What book has been the most influential and essential part of your life?

What book has been the most influential and essential part of your life?

It's more about when you read it, for me it'd be Notes from the Underground and Plato, those set me off in a direction and gave a purpose that still flickers

thanks for replying. Let's say I broke up with someone, or lost a close friend. Something along those lines. Like, I've felt isolated before, and I found the perfect book was No Longer Human. What's perfect for loss?

Or is distraction perfect? Something unrelated...

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs is far and away the most influential book I've ever read. I read it when I was 12 and it is the book that started me reading for the rest of my life.

I really enjoyed reading "Burmese Days" by Orwell. The story in general was not spectecular, but after reading "Homage to Catalonia" I looked into Orwell's life and saw that he pursued his ideals with a supporting lust for adventure in his youth which gave me encouragement to move to another country for furthering my skills and set up a new life.

The part where he gets shot in the neck was also pretty boss.

Is she native? What a shame all the Indian qts are dead those high cheeks and sleek black hair hnnng

the talmud

alice's adventures in wonderland and through the looking glass

A Farewell to Arms (for pushing through the sadness)
Lord of the Rings (for escapism)
Blood Meridian (for blasting your feelings out with high-minded violence)
Siddhartha (for peace)

Idk you've probably read these and they might not be your style but i find stuff that's too "intellectual" gets kind of lost on me when I'm in times of turmoil in my life. I like to re-read favorites at these times.
Hope you get through it friend.

KJV
Montaigne's Essays
Dickinson's poetry and letter's
-Perhaps sad, but true.

Which?

Nietzsche's writings definitely changed the way I live

please elaborate

Blake's collected works desu

Don Quixote
Heart of Darkness
Madame Bovary
The Tora
Apollinaire
I guess

Moby Dick

When I was 10 I read Machiavelli's The Prince. I was too young to understand it any further than for it to completely scramble my moral compass. I then spent the next six years reformulating one from scratch, mainly by forcing myself to read Charles Dickens until I liked it.

The Cantos

none because i'm not mentally 12

Behead All Satans
Cinderella's Concrete Shoes
Pandemonium of The Sun
On Women
Der Hexenhammer
On the jews and their lies
Green Eggs and Ham
Ulysses

Unironically, reading 1984 when i was 13 made me a more paranoid and cynical person overall and i think it greatly influenced me as a person. Paranoid and cynical for better or for worse, i guess.

I read a few books on zen, a few autobiographies, and some Carlos castenada in high school. I had a pretty unorthodox early twenties, and now I'm a conservative, atheist gun nut. So... I guess?

Schopenhauer - world as will and representation
Ronald Siegel - the mindfulness solution (btw 10% happier by Dan Harris convinced me to start meditating and I'd recommend it to someone who is skeptical)

The Bible.

10/10 solid list.

Unironically, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson by Gurdjieff, as well as In Search of the Miraculous by Ouspensky. I'm convinced that the gradual rediscovery/greater interest in Gurdjieff will lead to something of a mystical renaissance as the 21st century goes on. Gurdjieff has had a massive, subtle, far-reaching influence, and he's only becoming more well-known. The son of a bitch had some mission, probably from dervish orders in Central Asia, possibly from Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, to bring certain esoteric knowledge to the West and make it more widely known.

This changed the way I see energy, stops me from being ashamed, apathetic, or guilty

The Book of Disquiet by Pessoa