Which book(s) affected you like this?

[Srbo]

I came across a very interesting quote by Franz Kafka while browsing the net about his works over the weekend:

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ...we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. „

That really made me think which books have affected me like this.
Well, for me, first and foremost, it was the Bible. What a book, what a Holy Book, whith such tales and lessons that just sum everything up there is to sum up in life, and make you think deeply about everything there is to think about.
And our Lord Jesus Christ is really one of a kind, IMO and belief.
The greatest Who walked the Earth ever.
At least teacher, if you don`t believe that He is God or that there is a God at all.

Then came Charles Dickens and his book "The Old Curiosity Shop".
I still don`t know what it is about that book that moved me so deeply, but I`ve read it very early in my childhood and I still have a deep, compasionate affection for it. His other works are most definitely excellent as well, but that just stands out.
Then I came across Jules Verne and his book " Around the World in 80 days", and to this day, I believe that that book, if read early in life, can give you a serious case of OCD. I mean, if Phileas Fogg didn`t have that, then I don`t know who did.
"20 000 miles under the Sea" made me think about science fiction for the first time in my life.
After that, somhow "combined" came Dostoyevski and his unbelievable book " Crime and Punishment ", Herman Hesse and his " Damian " and Franz Kafka`s " The Process".
Those books shook my life so hard that I`ve spent years and years after that exploring all of their works, along with other classics.
The insight into the human mind in those books was and is unreal, just beyond words.
Made me want to read Nietzche, Kirkegaard, Socrates, Plato and others too, but somehow I think that these "ordinary" writers went deeper and better into explaining human nature.

And then...then came Sai King and " The Stand".
Prior to that book, I have never read a horror novel before. Ever.
I don`t know what it was and is - the circumstances under which I stumbled across the book or the sheer brilliance of his writing, but reading that book I felt that this man has combined EVERYTHING I have ever read before that book, everything that other writers tried to say.
And exploring his work further and further I came to the conclusion that indeed it is like that, and even though I thought for the longest time that Dostoyevski is the best ever, Sai King left him in the dust.
A true genius, the greatest writer of them all, no one comes close to him.

So, what book(s) made you feel the way Kafka said it/they should feel?

[frisbee]

I'm not sure I agree with Kafka on that statement. There is always room for mindless entertainment, IMHO

However, Roots, by Alex Haley, affected me that way.

[Srbo]

Well, Frisbee, that was only his opinion, even though I also agree with yours 100%.
Sometimes you just want to read a comic book.

But, I would like to hear which book(s) shook your foundations forever, my friends.

[mstay]

I remember feeling that way about Watership Down the first time I read it. That story had a lot to say about humans and the way we act.

Great thread Srbo!

[kingricefan]

I would have to say Dracula, The Stand, Fried Green Tomatoes, Helter Skelter, Praise The Human Season, Ghost Story, the Dark Tower saga, 'Salem's Lot, The Shining

[smerdyakov]

Nausea from Sartre had a lasting impact. The Brothers Karamazov () and Notes from the Underground did the same. A couple of books from Rushdie: the short where a ruby slipper is auctioned, then Grimus and Fury.

In highschool, Preludes and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock affected me a greal deal.

[gniknehpets]

When I was 13 I read Little Women in the top of a pine tree hiding from my dad and it saved my life. I had called him a terrible name and he broke down my bedroom door just as I was going out the window, book in hand. I hid in the top of that tree for 4 hours and by the time Beth was dying my dad had calmed down enough for me to come down. Couldn't have hid that long without Jo, Amy, Meg and Beth to keep me company.

[GNTLGNT]

The first was the LOTR series-then The Stand, which started me down my own joyous yellow brick road....

[boogerb53]

I hate to sound pat but Lord of the Flies changed my entire way of looking at life and civilization as a whole.

[Carrie Anne]

What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I don't even remember who wrote it. I was just a kid, but I vividly remember that feeling.