Challenge: 50 Books discussion

Happy Friday!

Here is this week's question(s) for us to discuss: Has there been a book that caused you to shift or change your perspective on something or someone? What was the name of the book and how was your perspective impacted?

I remember a book when I was a kid about mentally challenged kids and bullying. It was called "It's Too Later for Sorry". My grandmother's sister used to keep several mentally challenged foster children that we spent a lot of time with in the summer. When I read this book it around 4th grade, it made me change my perspective of how I viewed them and aiding in understanding what it was like for them. I liked the book so much, I started reading it a second time as soon as I finished it.

A couple of books come to mind, one being the book Columbine- Columbine. I really thought I knew everything about this case and this book really changed my perspective regarding not only Columbine but a lot of other school shooters. Another book, which I just finished, is Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. I couldn't quite put my finger on why Miley Cyrus, among other vapid young celebrities, were gyrating around practically naked and why I had such a big problem with it. This book really helped me to be able to verbalize my concerns regarding the exploitation of these young women.

i think there have been lots of books that have prompted me to question my opinion on something but only one book caused a huge -almost radical- shift in my perspective. only one book saved my life.

to understand why it did you have to picture a girl at nine or ten, living on a farm in the middle of the northern ontario bush. when i say that girl was isolated i don't just mean geographically .... i mean socially, psychologically, intellectually .... i mean every way you can possibly conceive. the family had a t.v. .... there was one channel. there was a phone .... no one was allowed to use it. the girl did go to public school but was not involved in anything beyond the classroom. there was no after school sports or lessons or hanging out with friends to do homework or play. the bus got to school ten minutes before class started and left immediately when class got out. it was a small school in a small town but it did have a library, and the girl was a voracious reader. mostly Nancy Drew and other age-appropriate books that was all that was available.

as kids she and her sister used to play in the attic of the house and when she was nine or so, they found a box of books that had belonged to their father years ago. sick to death of Nancy Drew, they set about secretly reading this stash of books ... none of them age-appropriate, but nothing horribly inappropriate either.

one of these books a science fiction novel called, The Big Eye, was as B-grade sci fi as they come. it was a bad as the name suggests .... but for a girl growing up on a farm in the bush of northern Ontario who had not been exposed to anything out of the ordinary .... suddenly there was a universe -a whole wondrous, complicated, HUGE universe. aliens -creatures different from me or anyone she had ever seen. different worlds. time loops. moral dilemmas. unknowns. challenges. suddenly every thing was big and mysterious and exciting.

i am profoundly grateful to science fiction for opening my eyes and my mind to possibility, to the explainable, to how big existence is. i believe reading that book saved me from a very small life.

Children Of The Atom by Wilmar Shiras had a similar impact on me as a teen - it opened a "what if" world to me and a self perception that i had not experienced prior.
more recently i read the The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Polan that changed my perspective on how certain plant have changed our world.
and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand which while I feel we should help people in real need I find that society's entitlement perspective has tainted what is need.

I would have to say The Painted Birdhas had the most profound effect on me. Its a book not just about the jewish people, but also cultural intolerance and total disregard of and against those who didn't fit a certain ideal. I just finished listening to the book, but the horrors of what happened, yet separate from the death camps we already know about, could actually be felt in the words of the author and the slow, deliberate voice of the reader.

It's not that I haven't heard of these atrocities, but now, I somehow feel any mishap in my life so small in comparison, and even more so than before my eyes well with tears for those who suffered such unimaginable (to me) acts of cruelty.

An anger never before known to me had begun to take hold, but I realize that just as the calm voice of the reader was able to tell the story, I too must reason with a calm but effective approach to the pain in this world.

The author states that he wrote the book in a fictional format which to my belief is because it was the only way to truly process and relive the events of the time. If you wish to read this my suggestion would be to listen to the audio version. It is a powerful story.

I think a book that had a profound effect on me was Night by Elie Wiesel when I was in ninth grade. We were studying WWII and the Holocaust, and Night was a recommended read. I was astonished by man's inhumanity to man. The Holocaust has been a lifelong study since then, but today it includes Stalin's Gulag, and the suffering of Africa and the North Korea.

I remember a book about The explosion in japan about 10th grade. it really made me think.

Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Acheron was kicked when he was already down since he was a baby and yet always has more compassion than any other person (fiction or not) I have ever heard of. As I read the book, I changed how I saw people. I make it my mission to be kind to people until I know who they are. And if they don't want my kindness I have to let it go.

I don't know if there's a rule about responding to these after a certain time, but I will anyway!

Christian:
These just had fabulously good doctrine and inspiring encouragements toward holiness.
The Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life by Calvin
The Imitation of Christ by a Kempis

Inspiring Historically:
Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing - Anderson
The Chosen - Potok
Jude the Obscure - Hardy
Pastwatch - Card

Makes me appreciate life/makes me want to write myself:
Flowers for Algernon - Keyes
Brideshead Revisited - Waugh
Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery