What Books really rock/shock your world?

Thanks for all the replies so far everyone!
There's at least a whole shelf full which are now on my list.

Excellcent stuff,I shall begin rooting out the cheap second hand copies.

Also I'd say any book by William Blum

killing hope
rogue state
freeing the world to death
west bloc dissident
and the latest

Americas deadliest export , democracy

makes for some interesting reading

On that note I also thought the grand chessboard was pretty good

For Me... This book by far.....

The Pleiadian message has always resonated powerfully with me. But this book made me tremble on almost every other page. It explained alot to me, questions i've had my entire life. And her experiences and awakening process were very similar to my own. This book is for those going through an awakening, or as i call it a "Re-Awakening"

Are you of the light? Does the Pleiadian message call to you? Read this book...

From the Book:

AWARENESS brings REALIZATION. Realization causes an Awakening. Awakening will bring you to an in-Lightened state. In the Light, you will find your TRUTH...and finally you will know that the POWER IS WITHIN YOU.

Go BEYOND where they tell you that you should not go, and you will begin to see what you did not see before.

The MIND IS ENERGY and has the power to change matter. Know that MATTER is simply the physical manifestation of energy.

Many of you have forgotten who you are and why you are here.

We come to put a spark of remembrance in you. .

100 Years Of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I'm normally too lazy or have little patience for complicated stories with too many characters, but I read it when I was a teen, and I remember being completely absorbed by it.
The 'epic' tale of 6 generations of the Buendia Family, in the imaginary village of Macondo.
He manages to add in a little bit of 'magic' here and there in the story, (although it's not really a fantasy novel) along with a little social commentary on the late19th / early 20th century.
Never have I felt so much for a literary fictional family, with all their adventures, funny moments and misfortunes. Love, betrayal, births, deaths, etc... I can't describe it and do it justice really, it's so much more than that!
It's also the book that helped Marquez win the Nobel prize of literature, in 82.
I just feel like buying it and reading it again!

Where The Wild Things Are

Shocking, just shocking!

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


Discovered RAH in the 4th grade. I read "Stranger In A Strange Land" when I was 12. It changed my outook on society, religon and human behavior from that time on. I've read every thing he has written, including his "juvenile books" many times, I grieved when he died.
"The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" made me take a long look at self relance and entitlements

reply to post by jiggerj


I also have to add Winston Groom's Forrest Gump. In the book Forrest befriends an orangutan, flies into outer space, and I think he runs from cannibals (It's been a while since I read it).

By far the most eye opening books for me are the ones written by 'The Anti-terrorist', both The Anti-terrorist Handbook and 'standing under freedom'

Also 'freedom is more than just a seven letter word' by Veronica Chapman

To many to pick from, but the following a a few of my favorites:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess really mesmerized me "back in the day". Read it before I saw the movie, and kudos to Kubrick for being so faithful to the book with the movie!

The Nephilim Trilogy by LA Marzulli.

The Ninth Generation: Surviving the Giants of the pre-Flood Earth by John Owens.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy was mentioned earlier, I agree, it will stay with you. Strange style but great read.

Hello! I always thought Swan Song would be made into a move. Perhaps it will. I read Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising when I was stationed at Keflavik. I am a MARINE and it freaked me the heck out as to how accurate he was in the description of the base.......some open and public areas and some not. He had inside info for sure. It helped motivate me to keep an eye on the Russian "fishing" vessels that pretty much fished in the same spot all the time........right off of PAPA 9? I think it was..........Oh well. I would have also made a good movie.

I have to say anything by Philip K. Dick.

I've read a good chunk of his work, and he is hands down one of the best sci-fi writers ever.

My favorites are staples like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and A Scanner Darkly, but I love rarer ones like Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik.

Palmer Eldritch is also a fascinating look at the effects of global warming and the horrors of body/mind modification.

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


Lets see here, the hot zone is scary stuff and its all real.The stand by Stephen King.Ray Bradbury always enthralled me.Fingerprints of the gods makes me think.There are so many more,I just can't even think of them all right now.

Clive Barker: Weaveworld and Imajica.

Clive Barker also had a movie called Night Breed which is based off the book/short story Cabal.

Dan Simmons: Carrion Comfort.

JRR Tolkien: Hobbit, Rings and Silmarillion.

Carl Sagan: Dragons of Eden.

Michael Talbot: The Holographic Universe.

Stephen King: It....and the Gunslinger series.

George Orwell: 1984

Jean Auel: Clan of the Cave Bear

I'll start with fiction though I'm a light weight when it comes to literature, I like it pretty pulpy with exceptions.

"Kristin Lavransdatter" by Sigurd Unsett (Nobel winner in ??1928 or 1918??)
"The Gulag Archipleigo" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Anything by Heinlein, Dick, Herbert, Asimov, Niven with special favorite:

"Santiago" by Mike Resnick - Just plain fun with an enternal and universal message.

Then the non-fiction that really rocked my worldview....

"Handbook to Higher Consciousness" by Ken Keyes, Jr.
"The Magical Child" by Joseph Childen Pearce
"Ten Days that Shook the World" by John Reed
"2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl" by Daniel Pinchbeck

There are so many others...

Thanks for all the great ideas!

Oh, Oh, speaking of Heinlein - new scifi just isn't the same - check out Quarter Share (and others in the series) by Nathan Lowell - like a young Heinlein - those I read right through. Not all are in print - they started as audio books. I inhaled them all.
"The Making of the Atom Bomb" by Richard Rhodes

Mine is Foundation by Isaac Asimov.Mind Blown.Still recovering.It just doesn't get any better than that.IMHO.

Wish I could figure out how to flag this post. I just joined this site last night. As someone who mainly reads band biographies I decided to contribute "therapy". It was the first none music related book I've read and it definitely fell under the category of books I couldn't put down. Here's a link to the book on amazon (hope I did it right)

www.amazon.com...=mw_dp_mpd/189-9481462-4739203?pd=1" target="_blank" class="postlink">www.amazon.com...=mw_dp_mpd/189 -9481462-4739203?pd=1

And If anyone is interested in band related books that are shocking to say the least.
I would recommend Marilyn mansons long hard road out of hell.

Ah probably a lot of books really, pretty much all of them if they did not shook my world I at least garnered something from them, its all in the noggin somewhere. Though I do not read nowhere near as much as when I was younger. Usually when I do its either fantasy or sci fi books, or mysteries, though I have not read a good mystery in a long while. At the very least it must have some ninjas or dragons in the story, or better yet some ninja dragons.

Some books were listed here I never heard of before that may be interesting, and some that I never finished reading like the gunslinger series by Stephen King, which I may want to finish it at one point in time.

However lately I have been thinking of getting and reading this book, it also has lots of pictures which is a total bonus.

Advanced Dim Mak, the finer points of death point striking.
Dim Mak

reply to post by XLR8R


If you like that book, I would recommend "the hot zone".
One of the first books to freak me out a little.

In the non fiction category, I just finished the book "oswald and the CIA" by John Newman. it gives you a perspective on oswald using only intelligence files on him. It reads like a spy novel and it is very eye opening how Oswald's life is seemingly interwoven and connected with intelligence agencies.

I don't do much fiction, but I love Micheal Crichton's work. As a lover of dinosaurs since I had been in the womb, Jurassic Park floored me when was younger. I have probably read that book 7 times by now.

As groundbreaking and enjoyable the movie was.... trust me! the book is many many many times better.

also, Steven kings The shining was an experience I cant even describe.

Originally posted by six67seven
Where The Wild Things Are

Shocking, just shocking!

This book set fire to my mind when i was young!

And it has always stayed with me.

Great Pick!