What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you?
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@mouseless How did you first come across the book?
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@ShaulaEvans "The Book of Form and Emptiness" by Ruth Ozeki [2021]:
• one of the first books I read after a long period during which reading itself was difficult for me... reading has always been one of my favorite things, so it helped me reconnect with myself at a time I needed to relearn who I even am
• my mom (who recommended it to me) and I bonded over the similarities between our lives and the MCs' (a teen who starts having psychotic symptoms after his father dies, a now-single mother doing her best to support her son) and we appreciated the perspectives it offered us of each other's experiences (my psychiatrically troubled upbringing, her parenting me through my psychiatrically troubled upbringing...)
• I felt so... seen... like, I've definitely met actual folks like these characters during my own stints at the mental hospital (and dealt with this degree of incompetency from various institutions!!!)
• this is one of those stories that's about everything: surviving adolescence, overcoming bereavement, environmentalism, workers' rights, critiques of the psychiatric system, the importance of libraries...
• The Book itself is a character, and a delightful one at that... I'd like to think all books feel the way about us that This Particular Book does
• the story references—and is what got me into—Jorge Luis Borges, who is quintessential schizo reading material (and has inspired several of my favorite authors... which makes me feel like I'm creatively headed in the "right" direction with my own work)@gemsmoke You are *definitely* on the right path with your work. xo
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Pratchett, for me.
"Like an exercise bicycle it takes you nowhere, but it just might tone up the muscles that will."
Terry Pratchett on fantasy, from The Discworld Companion.
@falcennial I'm with you. I deeply love this books. And I came across them at exactly the right moment for me.
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@chestas I propose a toast
to all the Alephs and the Bottlemen out there! to the Bennys and the Annabelles and the Kenjis!!and, of course, the Books! (which Books...? ALL the Books!!)
@ShaulaEvans -
@chestas What a beautiful and circuitous route to a good place!
I read a lot of Heller and Vonnegut (and other men traumatized by war) around the same age. Heller stayed with me, too. (Most of them did.)
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon @falcennial
I can’t remember the title or the author but I remember reading a non-fiction book in 1984 about rainforest depletion and it made a major contribution to me becoming vegetarian
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@kgjengedal @bookstodon I believe that earns you an honorary Canadian passport!
(I can say that: I'm Canadian.)
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@uc @bookstodon It was one of my dad's favourite books! I read his old copy when I was in high school. I loved it then but I'm sure would read it different now (not worse, just very differently).
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@satsuma @alicemcalicepants That is amazing, Neil. Bravo!
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon Thicker Than Water by Leonore Davidoff, which I read ahead of a colloquium with the author at the beginning of my Master's in 2012, when I was 23.
It's a monograph about siblings in history that's super engaging because it's such an interesting, human topic and she wrote it in such an accessible way. Not only did it open my eyes to the fact historians are 'allowed' to write like that, but it made me think 'what about only children?' – giving me a topic for my PhD!
@alicemcalicepants Wow! That's amazing, Alice.
I find it inspiring and terrifying in equal measure to consider the random events that can go on to shape a life.
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What is one book that positively shaped who you are as a person and how did it influence you? At what point in your life did you read it?
Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, audiobook: however you define "book" for yourself is fine with me.
@bookstodon @ShaulaEvans There are several, but I'll offer up two:
Jean Merrill, The Pushcart War (1964)
Read in the sixth grade of elementary school. It taught me the positive power of subversion, and the importance of solidarity in the face of corruption.
Donald Knuth, The TeXbook (1984)
Read while working as an early-career legal academic. It unlocked in me a passion for, or obsession with, grasping programming logic and putting it to use.
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@satsuma @alicemcalicepants I used to know people in historical swordsmanship circles! I wonder if you've ever come across Brad Waller?
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@troodon Bravo to 4th grade you for that wisdom and awareness!
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@ShaulaEvans @bookstodon spell of the Sensuous by David Abrams. Most of the book is about the origination of language and how our environments shape our sounds. It helped me open to the possibilities found in relating to my environment, to keep me open to hearing new forms of language, to keep me listening for song lines from the Earth.
@MamaLake This sounds like an amazing book!
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@troodon Thank you for this reply. My heart is glowing at your connection with this book.
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@alicemcalicepants Wow! That's amazing, Alice.
I find it inspiring and terrifying in equal measure to consider the random events that can go on to shape a life.
@ShaulaEvans thanks, and same – my main finding was that other factors were more instrumental than being an only child in itself! Eg. Family circumstances/parental attitudes, individual personality, class, where they lived, when they lived, gender...
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
