Books that have changed the way you think?
I've been listening to a weekly horror story podcast Pseudopod for a while now, that, to my geeky pleasure, is narrated by an Englishman named Brigadier Alasdair Stewart. The stories themselves are excellently written, usually not in the tradition of pulp fiction blood bath horror, and I always enjoy the brief commentary that's given at the beginning or end of the episodes. Pseudopod is part of a group of podcasts (Escape Pod for sci-fi and PodCastle for fantasy) that are really presenting some of the best in short stories coming out of the genre market these days, many of the stories having won Hugo or Nebula awards, and many others that are just good.
Alasdair Stewart's commentary at the end of podcast 104: "The Book in the Earth" got me thinking. Here's what he said:
"Books are chimerical, changing not only due to the circumstance you find them in, but who you are when you do. Think about it. The same basic undercurrent of knowledge is now available to, basically, everyone in the developed world. The same knowledge, the same stories, accessible in millions of unique ways and places by millions of unique people. Sometimes you'll be entertained, sometimes you'll be bored senseless, and sometimes you'll be changed.
I've read three books that have changed overtly how I think and act and I know with an absolute certainty that there are dozens of others whose influence is much more subtle. We become, after a while, libraries; treasure troves of information, carriers of a unique strain of meme, be it a story, a joke, a poem, a fact. Every book changes us. Everything we read becomes part of us. Case in point, Apollo 16, Charlie Duke became the only man in history, to date, to fall over on the moon. I've carried that for years; now you're carrying it too. Now, the point though, is that really good books don't just do this, but they also ask who you are and show you who you could be. Really great books have that effect in subtly different ways every time you read them. And all-time classics frequently feature a lot more space battles."
I can't think of any books which I definitely know have changed me at a base level, or changed the manner in which I think. Surely I can list plenty of books which have effected me and my ideas, but I don't think it's the same. I do agree with him that what we read becomes part of an inner library of concepts, ideas, and facts, and definitely, these help hone a more individualistic view of the world, but does it really change us, and how we think about things?
Perhaps I'm taking him a bit too literally here, but I can't help wondering: Are there are books that have radically changed the way you think? Even the way you construct thought? And if so, if you have returned to them at different times in your life, how did that change the book's effect?
Alasdair Stewart's commentary at the end of podcast 104: "The Book in the Earth" got me thinking. Here's what he said:
"Books are chimerical, changing not only due to the circumstance you find them in, but who you are when you do. Think about it. The same basic undercurrent of knowledge is now available to, basically, everyone in the developed world. The same knowledge, the same stories, accessible in millions of unique ways and places by millions of unique people. Sometimes you'll be entertained, sometimes you'll be bored senseless, and sometimes you'll be changed.
I've read three books that have changed overtly how I think and act and I know with an absolute certainty that there are dozens of others whose influence is much more subtle. We become, after a while, libraries; treasure troves of information, carriers of a unique strain of meme, be it a story, a joke, a poem, a fact. Every book changes us. Everything we read becomes part of us. Case in point, Apollo 16, Charlie Duke became the only man in history, to date, to fall over on the moon. I've carried that for years; now you're carrying it too. Now, the point though, is that really good books don't just do this, but they also ask who you are and show you who you could be. Really great books have that effect in subtly different ways every time you read them. And all-time classics frequently feature a lot more space battles."
I can't think of any books which I definitely know have changed me at a base level, or changed the manner in which I think. Surely I can list plenty of books which have effected me and my ideas, but I don't think it's the same. I do agree with him that what we read becomes part of an inner library of concepts, ideas, and facts, and definitely, these help hone a more individualistic view of the world, but does it really change us, and how we think about things?
Perhaps I'm taking him a bit too literally here, but I can't help wondering: Are there are books that have radically changed the way you think? Even the way you construct thought? And if so, if you have returned to them at different times in your life, how did that change the book's effect?