Is there a book that has fundementally changed your outlook

I second that, Illusions/Richard Bach

I also second this one.

Fundamentally changed my outlook on life, and brought a lot into focus.

Gibran, Buscaglia, I wander off,

Hillerman, I wander off. (No, I don't dislike his books, but, eh...)

Soup, it's all soup.

ishmael, daniel quinn

not his best title, just the best known, but the one you need to read to fully appreciate anything else he's written. and yeah, it changed how i saw everything.

1984 was amazing, i love everything by douglas adams (even if i am a fanboy,) and also callahan's and lady sally's (spider robinson) were mildly life-changing but endless fun. i'd read callahan's before wayne dyer, but dyer is an interesting guy.

and best comic book i've ever seen: transmetropolitan. i know there are other ones, but it's flatout amazing from page one of the first collection, to the last page of the 10th book. i know the thread was "books that fundamentally changed your outlook," and these would fit.

Two more:
"The Cotillion" by John Oliver Killens and "If Beale Street Could Talk" by James Baldwin.

In more or less chronological order:

The first "real" book that I read was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Twain. I was about six and was interested in the book because it was about King Arthur and all those romantic knights whose stories had been read to me. The notion that a modern person might become a part of the past and apparently change it. Was a grabber, and I could hardly wait to get my hands on another such book. It took me a few years see that Twain was writing on multiple levels. Sixty years later I'm still addicted to reading.

I grew up on an isolated ranch where my Grandparents were semi-devout Baptists, my Aunt and most of our ranch hands were Catholic, and my Step-father was Mormon. At the ranch religion wasn't a topic, nor did anyone "push" in on me. Never the less, as a child I was devoted to God. It was a product of the vast distances, the great silences, and the closeness we lived to the natural world. The family Bible (King James Version that had been in the family since before the Late Unpleasantness) defined and gave focus to my awe. I suppose I accepted the stories as "true", but the moral and point of the stories helped mold values that remain long after I've abandoned the Abrahamic religions. There is something almost magical about the richness of the English language as used in the King James Version that is pleasing to the ear. After we moved into town, I often stole into strange churches and left a "Widow's mite" on the alter for God.

It didn't take long living in the midst of strangers, seeing the greed, lies, and petty backbiting to start a Child of God wondering. Religious prejudice and continual arguing over doctrinal points that seem trivial made me much more doubtful that any of the churches had a real connection to God. Not many Jews in Southwestern Arizona, but it was a shock to find discrimination against them. WWII had just ended, and it was shocking that my world hated a People that I thought rather admirable. Naturally I turned to books, and found a Modern Library Edition of Voltaire. Ah, the Enlightenment instantly appealed to me and has remained a dominant perch for my outlook on the world. Rational Thought as an antidote to prejudice, injustice, and the natural meanness of Man. The Abrahamic God of my childhood evolved into a less personal and involved Deity. Organized religion is of Man and only the rational individual is able to approach God through philosophy, science, and meditation on the nature of the Universe. That point of view has generally served me well as a student and participant in the world.

In my first college I was influenced by Karl Marx (Communist Manifestoand Das Kapital_ and other social philosophers like Bentham and Mills. Their thought methods appeared so rational that it was easy to agree with their conclusions. One should not, can not stand idle in the face of injustice and oppression, we must, if we are men take action to rescue the suffering from their misery. The Abrahamics want to save mankind by Faith and dogma, the Social Philosophers by Dogma alone. Both are dedicated to the idea of inevitable progress that must have an end-state of Perfection. I had some pretty serious doubts about the means used by modern reformers, but certainly agreed with the absolute wrongness of engaging in war, profit-making business, and cultural strictures that seem to favor one class over others. At the same time my religious search had led me to Buddhism. Alan Watts, TD Suzuki, writings, and Herman Hess's Sidhartha had great appeal to me and I wanted to know more about it. After JFK's assassination I left college for a more active participation in changing the world.

In San Francisco we eventually came to live upstairs from Eric Hoffer. I had no idea who he was for a long time. Hoffer was a fireplug of a man who tended to keep to himself. He wore rough cloths, workboots and a watchcap to cover his bald dome. Hoffer was an anti-intellectual intellectual. He thought that most intellectuals were poseurs, whose ideas were mostly only a parrot-like mimic of accepted BS. He was suspicious of refinement. Not particularly the sort of fellow a Buddhist Hippy might get on with. Hoffer wrote several books, but his fame rests on The True Believer. Hoffer studied how mass belief defines a culture. He drew many parallels between Nazism, Communism, and Christianity. Dogma and doctrine, and the need to believe turn people into monsters. Attachment and dedication to any ideal can become a runn-away freight train headed for disaster, yet no one jumps off the train. Hoffer was a bit of a cynic, and his spirit has remained with me for a very long time. I doubt idealism, and being described as an intellectual is no longer as satisfying as it was back in the early 60's.

