Books That Will Change Your Life
Each one of the books on this list have been recommended countless times as books that can be read over and over again. These are the books that you don’t want to finish because they are so good. By the time you are done, the way you see the world and your life will have changed.
7 Books That Will Change Your Outlook On Life
1. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit – Daniel Quinn
It is a general rule that any particular culture can only be understood by someone outside of it – a neutral observer, unaffected by prejudice or indoctrination. This is the reasoning behind Quinn’s choice of a gorilla named Ishmael as the main character of this novel, who conducts a series of dialogues analyzing the whole of civilization itself.
2. The Book Thief –
Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids. You’ll want to read it over and over again. Just bring your tissues.
3. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little, well, prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. “In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don’t dare disobey,” the narrator recalls. “Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket.” And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator’s imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.
4. Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck
This is a controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression
They are an unlikely pair: George is “small and quick and dark of face”; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a “family,” clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
This book is about a teenage boy named Charlie who writes letters to an unknown person. They are random letters about his life and what he is experiencing. He talks about a lot of things that teenagers experience today. This book confronts experiences with alcohol, drugs, sex, relationships, homosexuality, and lessons that many people don’t want to talk about; lessons about living life while you can, lessons that every teenager has experienced.
6. The Alchemist – Paulo Coehlo
These are lessons that we all know in our hearts, but that we forget as we get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of our material lives. Lessons about listening to our hearts and following our dreams. Lessons about living in the moment, the transient nature of possessions and the illusion that we can even “possess” something to begin with. Lessons about freeing ourselves from fear and about understanding our lives as part of the energy of the Universe and understanding that everything will work out the way it was intended to. This book will undoubtedly change your outlook on life.
7. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas is a series of six interlocked tales – encompassing a wide array of eras, locales, and genres -in which the protagonist in each story is impacted in some significant manner by the tale told in the preceding section. A very unique and beautiful piece of literature.
