Nerdfighters

Eye-Opening Books

What books opened your eyes to new ways of thinking? What books subverted your dominant paradigm? What books helped shape you into who you are (still becoming) today?

Books rock our world, but some more than others. Some wake us up. Some show us things we never would have seen on our own. Some change our lives.

I'd like to get a good list of these types of books from Nerdfighters who've read them and been changed by them. I want to know: Title, author, when you read it (not the year - how old were you, about? Because different books affect us at different stages of our lives. Books that widened my universe when I was 13 may not have the same effect now, but I still remember them for what they did for me then), and why and how it affected you so deeply.

This is a great way for elder, or any Nerdfighters to "share the awesome"!

We've reached the 13th Page Anomaly! It's a weird Ning glitch, where once you reach 13 pages of comments, your last page doesn't show up. So if you want to read the comments, here are some pages that may not show up for you (when we start page 14, page 13 will show up, but not 14, and so on):
Page 13 (comments 121-130)
Page 14 (comments 131-140)
Page 15 (comments 141-150)
Page 16 (comments 151-160)
(And if I don't keep up with these links, just change the URL to the page number you want to read - the page number is at the very end of the URL)


Books on our list so far...

(Listed in order in which they appear in the comments, title, author, person who listed it, their age/grade when read. Find it in the comments to see why this book is on their list!)
I'm updating as I go, but with the explosion of comments after getting featured on the main page, it may take a while to catch up!


Skip past the booklist to the comments



Page 1 Books

Page 2 Books

Page 3 Books

Page 4 Books

Page 5 Books

Page 6 Books

I'll add links to these later! Still catching up...


Page 7 Books

  • Escape From Happiness, George F. Walker [Theatre] - (Mathieu Perron-17)
  • Love and Anger, George F. Walker [Theatre] (Mathieu Perron-17)
  • Dark Age Ahead, Jane Jacobs (Mathieu Perron-19)
  • American Gods, Neil Gaimon (Anne-18)
  • Systemic Racism, Joe Feagin (Sarah-college)
  • The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker (keepbabbling-college)
  • Urban Injustice, David Hilfiker (keepbabbling-college)
  • Now That I'm Out, What Do I Do?, Brian McNaught (keepbabbling-college)
  • Why Gender Matters, Leonard Sax (keepbabbling-college)
  • Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling (Ruth aka Kangarooth-16, Meaghan-8, Jade-MS/HS)
  • In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (BetsyJ-college)
  • The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (phloxyloxy-18, thethelizard-8th)
  • Let The Balloon Go, Ivan Southall (Tim-teen)
  • Counting Heads, by David Marusek (Emily S S-13)

Page 8 Books

  • Being There, Jerzy Kozinski (Zac-HS)
  • Crime & Punishment, Tolstoy (Zac-HS)
  • The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Zac-HS)
  • Welcome to The Monkey House, Kurt Vonnegut (Mouse-MS)
  • Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton (czf-20)
  • Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (Pannethera-18)
  • Anthem, Ayn Rand (Pannethera-14)
  • The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (Pannethera-23)
  • When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Judith Kerr (Pannethera-9)
  • Life of Pi, (Stacie - umskigirl-24)
  • I am the Messenger, Markus Zusak (Madeline-16)
  • The PostSecret series, Frank Warren (Bailey-MS)
  • Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech (Zoe-3rd grade)
  • The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (Rochellenae-17)
  • A Separate Peace, John Knowles (Shelli-10th grade)
  • Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent, Anthony Rapp Shelli-(12th grade)
  • The Life of Pi, Yann Martel (Shelli-18, summer before college)
  • In Memoriam A.H.H., Alfred Lord Tennyson (Shelli-college)
  • Looking for Alaska, John Green (Shelli-college)

