life changing books

[snallison]

The Spirit Catches You and Then You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman www.spiritcatchesyou.com/pressroom.htm

Comments

[drangnon]

...along those lines... holy blood, holy grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln. my mom had sent me to various parochial schools becuase of the double factor that the public schools sucked and she wanted me to have a "well-rounded" dose of religion so I would know what I was doing ("well-rounded" meant baptists, lutherans, catholics, episcopalians). by the time I was at UCLA I could cite christian beliefs and differences between sects and had almost come to the conclusion it was all a crock. as a sophomore, I was good friends with a born-again Christian - we liked to play D&D together (don't go there) - and she said, amused, that I would like this book

[in_between_daze]

funny... i was under the impression that being a "good person" is one of the universal themes in world spiritualities.

[djmermaid]

You don't need to be hung up on being a "good person" - you ARE a good person, sweetie!

Man, those catholics. They sure do seem to work a number on folks.

[drangnon]

I have a book: the quest for merlin by nikolai tolstoy. (yes, this is leo tolstoy's grandson.) it is out of print... I am sure you can find it on alibris... you can. just search on his name.

it's a bit scholarly but it traces the author digging through anthropological and mythological clues for the real source of the arthurian legends. what he digs up is some extraordinary stuff on the struggle between the little kingdoms in england, between the christians and the pagans. it's super neat. it is one of my favourite books and I really wish I had more like it.

[ladycalliope]

Matt Ruff's Fool on the Hill taught me that you could be subversive while still having people think of you as "normal" (whatever that means) but only if you want them to.

I read it when I was 15, and it was a pretty defining book for me.