This book list is about the books that will make you change your life. Regardless of genre, these books are so insightful, moving, and inspirational that they will have a life changing impact on you.
10 Great Books That Will Make You Change Your Life
1. Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse
This book will shift your focus from the worries of the future unto the beauty of the present moment.
Reading this book will put you in a state of tranquility and it will make you question your perspective on many about your life.
2. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
A purely nihilistic book, Fight Club is a gem and is bound to have a profound impact on your personality.
In the amazing final chapter of the novel, which wasn’t included in the film, the Narrator has a conversation with God. And God just wants to know why? Why would the narrator do all of these terrible things? Doesn’t he realize that everyone is a special unique snowflake of special unique specialness?
And the narrator disagrees. “We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.” There’s no reason for any of it. No purpose. Each person is on their own in figuring this mess out.
And God looks at him sadly and says, “No, that’s not right.”
Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything.
3. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Many people were forced to read this book in school, but it will change your perspective on what it means to live a good life on this earth. Life isn’t all about personal pleasure, apparently.
4. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
(As featured in 8 Books That Will Make You Proud And Satisfied To Have Read)
This is both a great philosophical book and a great work of fiction.
This book is widely considered to be one to the best books ever written, and it will undoubtedly change your life. The story follows the lives of old man Karamazov, a filthy penny-pinching lech and his three sons. Each son represents a different side to the Russian character: Dimitri the spoiled lout, Ivan the tortured intellect, and Alyosha the spiritual searcher.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
One of the most significant books of the 20th century, To Kill a Mockingbird is full of memorable quotes such as, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
6. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark – Carl Sagan
(As featured in 10 Books That Will Broaden Your Life Perspective)
This book challenges the reader to critically scrutinize information and to use critical thinking skills to make informed decisions based on scientific knowledge.
7. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
(As featured in 7 Best Books To Read In Your Twenties)
A good lesson about the world’s obsession with beauty. This sophisticated but crude novel is the story of man’s eternal desire for perennial youth, of our vanity and frivolity, of the dangers of messing with the laws of life.
8. Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl
(As featured in 10 Books That Will Broaden Your Life Perspective)
This book will make you feel like all of your petty problems are truly insignificant and that the world certainly does not revolve around you.
9. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit – Daniel Quinn
(As featured in 15 Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once In Their Life)
The entire book is just a nameless main character having a conversation with a gorilla. Seems insignificant but that couldn’t be further from the actual impact of the book.
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.
10. Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
(As featured in 10 Epic Books Every Man Must Read)
This book will put your life and the self perceived problems into perspective. It will teach you not sweat the small stuff, be positive in all walks of life, & overall live to be a good person just for the sake of being a good person. One of the most important books for stoics, Marcus Aurelius made himself one of the most important people in Stoicism.