Page 9 Books

  • The Alchemist, Paul Coelho (Essie-9th grade, Bejazz)
  • Irène Némirovsky's Suite francaise (Maria)
  • No Matter How Loud I Shout, Edward Humes (Mollywobbles)
  • Hiroshima by John Hersey (Electric-13)
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon (Ann-18, Mollywobbles)
  • Skellig, David Almond (Mollywobbles)
  • Wild Magic, Tamora Pierce (Emma-15)
  • Selected Poems of Carol Ann Duffy (Emma)
  • Geisha of Gion, Mineko Iwasaki (Emma)
  • The Bound Man, by Ilse Aischlinger (NatureGeek-30ish)
  • Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein (DivaGoddess-child)
  • The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe (DivaGoddess-teen)
  • Everything Stephen King, especially IT (DivaGoddess-teen)
  • Everything by Anne Rice (DivaGoddess-20's)
  • Green Space, Green Time: The Way of Science, Connie Barlow (DivaGoddess-30's)

Page 10 Books

  • The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche (Cassandra-25)
  • Cesar's Way, by Cesar Milan (Cassandra-37)
  • The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill (june-10)
  • Go Ask Alice (Leah!-15)
  • Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer (Leah!-15)
  • Looking for Alaska, John Green (Leah!-15)
  • Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl (whataday.rae-18)
  • As Simple As Snow, Gregory Galloway (Julia...illuminates-HS)
  • Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (thethelizard-15)
  • A Scanner Darkly, Phillip K. Dick (Barefoot on the Moon-15)

Page 11 Books

  • Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut (Ponta-15)
  • The Goodness Gene by Sonia Levitin (Ponta-15)
  • Guiliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift (herbertdickkafkascifiisgood)
  • Almost Like Being in Love by Steve Kluger (Ashley-18)
  • "Mickey Meets the Giant" a Walt Disney Beginning Reader Book (Sharon-toddler)
  • Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (Sharon-12)
  • God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens (Merchickety)
  • No Great Mischief - Alistair McLeod (Damm-20)
  • Night, by Elie Wiesel (Damm-23)
  • Awake and Dreaming by Kit Pearson (Joanne.jpeg-3rd grade)

Page 12 Books

  • Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas (Tim)
  • A Child's Christmas In Wales, Dylan Thomas (Tim)
  • The Book Thief, Markus Zusak (Claire)
  • First Man, Albert Camus (dad 1.0)
  • Spinoza's Ethics (Tom)
  • The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (TallTeenTurtle-11)
  • Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty (Jessica)
  • 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher (Jessica)
  • Forbidden Knowledge (Plazewithfire)
  • Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar (Plazewithfire)


I'll get around to finishing adding and linking all the rest of the books to this list soon! (now that school is out)

Views: 1025

Tags: awakening, awesome, blog, book, books, important, literature, naturegeek, nerdfighters, reading, More…think

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Comment by naturegeek on January 12, 2012 at 12:51pm

The reversed the pagination of comments between when this was posted and now - so the page numbers in the lists above don't match any more. But if you start from the back and work your way forward, they sort of do...

I'm saving all of the comments since Nerdfighters is moving from the Ning and I don't want to lose all these great stories and book ideas!

Comment by musicalcolin on March 17, 2008 at 10:30pm
I also love Arcadia! One of my favorite plays ever!
Comment by musicalcolin on March 17, 2008 at 10:29pm
Phenomenology of Perception, by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. College. Not only did did it show me what actually happens when I open my eyes, but it taught me how to approach philosophy in a different and exciting way. Warning: It is a little rough going and is in desperate need of a new translation.
Comment by naturegeek on March 4, 2008 at 5:14pm
Wow... I love these stories. The stories of our books. What wonderful memories of exactly what these books did for you! Thank you for sharing.
Comment by citysnidget on March 4, 2008 at 4:21pm
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban changed my life more than any other book has. My parents had read the first two books to me by the time I was seven, but I hadn't read the third one yet. My parents read me the first chapter of the third one before I went to bed one night. The next night, I wanted to be read the second chapter, but my dad was working and my mom was in the bathtub. "Why don't you read it yourself?" asked my mom. I grimaced. I was a good reader, but I hated to read by myself. However, I wanted to find out what happened to Harry when Aunt Marge came, so I sat down in my bed and started to read. That was the end of that. I was immediately addicted to both Harry Potter and books in general. From then on, I went to the library every week and got out at least ten books, which I had read within the next two days. The reading improved my writing, and helped me get into the school where I am now. I also remained obsessed with Harry Potter. I've read Prisoner of Azkaban 15 times, and though I'm not nearly as much of a Potterhead as I once was, I still enjoy the books and the third book holds an especially important place in my heart.

