The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books… (2006)

by Roxanne J. Coady (Editor), Joy Johannessen (Editor)

Other authors: Dorothy Allison (Contributor), Kate Atkinson (Contributor), James Atlas (Contributor), Robert Ballard (Contributor), Gina Barreca (Contributor) — 66 more, Nicholas A. Basbanes (Contributor), Graeme Base (Contributor), Jeff Benedict (Contributor), Elizabeth Berg (Contributor), Amy Bloom (Contributor), Harold Bloom (Contributor), Lary Bloom (Contributor), Chris Bohjalian (Contributor), Steven Brill (Contributor), Benjamin Cheever (Contributor), Da Chen (Contributor), Harriet Scott Chessman (Contributor), Brother Christopher (Contributor), Carol Higgins Clark (Contributor), Billy Collins (Contributor), Claire Cook (Contributor), Caroline B. Cooney (Contributor), Patricia Cornwell (Contributor), Maureen Corrigan (Contributor), Nelson DeMille (Contributor), Tomie dePaola (Contributor), Anita Diamant (Contributor), Dominick Dunne (Contributor), Carlos Eire (Contributor), Linda Fairstein (Contributor), Doris Kearns Goodwin (Contributor), Linda Greenlaw (Contributor), David Halberstam (Contributor), Alice Hoffman (Contributor), Sebastian Junger (Contributor), Paul M. Kennedy (Contributor), Tracy Kidder (Contributor), Robert Kurson (Contributor), Wally Lamb (Contributor), Anne Lamott (Contributor), Barbara Leaming (Contributor), Joe Lieberman (Contributor), Margot Livesey (Contributor), John McCain (Contributor), Frank McCourt (Contributor), Faith Middleton (Contributor), Jacquelyn Mitchard (Contributor), Leigh Montville (Contributor), Sara Nelson (Contributor), Sherwin B. Nuland (Contributor), Laura Numeroff (Contributor), Stewart O'Nan (Contributor), Jacques Pepin (Contributor), Anne Perry (Contributor), Jack Prelutzky (Contributor), Ian Rankin (Contributor), Richard Rhodes (Contributor), Frank Rich (Contributor), Sark (Contributor), Lisa Scottoline (Contributor), Bernie S. Siegel (Contributor), Liz Smith (Contributor), Edward Sorel (Contributor), Jane Stern (Contributor), Michael Stern (Contributor), Alexandra Stoddard (Contributor), Paco Underhill (Contributor), Susan Vreeland (Contributor), Kate Walbert (Contributor), Katharine Weber (Contributor), Jacqueline Winspear (Contributor)

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Sixty-five concise and lively essays by some of today's most successful writers identify the books that proved pivotal to the shaping of their careers, in a volume that includes Harold Bloom on "Little, Big," Nelson DeMille on "Atlas Shrugged," and Sebastian Junger on "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."… (more)

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Showing 1-5 of 16 (next | show all)

This is another of the many books that I have read about books. What sets this book apart is the question that engages the contributors to respond, namely: what book or books changed your life? I think there was more than one book that changed my life, but each one that I might choose would have a different impact or change my life in a different way. Each essay is unique to the individual author yet they all share a love of books that is inspiring to this seasoned reader whose life was changed more than once by a book that he has read. (

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jwhenderson | Jul 2, 2022 |

Every book has an influence on the reader, some profound, some not so meaningful, and some even repugnant, but every book ever read leaves the reader changed. In this collection of the books which most affected 71 authors, you find books of fiction, of history, of poetry of non-fiction and books that influenced these authors even when they were young. From The Little Engine that Could to Charlotte's Web to the Collected Works of Shakespeare to The Catcher in the Rye to To Kill a Mocking Bird, all of these books left indelible imprints of authors who themselves offered their souls in the books they have created.
One of the best ways to answer yourself when asking, "What should I read next?" is to have the recommendations of others and nowhere will better recommendations be found than in the recommendations of the people who craft books themselves.
This was a wonderful read and gave me a roadmap to many volumes I must now add to my own experience. (

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PaulLoesch | Apr 2, 2022 |

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Paul-the-well-read | Apr 18, 2020 |

This book was an interesting one. I had supposed that a lot of the writers would have chosen the same book but that actually happened very infrequently. Off the top of my head, the ones that were recommended the most for being Life-changing were Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Some people flocked to Shakespeare and his writings, while others chose books that I had never heard of before. Either way, the collection was interesting and the end of the book has a suggested reading list. These are both definitely positive points to add. As for the negatives, I suppose the small number of people that responded was a bit disappointing. You may say that 65 is a pretty large number, but with how fast the book goes by, the editor probably could have gone up to 80 or 100. I also don't really know how this is organized. However, that seems to be the case for most of these books that I have read. (

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Floyd3345 | Jun 15, 2019 |

“You could read the same text repeatedly over time, and that something fresh and new would declare itself with each reading - was a revelation to me.”

“I finally got it: a book could do more than help you pass an exam, it could lift you up and sweep you away.”

