The most influential books in your life and why

[Bakunin]

I'm sorry, Its my first thread so I am taking one of the most popular on most peoples list: On the Road by that gone cat Jack Kerouac. The first of his books that I read and man, it just made me want to hit the pavement and just keep going, drinking and seeing and tasting and digging everything. I wanted to howl at night, sleep on the ground with my coat for blanket, talk to strangers like I've known them in my last life and live till my last dime. I wanted to watch the sun set in North Dakota under a sea of grass crushed by the sheer weight of the dark Western Night, stick my hand out the car window and drag it through fields of sunflowers. Step out into the Badlands at sunrise and feel the ancient dirt from prairies long time gone between my toes, suck in the dry air that surrounds the Little Missouri like a hangover from corner-store wine. Wind down the road of Dead Indian Pass where Chief Joseph tried to outrun his doom and then race up to the roof of Montana in the Beartooth mountains, then careen down the other side, whooping and hollering like it was my last day on earth. I wanted to see the Denver where Neal Cassidy set an unofficial record of stolen cars and hustled pool for women and booze. Where Alan Ginsberg slept in a basement apartment that resembled the room of a Russian saint. I wanted see the West coast, the Gold coast, the New World where it was all happening. Where no matter where he was, Jack needed to go like a moth to the light. I had to stop in a small town forgotten by time and lay on the grass in front of the church on a Saturday afternoon and sleep off an ice cream soda and pie. Sit on the park bench at the town green as if I lived there all my life and I belonged. And I needed to be able to answer honesty the question "Where are you going to be tomorrow?" with "I don't know!"
And I did it. I did all of it.

[Quixote1818]

1. Don Quixote De La Mancha

I discovered it was the favorite book of many of our founding fathers including Thomas Jefferson who kept several copies of it. This sparked my interest and lead to a spiritual awaking for me and a belief in the importance of reaching for the stars while still keeping my head on straight.

From my website: www.impossibledreamspub.com

Miguel Cervantes's novel Don Quixote de La Mancha (recently voted the greatest book ever written)

Perhaps no group of statesmen enjoyed Don Quixote more than the Founding Fathers of the United States. It was a favorite of Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Adams (who traveled with the book in his saddlebags), and Thomas Jefferson who kept several different copies of the book in many different languages in his library at his home in Monticello, VA.

Jefferson often quoted Don Quixote in letters to colleagues and friends and during political debates. His writing of the Declaration of Independence along with his other impacts on our current "Jeffersonian" democracy are proof that "Quixotic" idealism, which is often made fun of, can profoundly impact the world for the better, taking once thought absurd, unreachable ideas and turning them into a reality so normal they become a regular part of every day life. As Don Quixote said "I come in a world of Iron to make a world of Gold."

"Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible." - Cherie Carter-Scott

Our country was founded on "Quixotic" idealism and, perhaps, that is why we were the first to reach the moon and put spacecraft beyond our solar system. We literally did dream the impossible dream and reach the unreachable!

So, if you haven't attempted to tilt a few windmills, then you don't know what you are missing, or more importantly, what the world might be missing!

[roguevalley]

2. I remember being blown away by The Outsiders when I was a kid

and I love the spirit and derring-do of the Lord of the Rings series. There are so many.

[Horseradish]

3. Love in the Time of Cholera

Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I don't know why. It's just that I've read a lot of books and that is the one that flew into my mind when I read your question (and it usually does for some reason).

[Forkboy]

4. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Rice_and_Salt



The book is set between about AD 1405 (783 solar years since the Hegira, by the Islamic calendar used in the book), and AD 2002 (1423 after Hegira). In the eighth Islamic century, almost 99 per cent of the population of medieval Europe is wiped out by the Black Death (rather than the approximately 30-60% that died in reality). This sets the stage for a world without Christianity as a major influence.

The novel follows a jāti of three to seven main characters and their reincarnation through time, in very different cultural and religious settings. The book features Muslim, Chinese (Buddhist, Daoist, Confucianist), American First Nations, and Hindu culture, philosophy and everyday life. It mixes sophisticated knowledge about these cultures in the real world with fictional developments, partly resembling the actual history, but shifted and reflected by different cultural settings.

* "The religions that say you should sacrifice or even pray to a god..., to ask them to do something material for you, are the religions of desperate and ignorant people. It is only when you get to the more advanced and secure societies that you get a religion ready to face the universe honestly, to announce that there is no clear sign of divinity, except for the existence of the cosmos in and of itself, which means that everything is holy, whether or not there be a god looking down on it."

* "My feeling is that until the number of whole lives is greater than the number of shattered lives, we remain stuck in some kind of prehistory, unworthy of humanity's great spirit. History as a story worth telling will only begin when the whole lives outnumber the wasted ones. That means we have many generations to go before history begins. All the inequalities must end; all the surplus wealth must be equitably distributed. Until then we are still only some kind of gibbering monkey, and humanity, as we usually like to think of it, does not yet exist."

I've read the book twice and plan on reading it again soon.I got so much out of it with each reading,and I know there's even more to glean from this fantastic and extremely thought-provoking novel.A true tour de force of writing.

How it influences me is just the humanist approach Robinson takes in this,and all of his books.The ending alone is one of the more spiritual things I've ever read (and I'm not religious in any sense).

Welcome to DU! :hi: