The first 'Big Girl' book I read, and the book that catapulted me into my love or reading for the rest of my life. The book I recommend to damn near every parent to get their kid to read, or even them.

The Day My Bum Went Psycho by Andy Griffiths.

Everyone else has mature books and I've got this one.
OTL
Still a child at heart, it seems.

What never left me was the Dick and Jane books that infected me as a with a need to read

"The Alchemist" By Paulo Coelho

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”

Markings, by Dag Hammarskjold, gifted to me by first first (much older) lover. Hammarskjold was Secretary General of the UN from 1953-1961 when he was killed in a plane crash. Markings is a collection of his reflections, poems, and so on. As a late teen, it was an important book to me. I sometimes gift it to students now, and it seems still to touch a chord.

Wish I had the book -Monte Walsh, by Jack Schaefer and could find the quote if it's there, right near the end, that summed up the life of a great horseman : )


I say -if I could find the quote because -the understanding happened in a flash but needed the entire tale to understand

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I read this book as a teenager - It was my first interaction with real emotions. Emotions that were not inocent and childish.
It open my mind somewhat.

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Overwhelming Reality

From Across the Room

Seven minutes by Paulo Coehlo,he is a Brazilian author and in each book he tells a story,but also makes you question certain things that you wouldn't think about.

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[color=indigo][/color]Sexyeyes37

I don't know that I can state specifically one book that was a life-changer for me. I can remember many, beginning when I was three, and my mother read to me four books by A.A.Milne: When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six, Winnie The Pooh, and The House At Pooh Corner.

The Summer of my fifth birthday, my mother read Tom Sawyer to me. That instilled in me a love of Mark Twain such that I took his preface to Huck Finn to heart, and was angered when it was ignored by Lit teachers who proceeded to parse and to read into the book things which I felt (and still feel) the author never intended to be searched out. Ripping apart Huck Finn in the tenth grade was my first experience with tearing an author's work apart, and it instilled in me a healthy wariness of those who would assay to dissect any author's work. ( That served me well in college; once I figured out the professor's point of view, I was able to easily parrot whatever he or she wanted me to "see" in any piece of literature, without agonizing over the supposed moral implications)

EDIT: My mother, in a moment of exasperation, once said of me, "My son is nothing if not independent."

When I was in ninth grade, we had some sort of final examination. I recall neither the question nor my answer, but what I vividly recall is my teacher's marginal note to my answer, written in red pencil: "Read Plato's Republic". I did the following Summer, and have read it several times since.

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"There's only three tempos: slow, medium and fast. When you get between in the cracks, ain't nuthin' happenin'." Ben Webster

"The World is Made of Glass" by Morris West.

I am a man, if you prick us do we not bleed?

my fav reads are "doctors","a walk to remember",particularly,the second one,when iam in college,my friend gave me and said,ur kind of story dude,can finish in a day,i started in the evening,so engrossed in it.i forgot my dinner and finished by 4am in the morning,i was so sad,i forgot the time and roamed on the campus,sat at my volleyball court,feeling the sadness,as it is a sunday,no college,i came to my senses by 11am that day.i still can remember every detail.i have read so many after that,but never felt this much,may be,too big or too busy to acknowledge my feelings

I read this when I was in elementary school, it absolutely fascinated me.

"The Magic Faraway Tree" books, by Enid Blyton. I still read them now. They gave me escape, friends, and exploration of the world not just in my imagination, but real life too. I discovered that the written word can be just as real as reality, and provide comfort, excitement, fear, and the whole range of human emotions. Her simple stories made me want to be able to evoke that kind of joy and discovery too.

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Damn I've gone blank. Oh yea...Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

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Please check out my newest story: "10 Items Or Less"
http://www.lushstories.com/stories/milf/10-items-or-less.aspx
Or my previous story: http://www.lushstories.com/stories/straight-sex/in-the-land-of-salvation-and-sin.aspx

doctors by eric seagel,i think so,i read 10yrs back,borrowed from a friend