Name one book that helped to change your life

05/01/18

[Simon Green]

Here's one that definitely influenced me: "Red Planet" by Robert A. Heinlein.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Planet_(novel)

It's the first novel I can recall reading, around age 8 or so. It was the start of a lifelong love of speculative fiction, and Heinlein's Libertarian(ish) philosophy certainly put its imprint on me.

(The main chsracter's father discusses getting a pistol permit for his daughter. The grandfather chimes in:)

"That a free citizen should have to go before a committee, hat in hand, and pray for permission to bear arms - fantastic! Arm your daughter, sir, and pay no attention to petty bureaucrats."

[Ouchthatonehurt]

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons

[Fresh Wind]

JC Whitney parts catalog!

LOL! For me, it was the Allied Radio catalog.

[rdl6989]

The Bible

Landscape Turned Red-The Battle of Antietam by Stephen Sears

[wally_bert]

Connections and The Day The Universe Changed by James Burke.

[punknpuss]

Amen and amen.

[Maine Mariner]

Capitalism and Freedom by Milton by Milton Friedman

Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead, and Capitalism the Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand

My Chem Study Chemistry Textbook (1967) I learned how to study from that book, course and chemistry teacher.

[Fiji Hill]

These books, which I read wen I was 16, greatly influenced my thinking about recent US history as well as current events:

• Total Terror : An Exposé of Genocide in the Baltics by Albert Kalme and Walter Arm (New York: Appleton, 1951)
  This chronicle of the Soviet takeover of the Baltic states with its graphic description of Communist atrocities shows the true horror of Communism, a system as evil and threatening to our way of life as Nazism.

• Way of a Fighter: The Memoirs of Claire Lee Chennault by Claire Lee Chennault and Robert B. Hotz (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1949)
  The autobiography of General Claire Chennault, who commanded the American Volunteer Group, a group of US airmen who fought the Japanese at the start of World War II. The group eventually morphed into the Fourteenth Air Force. Chennault describes his battles against the Japanese as well as the arrogant but dimwitted military brass who outranked him and those who wanted to appease the Chinese Communists.

• The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-1933 by Hector C. Bywater (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1925)
  The story of an imaginary war between the US and Japan that was not all that far off from the one that really happened. I later found out that the book was widely read by Japanese naval officers in the 1920's and 1930's.

[tet68]

I used to think salesmen were bad because they
sold you stuff you didn’t want.

Then I read Zig and learned that to be a good salesman
you have to stand on the side of the customer.

You educate the customer, answer their objections
and when all their objections have been answered
you close the sale by asking for payment.

If they still have objections then you answer them,
and then close the sale.

Repeat until all are answered and you have recieved
payment and the customer is happy and you are happy
at having helped them.

Simple really but it didn’t happen early enough to
make me a great success, just successful.

Zig requires you to read the book three times, underlining
the important parts with a different colored marker each
time, it’s amazing how much you learn from what you missed
each time.

He’s dead now but was probably America’s greatest salesman.
He started by selling cookware, door to door.
God Bless You Zig!

[RooRoobird20]

#1. The Bible, of course
#2. “More Than a Carpenter” by Josh M Dowell, best and most succint summary of Christian apolgetics
#3. “The Road Less Travelled,” an excellent read for anyone going through profound grief

[Robe]

Reach for the Sky... the story of Douglas Bader

[Burma Jones]

Other than the Bible, Modern Times by Paul Johnson.

[Jemian]

The Holy Bible - contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament.

[pas]

did you read the other 2 in the one second after trilogy?

[Jolla]

Thank you I need that - grew up religious, more spiritual now, and doing yoga for about a year - it has been life changing.

[Kartographer]

Bible. Poverbs to be specific.

[onedoug]

The library of The Bible and Huckleberry Finn

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

One more: The Gallatin Divergence, by L. Neil Smith. An alternative history where George Washington loses the Whiskey Rebellion. L. Neil Smith is the foremost writer of 2nd Amendment-libertarian science fiction. Okay, maybe the only one, but he’s a great writer in the subjects of self-reliance and self-defense.

[Lee Enfield]

30 seconds over Tokyo. Taught me to have faith in mankind.

[minnesota_bound]

‘Mysterious Island’ by Jules Verne
I can wash up on an island and I can get by with the native girls.

[ivory49]

The true God of the Living Bible.