Flamesplash's Journal: What Book Has Most Influenced You?

More of a survey question here to find out about you all and build a reading list. What one book has been the most influential to you and why.

I think for me it would have to be Richard Bach's Illusions. It was lent to me by my not-at-the-time first girlfriend one night when I had an early in-room curfew at a residential high school we went to. I ended up finishing it in the couple hours I was required to be in my room. It was influential for me because it helped solidify philisophical and religious views I was already stumbling blindly around myself. I would recommend it to anyone, and have given copies to friends many a time. It's a good book for all because it doesn't try to lay anything on you as fact, and leaves you to decide what you will do with the ideas. If you don't like any of it, then simply consider it a work of fiction...

"Your friends
      will know you better
  in the first minute you meet
      than
          your acquaintances
              will know you in
                  a thousand
                        years."

The Design of Everyday Things

[SPautz]

Without question, Donald Norman [jnd.org]'s The Design of Everyday Things [amazon.com] has affected me the most. It was the first psychology-centered design book I read, and it basically prompted me to minor in psychology. The classes within the minor (which actually used Norman's book) motivated me greatly, so now I'm planning to go to grad school in Human Factors or Human-Computer Interaction, all because I saw a cheap book online. =P

Even though it is a design book, Design of Everyday Things is very entertaining. Donald Norman has a master's degree in engineering from MIT, so he's not an artist or weirdo like a lot of authors of other design books. ;-) Overall, it's a very interesting and insightful read and it's pretty much guaranteed to change the way you see the world and interactions that take place in it. He doesn't spend much time in formal stuff, but all his arguments and evidence is backed up by research. He gives you the key concepts and plenty of examples, without making you wade through boring experimental methods or anything. =P It's definitely one I'd recommend, especially for engineers or programmers. ;-)

Might sound weird, but

[DaytonCIM]

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I first read it my senior year in High School. It is the reason I studied Literature at college.

If you haven't read the book, do so. It is far better than any movie and much, much darker.

Agreed

[Flamesplash]

Yeah I really liked that one though it doesn't usually stand out in my mind. I thought the lastest version of the movie wasn't that bad, though no movie will ever be as good as a good book.