100 Most Beautiful Words In The English Language. Life-Changing Books: Your Picks. We asked our readers what books made the biggest difference in their lives, and here’s what they had to say. The list below tells you what books shaped their lives and why. 1984 – George Orwell 1984 “was the first book I actually enjoyed reading. It completely blew my mind at the time (I was 16) and it opened my eyes to the power of ideas and to the joy of reading a good book.” — Tim A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson “Wow this book is incredible.
At close to 500 pages Bryson covers everything from the moment the universe expanded from the intensely dense matter that was (aka the big bang) to man’s origin. Ariel – Sylvia Plath “After reading through these suggestions, I realized there’s a big hole: Poetry! Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut “This book reignited the pilot light of my imagination like no other book had done in quite awhile.
Crooked Cucumber – The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki Disturbing the Peace – Vaclav Havel Great Expectations – Charles Dickens –“Epic. Reductio Ad Absurdum |Futility Closet. Forget everything you know about reducing fractions — it turns out you can just cancel individual digits: Not convinced? This would have made fifth grade so much easier … 100 Must Read Books: The Man’s Essential Library.