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Subject: Favourite Books Author: Allie [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 03:20:29 09/21/04 Tue Which are your favourite books, the ones that have had the greatest impact on your life? Not just novels, but any books. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: Re: Favourite Books Author: Allie [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 03:43:59 09/21/04 Tue Here are some of my own favourite books: Among the novels, The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn & Joy in the Morning (Betty Smith), The Countrywoman (Paul Smith), Follow Your Heart (Tamaro),Gone With The Wind (Mitchell), The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, and at least six of Anne Tyler's. Among the non-fiction, The Assassin's Cloak (A diary anthology by Irene & Alan Taylor), A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations (Ayer & O'Grady), Confessions of a Philosopher (Magee), The Philosophers (Scharfstein), Reincarnation In World Thought (Head & Cranston), all of Dr Ian Stevenson's works on children who seem to remember previous lives, as well as the works of many philosophers. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: Favourite Books Author: KT [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 06:58:01 10/12/04 Tue I think the book that had the biggest impact on my life was A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving. It absorbed me. However, I have endless lists of favourite books and it really depends on my mood at the time. Thank you. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Favourite Books Author: Bob Williams [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 16:08:34 09/22/04 Wed I read the works of Spinoza when I was 18 or 19. I found them liberating and exactly what I was searching for at that perilous age. About the same time I read Homer's Odyssey. It made a great impression on me although now that I am older I prefer the Iliad. When I was 18 I read Ulysses by James Joyce and then all of Joyce. Who becomes obsessed with Finnegans Wake has found a life-time hobby. The core works for me are the above as well as Catullus and Shakespeare. It often seems to me that I read all the books that would be important to me before I was 21 and since then have been rereading them or just fooling around with lesser books. Does anyone else think this is true and if not why not? [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: Favourite Books Author: Allie [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 08:13:37 09/23/04 Thu Is it that Homer's Odyssey is more suited to a younger person, and the Iliad to an older person, or that the impact of the Odyssey didn't last, while that of the Iliad did? [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: Favourite Books Author: Bob Williams [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 08:47:04 09/23/04 Thu I suspect that it may more have been what was available in the way of translation and edition. I had found an 18th century edition in 4 volumes, the Pope translation. The word for this combination was serendipity. When I made an inventory of my books recently I discovered to my satisfaction that I had more copies of Homer than Bibles. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: Favourite Books Author: Seba [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 16:30:44 09/30/04 Thu I know what you mean about finding the perfect book when you're younger. Recently I was at a library sale and had a 'kids book' thrust on me. In the time honoured tradition I went to put it back, but changed my mind after a quick scan revealed it to be an anthology of wildlife books I was mad about as a child. Mysteries and Marvels of Nature (published by Usborne) is the name of the anthology and, having re-read the collected titles, I can only describe them as classics. I think they're way out of print now, which is a shame. Good non-fiction should get the recognition it deserves. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Favourite Books Author: Bob Williams [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:34:15 10/01/04 Fri Alibris makes a great thing out of finding books of the sort that you describe - chilhood favorites that you never expected to find again. As a child I lived on the Bookhouse, an encyclopedia for children. I recall that it had a detailed article on how it was impossible that man should ever reach the moon. Ah, well. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Favourite Books Author: Seba [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 04:45:06 10/03/04 Sun And there are people who suspect your book might be right, no offence to Neill Armstrong. What disturbed me about that book I referred to was that it contained a high concentration of information that had somehow escaped more elitist science books. For example, I never knew Tobacco Plants were carnivorous, and I've been finding dead insects all over the ones growing in my garden for years, but I'd simply put their deaths down to nicotine poisoning due to their attempting to devour the plants. None of the more scientific tomes at my disposal contains this important piece of information, not even the Royal Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants!It goes to show how easily information can be lost. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]