General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What top 5 books would you list when directing a teenager? [View all]eppur_se_muova
(36,262 posts)If you really want to influence someone's life, maybe you need more than imaginative fiction, however good. Unfortunately, most of the replies in this thread are votes for works of great emotive power, admittedly often to good purpose, but many are just good reads, and not necessarily much more. A really life-altering read needs to do more than just open the emotional faucets, it needs to instill new IDEAS (which can be done in fiction, too) and new ways of thinking. I'd give any well-written high school or college math or science textbook more points on that scale than any of the fiction I've read. (I suppose I should add biography and history too, but most of that I've read has been outside of school.)
It's disappointing to see how few suggestions are even historical or biographical. My own favorite book for most of my life was the encyclopedia. There's not a single work of fiction I've ever read that really influenced me because -- it's FICTION. It's stories that people MADE UP. The character are NOT REAL PEOPLE. The author can make them say or do ANYTHING, whether it makes sense or not, whether it could ever happen in reality or not. I do read fiction for escapism, but even the most imaginative fiction pales next to good narrative non-fiction -- stuff that actually happened, or happens, in the real world.