“I don’t want to reread any of them now, for fear of finding they have aged as gracelessly as I have.”

bookworm12 | Mar 21, 2018 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Coady, Roxanne J.	Editor	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Johannessen, Joy	Editor	main author	all editions	confirmed
Allison, Dorothy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Atkinson, Kate	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Atlas, James	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Ballard, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Barreca, Gina	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Basbanes, Nicholas A.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Base, Graeme	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Benedict, Jeff	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Berg, Elizabeth	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bloom, Amy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bloom, Harold	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bloom, Lary	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bohjalian, Chris	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Brill, Steven	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cheever, Benjamin	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Chen, Da	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Chessman, Harriet Scott	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Christopher, Brother	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Clark, Carol Higgins	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Collins, Billy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cook, Claire	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cooney, Caroline B.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cornwell, Patricia	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Corrigan, Maureen	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
DeMille, Nelson	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
dePaola, Tomie	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Diamant, Anita	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Dunne, Dominick	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Eire, Carlos	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Fairstein, Linda	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Goodwin, Doris Kearns	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Greenlaw, Linda	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Halberstam, David	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Hoffman, Alice	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Junger, Sebastian	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Kennedy, Paul M.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Kidder, Tracy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Kurson, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lamb, Wally	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lamott, Anne	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Leaming, Barbara	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lieberman, Joe	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Livesey, Margot	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
McCain, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
McCourt, Frank	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Middleton, Faith	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Mitchard, Jacquelyn	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Montville, Leigh	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Nelson, Sara	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Nuland, Sherwin B.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Numeroff, Laura	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
O'Nan, Stewart	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Pepin, Jacques	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Perry, Anne	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Prelutzky, Jack	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rankin, Ian	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rhodes, Richard	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rich, Frank	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Sark	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Scottoline, Lisa	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Siegel, Bernie S.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Smith, Liz	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Sorel, Edward	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Stern, Jane	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Stern, Michael	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Stoddard, Alexandra	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Underhill, Paco	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Vreeland, Susan	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Walbert, Kate	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Weber, Katharine	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Winspear, Jacqueline	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed

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▾Book descriptions

Sixty-five concise and lively essays by some of today's most successful writers identify the books that proved pivotal to the shaping of their careers, in a volume that includes Harold Bloom on "Little, Big," Nelson DeMille on "Atlas Shrugged," and Sebastian Junger on "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."

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Contains:

Introduction / Roxanne J. Coady
Dorothy Allison on Toni Morrisons’s The Bluest Eye
Kate Atkinson on Robert Coover’s Pricksongs and Descants
James Atlas on Gwendolyn Brooks’s Selected Poems
Robert Ballard on Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth
Gina Barreca on Jean Kerr’s The Snake Has All the Lines
Nicholas A. Basbanes on the Works of Shakespeare
Graeme Base on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
Jeff Benedict on The Little Engine That Could
Elizabeth Berg on J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye
Amy Bloom on The Most of P. G. Wodehouse
Harold Bloom on John Crowley’s Little, Big
Lary Bloom on John Hersey’s Hiroshima
Chris Bohjalian on Joyce Carol Oates’s Expensive People and More
Steven Brill on Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President, 1960
Benjamin Cheever on Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death
Da Chen on Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo
Harriet Scott Chessman on Gertrude Stein’s Ida
Brother Christopher on Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain
Carol Higgins Clark on Mary Higgins Clark’s A Stranger Is Watching
Billy Collins on Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
Claire Cook on Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew Mysteries
Caroline B. Cooney on Caesar’s Gallic Wars
Patricia Cornwell on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Maureen Corrigan on Charles Dickens' David Copperfield
Nelson DeMille on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and More
Tomie dePaola on Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter
Anita Diamant on Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
Dominick Dunne on Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now
Carlos Eire on Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ
Linda Fairstein on Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doris Kearns Goodwin on Barbara W. Tuchman’s The Guns of August
Linda Greenlaw on Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm
David Halberstam on Cecil Woodham-Smith’s The Reason Why
Alice Hoffman on J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye
Sebastian Junger on Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Paul Kennedy on Geoffrey Barraclough’s An Introduction to Contemporary History
Tracy Kidder on Ernest Hemingway’s Collected Stories
Robert Kurson on Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death
Wally Lamb on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
Anne Lamott on Ram Dass’s The Only Dance There Is and More
Barbara Leaming on Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams
Senator Joe Lieberman on The Bible
Margot Livesey on Charlotte Brontës Jane Eyre
Senator John McCain on Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls
Frank McCourt on Shakespeare’s Henry VIII
Faith Middleton on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Jacquelyn Mitchard on Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Leigh Montville on Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct Series
Sara Nelson on Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar and Susan Isaacs' Compromising Positions
Sherwin B. Nuland on William Lewis Nida’s Ab the Cave Man
Laura Numeroff on Kay Thompson’s Eloise
Stewart O'Nan on William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow
Jacques Pépin on Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus
Anne Perry on G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday
Jack Prelutsky on Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses and More
Ian Rankin on Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange
Richard Rhodes on Albert Schweitzer’s Out of My Life and Thought and Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle Series
Frank Rich on Moss Hart’s Act One
SARK on Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Lisa Scottoline on Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes
Bernie S. Siegel on William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy
Liz Smith on Christopher Morley’s Kitty Foyle and Guy Endore’s Voltaire! Voltaire!
Edward Sorel on Stendhal’s The Red and the Black
Jane Stern on John Barth’s The End of the Road
Michael Stern on the Sears Catalogue
Alexandra Stoddard on Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet
Paco Underhill on C. S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower Series
Susan Vreeland on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
Kate Walbert on E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web
Katharine Weber on Steven Millhauser’s Edwin Mullhouse
Jacqueline Winspear on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
The Books That Changed Their Lives : A Reading List of the Books Selected by the Contributors
Roxanne’s Very Opinionated Reading List
Joy’s Very Opinionated Reading List
Acknowledgments