In San Francisco we were Hippies and participated in many anti-war demonstrations. We hated LBJ and Nixon for "their" war. We were in many ways snobs, and willingly blind to any evidence that the Cold War and the Battle for Vietnam was necessary. Hoffer was a step away from all that, he helped us realize that we had gotten caught up in our own idealism and had willingly become blind to anything that didn't support our self-righteous dedication to our ideals.

Later in Los Angeles I was greatly influenced by several books. Herman Kahn's On Thermo-Nuclear War and Thinking the Unthinkable were impressive demonstrations of what really rigorous analysis is capable of. Kahn looked without blinking directly into the fireball and calculated its actual and real effects, not just the horrors of destroyed cities and mounds of countless dead. The Cold War became less of a boogyman when the facts of nuclear war was laid out rationally and backed by data that is hard to argue against. Solid analysis of problems even more the focus of my attention. The proper use and limitations of statistical analysis became one of my most marketable skills. How to frame a hypothesis and a question is important, and carelessness can lead to terrible mistaken results. It was during this time that I moved from the academic life to one of government service. Part of my preparation was the study of Law and how public organizations work within a society.

The U.S. Constitution and The Federalist Papers aren't properly speaking books, but they have been fundamental in my development. Edgar Schine's work on Organization Contingency Theory has influenced my analysis of the appropriateness of organizational structures, and the problems of building effective groups. Herb Cohen's Everything is Negotiable and other similar works were helpful in learning to negotiate everything from how a paragraph is written in a contract to who should lead a task force to resolve a dangerous problem. For years I had Cohen's work on audio tape and it played whenever I drove my car. After a short while, one becomes almost totally unaware that the Master Negotiator is whispering his secrets into your ear. When you need the negotiation tactic it is unconsciously there. Thank you Mr. Cohen.

Is Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali extremist?
I read Infidel [/I] by Ayaan Hirsi Ali this fall, and it really worried me. Her point is basically that Islam is inherently a dangerous religion because it requires Muslims to forcably convert non-Muslims, and it's very unhealthy for women and children. I've known Muslims of both genders -- as students and presenters at my church -- and they all are adamant that Islam is not a violent religion. Now I'm pretty confused -- I had viewed Islamic terriorists as dissatisfied young men -- economically and politically, who, in some cases justifiably, hated Western consumerism and praise of immorality. Now I don't know what to think of Islam. --HNS

she's talking about fundamentalism, although she might not be aware of it. there may be a lot of that in "the muslim world," even the muslim religion in other places, but islam is just an idea. not everyone has the same approach to dealing with that idea, just like christianity isn't dictatorship (anymore) until you go to america or vatican city (or the places in iraq where the missionaries are circling like vultures... or in africa... okay, you get my point.)

it's understandable for a victim of oppression to cry out against it, just like ayn rand decided that the free market was everything after growing up in a communist regime. the point missed is that ayn rand didn't understand the alternatives to her oppression whatsoever, she simply worshiped anything that seemed different like it was her savior. that kind of either/or thinking seems to be all that's left in this country, but i wouldn't call it philosophy, let alone enlightenment. i certainly would agree with ali that fundamentalism is poison, but fundamentalism isn't islam, nor is fundamentalism christianity.

The C Programming Language - Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie

this book actually did change my life, at least economically, by enabling me to amass undeserved wealth, which has since been largely frittered away.

The 3 part series of Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch.

Not what you're thinking folks!

It explained a lot on how I always believed my God to be.... which of course goes completely against the grain of traditional Christianity.

I changed from Southern Baptist to Deist after this enlightening experience.
And I'm finally happy.

The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

A Creed for the Third Millenium (Colleen McCullough)

Julian May's Pliocene and Mileau Series (Good and evil writ large amongst explications of many, many characters)

A Canticle for Liebowitz (Walter M Miller)

Only One Earth

My early life was a variation of 1984. I guess that's why it wasn't that much of a revelation.

D'ya reckon Orwell saw an early trend in the way people were treating each other?

I like to think that by laying it out the way he did he brought it to the fore and helped to put a stop to it.

Like you, perhaps, my early life was pretty draconian and meaning was fairly fluid. Reading 1984 let me see that it wasn't meant to be that way.

More a combination of books

"Awareness" by De Mello
"Leadership and self deception" by the Arbinger Institute
"Cruical Conversations" (numerous authors)
"Smart Questions" by Dorothy Leeds
"Creating Harmonious Relationships : A practical guide tot he power of true empathy"

Plus any number of books on communication and negotions - but "Awareness" was the one that struck a chord with me in relation to why people experience : anger, self defensiveness, bitterness, etc and how to overcome such

The Passionate Mind

Certainly worth the 90¢ for a used copy.

This thread and my review of it makes me wonder how Radical Edward is... wish he'd post more often.

Hi, Debacle, she says. Stares at your post.

Did you do more than just stare, osso? Did you, for instance, click on The Passionate Mind? Considering my low-grade aptitude for such, it's likely I generated a lank link.

the link worked for me, Debacle, so presume it works for osso. looks like a fun read, but might be over my head.

i'm looking for a cheap book on neuroplasticity at the moment.