little Prince mapamp
Said's Orientalism angry marmot
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues racheltracks
Trauma & Recovery by Judith Herman, M. D. SwedishJewfish
Alcoholics Anonymous aravir
Some of these diaries are short, some of them are long; they are written in styles as different as the books they describe. What they have in common is, people liked them. They are all interesting, well-written diaries. So if one of those books intrigues you, click on the link to learn more about it (and about the Kossack who wrote that diary).
Now is your chance to brainstorm on Books That Changed Your Life. Forget writing a diary. Just tell us, in a comment, a Book That Changed Your Life (in the subject line) - and (in the body of the comment): How it made you think, feel, dream; identify with, or want to be friends or lovers with, a character; want to read more books; how it got you interested in a place, or subject, or style of writing; how it made you a little bit more you . . .
P.S. If you might be interested in writing a diary for this series, please mention that in your comment, too. We look for new diarists every week, and love meeting new Kossacks and new books.