Most important books you've read

[ChiOCat]

What books have really impacted your outlook on life, how you view things? The ones that stay with you for years. Fiction and non-fiction.

[NrthFce]

The Eagle has Landed - Jack Higgins

The Long Walk - Slavomir Rawicz

Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer

Point of Impact - Stephen Hunter

Flags of our Fathers - James Bradley

[ChiOCat]

Radical Forgiveness - Colin Tipping

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

The Devils Advocate and The Listener - Taylor Caldwell

[TeacherCat]

The Long Walk - Slavomir Rawicz

This is an awesome book. I recommend all read it.

[MashTun]

Biographies of American Presidents : George Washington to George Bush - David Whitney
I wouldn't say "changed my outlook on life", but served to remind me each of those who served as our presidents are fallible human beings. As we all are.


The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's war against America - Daniel Benjamin & Steven Simon
Very good book on understanding where those like Bin Landen derive the views they hold and how we failed to recognize the extent of their intentions. Authors are past directors of the NSA.

[DriftCat]

Bo Knows Bo

[tampa_griz]

The best book I've read recently is Tony Dungy's "Quiet Strength".

[Billings Cat]

The short story collections of Sherman Alexie (Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, The Toughest Indian in the World, Ten Little Indians)—Sherman Alexie—everything Alexie does is great, but these collections resonate with me even though I couldn't be further from a Spokane Indian. That is Alexie's gift.
Sleepers—Lorenzo Carcaterra—whether the book is totally true or not ignores that this was one hell of a book
The Poetry of Robert Frost: Unabridged—Robert Frost—even if you don’t like poetry, it’s hard to not enjoy Frost
The Old Man and the Sea—Ernest Hemingway—as I’ve grown older its meaning has changed for me. For a novella so simple and sparse, it still so evocative
The Outsiders—S.E. Hinton—the characters still stick with me since I read it as a teenager
The World According to Garp—John Irving—amazing characters, weird happenings, but so much heart at its core.
The Albany Cycle books (Legs, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, Ironweed)—William Kennedy—Ironweed garners the most attention, but the trilogy is simply great literature.
The Portable Jack Kerouac—Jack Kerouac—my copy is dog eared from reading it over and over again. When Kerouac was good, he was great.
Into Thin Air – John Krakaeur—shows just how precious life can be
Isaac’s Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History—Erik Larson—taking literally hundreds of bits of information and weaving them into a taut true thriller which shows that no age is the exclusive domain of man’s arrogance and also compassion
To Kill A Mockingbird—Harper Lee—because courage is not always so obvious. Hard to believe that this is the only novel Lee ever wrote, and when she was asked why she said, "There wasn't anything left for me to say."
Hombre—Elmore Leonard—I think it’s the greatest western novel ever written and like all westerns it's more than just about cowboys and Indians
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories—Norman Maclean—because I have a brother and it is some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read
Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe—Edgar Allen Poe—pure Poe!
Slaughterhouse-Five—Kurt Vonnegut—still so very unconventional after all these years…and so it goes.

[RMD]

I have to go with The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

[catamaran]

I have to go with The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

ditto with For Whom the Bell Tolls
and a more recent The Forgotten Man

[ImagineSanta]

The Bible.

[nevadacat]

Atlas Shrugged
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Great Gastby
1984
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Federalist Papers
The Bible
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
War as I Knew It

[nativecat]

The best book I've read recently is Tony Dungy's "Quiet Strength".

I just finished that onr myself, good read!

[GrizinWashington]

Man, this is a great (and difficult question). I suppose off the top of my head I would say many of those already mentioned including:

The Bible
Grapes of Wrath
To Kill A Mockingbird
Any Hemingway
Into Thin Air


Then a few others that pop immediately to mind:

"A Pirate Looks at 50"; Jimmy Buffett
"Travels with Charley"; Steinbeck
"The Stand"; Stephen King
"Montana, An Uncommon Land", K. Ross Toole
"Marley and Me"; John Grogan
"Millionaire Next Door; Stanley and Danko
"A Rumor of War"; Philip Caputo
"Walking in Circles Before Lying Down", Merrile Marke
"The Worst Hard Time", Timothy Egan
"Winning Ugly"; Brad Gilbert
"Our Times, the Illustrated History of the 20th Century", Turner
"Baseball", Geoffry Ward and Ken Burns
"One Up on Wall Street", Peter Lynch

[geogfather]

God is not Great: How religion poisons everything. by Chris Hitchens

[ChiOCat]

I have to go with The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Yes, one I forgot to add!

[nevadacat]

and a more recent The Forgotten Man

Yes, good book.

[John K]

"Into Thin Air" is a great book. And although I'm not sure that I would refer to it as "most important", one of the more entertaining books that I have ever read is "21 - Bringing Down The House".

[SaxCat]

Das Kapital, Karl Marx

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

Truman, David McCullough

and the most important book to me ever:

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

[grizatwork]

A Prayer for Owen Meaney By John Irving.
It is one of those books that I intentially slowed down while reading it to savor it. Made me really contemplate my own faith.