What books or media help make you who you are today?

[Mindwalker]

I first read "Starship Troopers" by Heinlein when I was 10 years old, I often think back upon the book and the lessons and ideas Heinlein espoused in the book as the first thing to really made me think. I think the greatest lesson I learned from Heinlein was to keep my feet planted on the ground but it was still OK to look up and dream.

Robert J. Sawyer, the first book I ever read by him was "Calculating God" and I now own every book he has published (Just bought "Rollback"). The moral and ethical questions Sawyer asks in his book(s) were read when I was a teenager. I like to think his book(s) helped teach me to view the big picture and the little things, both from the moral/ethical side and the logical side because they are both important.

 

[LondosHair]

"Where the Red Fern Grows" and "Old Yeller" are the first two that come to my mind. They involve the "coming of age" period where a boy becomes a man by learning some of life's hardest lessons.

From a creative/fantasy standpoint, "A Wrinkle in Time" remains a favorite. I never read the sequels.

Aside from those, nothing really comes to mind. I learned more from my entire family than I did from reading books.

I've also never read (or heard of) a book that teaches common sense. That is something that's learned from experience... at least for those who are bright enough to comprehend it.

 

[Chilli]

Star Trek - stupid geeky answer, but Mr. Spock really was a great influence/idol of mine when I was younger.

And it also awakened my interest in the vastness of the universe - as someone that studies astronomy, not something I consider too minor.

 

[Mike G]

Yea, I have to say Star Trek as well, I've been watching some star trek or another as long as I can remember, so I'd say its had a pretty big impact on my life.

I was 14 when I first saw Babylon 5, and that definitly made an impact on me. As much as I've liked certain books or movies, they never seemed to have quite the same impact on me, because they just don't last as long as a television show.

 

[hypatia]

I know a few science/engineering types who were inspired by the original Star Trek.

The PBS miniseries "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan changed my life forever. It literally opened my mind to the cosmos. And there are some pretty interesting things out there.

About that same time I started doing better in math, which is a subject that bored me before.

So I can safely say that I wouldn't be a master of mathematics today if it hadn't been for Carl Sagan's "Cosmos".

 

[Ranger1]

although "starship troopers" affected me intensely, it's actually "stranger in a strange land" also by heilein that affected me most. i hit puberty really early, i mean REALLY early, i was 8 or 9, and although i didn't come to the book till i was 12, it kind of explained things to me, that i didn't really get having done all that bullshit well before everyone else.

 

[darth_librarian]

Catcher in the Rye at 15 let me feel that it was ok to be pissed off at the world.

Babylon 5 made me look at everything from differing points of view.

Baywatch made me a pervert.

 

[KoshFan]

I love this game.

I'll throw out a few quotes which really made an impact.

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us -- and our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between. But there is still a chance to seize that last, fragile moment. To choose something better. To make a difference, as you say. And I intend to do just that."

"If we deny the other we deny ourselves."

"So do all who are born to such times. But that is not for us to decide. All that we have to decide is what to do with the time we are given."

"Everyone down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own."

"The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."


Can you name them all?

 

[GKarsEye]

My answer surprises even myself: the Hebrew Bible, and associated rabbinical writings.

 

[Ranger1]

Catcher in the Rye at 15 let me feel that it was ok to be pissed off at the world.

seriously? i found it to be one of the most unreadable books i ave ever suffered through, Holden Caulfield is the least likeable character i have ever come across, even more so than jake la motta in raging bull.

 

[darth_librarian]

Yeah, at the time I did'nt like myself much. I'd never read a 'train of thought' narrative like that one. Plus the concept of seeing everyone around you as a Phoney was just very appealing.

 

[Ranger1]

i just couldn't get on with it because he's the only phoney in the whole damnable book, he'd even see that if he pulled his head out of his own arse long enough to check.

 

[Pobman]

Two things spring to mind: Quantum Leap and A Brief History of Time.

For some reason when I was young, I never saw Star Trek, but I absolutely loved Quantum Leap and this definitely got me wondering about Physics etc. And then when I was blinded in one eye when I was 11, watching it took on a whole new meaning as I desperately wanted to travel back in time to stop it from happening.

Then I read a Brief History of Time when I was 15 and after having a conversation with my Business Studies teacher, I realised that I actually understood some of the things he didn't (I by no means understood the whole book). That set me on the path of studying science, in particular Astrophysics.

For any philosophy/moral learnings, I got those from my family.

 

[Alluveal]

I also enjoyed Catcher in the Rye. It was one of the first character voices that felt wholly real and raw to me.

As a writer myself, part of my artistic self came from good ole Ray Bradbury short stories. Here was this author that made me say, "hell yeah, this is what I want to do for a living."

 

[KoshFan]

Oh, yes. Bradbury was my first muse.


EDIT: Oh, in my first post I forgot to mention that my mother read me "The Hobbit" before I could talk; I think this explains a great deal about my subsequent development.

 

[Mindwalker]

you have hairy toes and a tendency to smoke a pipe?!

 

[Alluveal]

I just hit 7 months on my pregnancy and whenever I attend my J.R.R. Tolkien literature class, this kid goes NUTS in my belly. So, I'm also wondering if I'm gonna have me a hobbit. =) I think Tolkien rocks.

 

[KoshFan]

you have hairy toes and a tendency to smoke a pipe?!

More influence on my tastes and interests (I love stories of any kind, for example) than on my phenotype.

I just hit 7 months on my pregnancy and whenever I attend my J.R.R. Tolkien literature class, this kid goes NUTS in my belly.

I'd take that as a good sign.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

seriously? i found it to be one of the most unreadable books i ave ever suffered through, Holden Caulfield is the least likeable character i have ever come across, even more so than jake la motta in raging bull.

It's the "Seinfield" of novels.
IT'S ABOUT NOTHIN'! ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN'!

 

[Jade Jaguar]

The reading that has most shaped me, more or less in order that I read them, starting about age 8:

The World Book Encyclopedia
National Geographic Magazine
20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea
Lots of books about dinosaurs, and anthropology

Jr. High, HS
Gods, Graves, and Scholars
Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas
Scientific American Magazine
1984
Brave New World
Animal Farm
Homage To Catalonia by Orwell
Catcher in the Rye
Moby Dick
An average of 1.5 Sci Fi books per day, in the summers

Post-HS (college, later)
Before Noon by Ramon Sender
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Cat's Cradle
(LH, Vonnegut comes about as close to teaching common sense as is possible)
A lot of other Vonnegut books
Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up To Me, by Richard Farina
Nausea, by John Paul Sartre
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Way of Zen, by Alan Watts
V, by Thomas Pynchon
Bound For Glory by Woody Guthrie
Black Elk Speaks
Don Juan, A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge, and several others by Carlos Casteneda
The Caste War of Yucatan, by Nelson Reed

I know I'm omitting several that are dear to me, but that's enough!