what books changed your life?
I LOVED doing this episode, because books have historically been a passion of mine. Some of the books I listed fell on the cutting room floor, so below the video, I've linked to the books that I mentioned in the raw footage, for your summer reading pleasure. Please feel free to share your favourites, below -- I'm always looking for a new good read.
Made in America, by Bill Bryson, the funniest, most scholarly writer I've ever read. Wonderful book.
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. My favourite novel of all time.
Living Buddha, Living Christ, by Thich Nhat Hanh. All about mindfulness, and lovingkindness. An inspiring book.
Clown Girl, by Monica Drake. I admit it, this book didn't actually change my life: I bought this because it has a rubber chicken on the cover. A very odd, but very cool novel.
Sunday, July 5, 2009 at 7:49PM
Reader Comments (5)
My favorite book if I could only pick one to read and re-read would be Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family. It's a memoir and you find yourself seduced by the setting and laughing at things that really aren't funny, but the way he shares makes it all fit together. It's how I'd wish to write if I ever put the stories of my life together for all to see.
A book I have remembered long after reading is THE POWER OF ONE by Bryce Courtenay about a little boy who grows into a fine man during some major changes in the society of South Africa.
The movie did not do justice to the plot of the book, even though Morgan Freeman was a star. I do have the soundtrack, where listening the funeral dirge still brings tears to my eyes.
I love to think about how I'd answer this question 20 years, or 10 years, or even 5 years ago. And even today, I can list my favorite books as a girl, as a teenageer, and then as an adult living on my own. And then I cringe, because I spent a lot of time at the library but I also used to sneak out to the bookstore to buy books. (I had to sneak Sweet Valley High and all sorts of young adult romance/soapy drama novels.) My mom encouraged us to read - in fact, she took us to the library every week for books. But she wanted me to read Good Books. Not fluff. (And of course, when I was 15, I wanted some fluff!)
Yep, sneaking out to buy books. If that doesn't have bad ass party girl written all over it, I don't know what does. (And I mentioned this to my mother, who, by all accounts, rocks and regrets very little. But, looking back on the crap my younger siblings would later pull, she does feel a teensy bit badly that the only bad assery I committed was sneaking some Sweet Valley High.)
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, the biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, is an amazing book. It is the powerful story of the enormous difference one person can have in our world. This book, the story of Paul Farmer's drive to eradicate tuberculosis from Haiti and other third world countries, makes you want to cheer!
In fact, I was walking through the Newark airport last week, and I saw a man carrying a copy of this book. I wanted to stop him and tell him how excited I was for him, how excited he must be to be reading that book. Sense prevailed and, thankfully, prevented me from sounding like a lunatic, but this is the kind of enthusiasm this book engenders!
My latest read is called, " Shadow of the Wind", by Carlos Luis Zafon. The story is set in Barcelona and is a mystery whose subject is a series of books.