There's a thread over at the sffchronicles forum entitled 'The 5 Most Influential Books in My Life'.  Here's my list.  As you would expect from a group of SF and Fantasy enthusiasts there are a lot of SF and Fantasy books in people's lists and a lot of 'this book changed the way I looked at the world' titles.  Here's mine:

The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard - a 1957 book about media manipulation and advertising techniques that turned my 12 year-old self into a hardened cynic and really really difficult to sell things to. Reading that book has saved me a lot of grief and money over the decades.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by neurologist Oliver Sacks - confirmed my belief (which is obviously true) that my subjective reality is as weird as yours and no one can prove anything from their own subjective experience and that God is therefore unprovable and obviously therefore does not exist.

Tokyo Style by Kyochi Tsuzuki - a thick, small format book containing hundreds of pictures of Japanese house interiors. Not nice, elegant, classically traditional, Zenny interiors but cluttered, everyday, untidied messes. Unmade beds, and piles of unwashed pots. When I get depressed, fed up with the state my kids leave this house, I go read it for a bit and cheer myself up. All the text is in Japanese. I have no idea what 99.9% of the words mean - but wanting to know is one of the reasons I'm trying to teach myself the language.

{Turns out there is an English language edition.  Same pictures.}

The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne - the first book which made me cry like a baby at the end of it. And then I turned back to the first page and the characters were still there and it hadn't ended. I could repeat the experience! It was a revelation!! I was in my mid-twenties; I think I must have been stoned out of my box. (It was still a revelation though.)

Have Space Suit Will Travel by R A Heinlein. The Golden Age of SF is 12. I read all Heinlein's 'Juvenile's when I was 10/11/12. The Sense of Wonder those books generated in me is something I will never recapture - partially because I went and read The Hidden Persuaders so it's my own fault - but I miss it. Been looking for it ever since.

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