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (a play) was another life changing book for me. I first read it when I was nine. We were on the plane coming back from visiting my grandparents in Florida, and I had finished all of my books and had nothing to read. My dad had just finished Arcadia, and so I read it. Obviously, a lot of it went over my head (the first line is "Septimus, what is carnal embrace?") but I understood the overall plot and nature of it. By the ending I was sobbing, a tiny nine year old bent over the page, crying silently in my airplane seat. It was my dad's copy of the play, and I borrowed it once between then and the time I was thirteen. I don't think I ever gave it back to my dad and it was lost amongst piles of stuff. When I was thirteen, I found it at the bottom of a pile of books and sat down to read it again. I now understood more of what they were talking about, and I still found it as affecting as I had initially. The intellectualism, the passion, and the characters are all astounding to me. It's also set in my favorite time period, the eighteenth century, during the Enlightenment. The change in landscaping from structure and form to nature and contour illustrates the ideas of that period and I love it. Whenever I'm upset, I escape to Arcadia. It just makes sense to me. The reason, the dynamics between the characters, everything they try to accomplish makes me feel like I'm in a world I know and love, a world built for me. I take Arcadia with me wherever I go. It's a closest thing to a world-in-a-box that I have.
Comment by Deb S on March 1, 2008 at 1:00pm
I have to add "Uncle Tungsten" by Oliver Sacks. I read it a couple of years ago. His memoirs along with the history of chemistry. I've always loved what I thought of as "living" sciences - like biology, physiology, etc. and avoided math & chemistry. I thought of them as "dead" sciences. NOT DEAD. Thank you Oliver. He changed my way of thinking. All the people in his life are fascinating, as is he.
Comment by Danielle on February 24, 2008 at 10:50pm
I read The Giver by Lois Lowry when I was ten. I enjoy fantasy and science-fiction novels, television shows and movies now, and I want to write fantasy fiction professionally. The Giver wasn't the first novel in this genre that I'd read, but it was the first one that was so vastly different than anything I'd ever seen. I'd never heard of the kind of fiction set in a future utopia that isn't as perfect as it seems. The storyline of the Giver was so strange and so unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Before that, I hadn't really understood what a genre was. This novel made me start to realize exactly what fantasy was and what it could do (I've always thought of the Giver as a fantasy novel because the psychic abilities some of the characters displayed seemed fantastical to me when I was 10).
Comment by Captain Naz on February 24, 2008 at 6:54pm
Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein was one that I read in High School for the specific intention of impressing a teacher who had mentioned it was his favorite book. I can see why. SO... massive dittos to that one, I don't think I need to say anything further on it.

The Eagle and the Rose by Rosemary Altea was extremely important to me. It helped break down all of my religious barriers and set me thinking on my own, though I am ashamed to admit that so cheesy a new age book did that for me. I reccomend everyone else attempt thinking for their own without reading that wretched book. I read it when I was 19.

Almost Adam, by Petru Popescu put wonder back into the world for me. It got me thinking about the origins of mankind, how far we've come, and what we might have done better. It also opened me up to an intense interest in Africa and cultural anthropology. I read it when I was 25 and going through a divorce.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson made me love ships and the sea, and again restored wonder back into my life after a dry period. I read it at 13, 14, 15, 16, and so on and so on and so on.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo I read at 16, and I don't think I have ever been affected by a book so much. His forward alone opened my eyes to poverty and those of us who choose to overlook it.
Comment by smartotter on February 24, 2008 at 9:57am
oops. It affeceted me so much because it got me interested in this whole world of automaton and the story of georges meilies.
Comment by naturegeek on February 24, 2008 at 9:08am
Don't forget to include how and why the book affected you so much. That's the most interesting part! :-)

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