10 Books That Changed My Life

First published in 1981, this book has had a huge influence on my life.

This is the story of Thomas Hoving, a young curator at the Metropolitan Musem (Cloisters medieval department) in New York City in the 1960s and his search for the history and the provenance of a mysterious ivory cross from England, called the Bury St Edmunds Cross.

This book describes in great detail, a (back then) newly discovered ivory carving. The meticulous research necessary to track down the provenance of any art piece as described in this book, is what fascinated me. Despite reading this book, I still dont much like statues and ivories.

I fell in love with art and art history reading this book. I learnt so much. Before I read this book, I had no real interest in art. Now I have a very deep interest in art, especially paintings and icons.

My favourite artists are Vermeer, Renoir, Canaletto, Rubens, Rublev, Titian, Roerich, Brughel, Bosch and Rembrandt. I especially love to read anything I can about art thefts and newly discovered art.

Image source - This is the original book cover that I remember from the 1980s. I have had this image on my harddrive since before 2007. It is no longer available online, so I don't know where I got it from - sorry.

This specific book changed my life in a major way by showing me exactly how and why religion is wrong.

It opened my eyes to the truth of the Roman Catholic church and the last 2000 years of history. In my opinion, the roman catholic church is directly responsible for 2000 years of brutal wars, 2000 years of executions of heretics and witches, and 2000 years of suppressing scientific discoveries.

Back when I was a teenager (in the early 1980s - 30 years ago now), I was already asking some pretty hard questions about Christianity. Questions such as -

If the Sinai Peninsula really was as small as it looks in an atlas, then how could 1 million people have possibly wandered around it for 40 years without once crossing over previously covered ground?? Which is what the Bible claims.

Why was it that after 2000 years, the catholic and the protestant churches were still hell-bent on destroying each other - as in Northern Ireland. The bible also says to turn the other cheek and these people were not turning the other cheek.

Then my church pastor did the unthinkable. He left his wife and kids and ran off with another woman. This was a shocking scandal for my local church. WHY did pastors not keep all the rules as they were supposed to?? Pastors and Priests are supposed to be perfect with the help of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. So does the Holy Spirit actually help us to stay on the straight and narrow, or are we left to do it all on our own?

I felt the church was so hypocritical. The church told us to do one thing, but then the church priests, ministers and pastors did the exact opposite. They were not even TRYING to follow the example as set by the Jesus in the bible.

On my 18th birthday, I asked my parents to allow me to stop attending church, because I no longer beleived. They said NO, that I must continue attending for as long as I lived under their roof. That was a horrible year. On my 19th birthday I asked my parents again to allow me to stop attending church. I fully expected them to refuse me again. This time they surprised me and said YES. So I promptly stopped attending church.

It was not until some years later I realised why they had refused my first request. Their thinking was - lets wait and see if she really wants this. If she really knows what she wants, she will ask again.

I left home in 1987. In 1990 I was sucked into a very nasty cult. It took me 6 months to escape from that cult, and yes I had to tell some lies to get away from them. When I did get away, I ended up boarding with a family from another religious church and I spent the next 2 years enduring more religion. I even went to Bible school (part time in the evenings) to learn more about the bible. This bible school came complete with exams.

This church flat-out told me that I was a heretic on one occasion when one of my exam answers went against church teachings, I wrote what to me was a logical and reasonable response. The paper came back to me with a big red note that said - THIS IS HERESY. I no longer remember what the question was. I do remember the big red note.

It was a relief when my landlady decided to become a missionary and leave the country. I went looking for new accommodation and have never been back to church with any regularity since 1993. I continued to read many books on religion, trying to find answers.

Jesus was called Rabbi in the Bible, and jewish tradition said that Rabbis had to be married. It was highly likely that he was married to Mary Magalene, and that she was forced to flee when Jesus was crucified. She may or may not have fled to Egypt and then to France. She may or may not have been pregnant at the time. Many many legends have a grain of truth in them.

Then I found the smoking gun. The truth that confirmed that I was right to not believe on christianity. No wonder I had always struggled with religion. It was all based on LIES. The crucifixion legends are NOT unique to Jesus Christ. The church says that Jesus was the son of god and that he alone was raised from the dead. Jesus is NOT the only god to have died and risen again. These rising from the dead legends have been repeated over and over again in the ancient egyptian, greek, persian, babylonian and pagan stories.
See POCM website.

Eventually I came to a conclusion. There is a Supreme Creator - our bodies and the universe are just too complicated to have come together as accidents (which is what evolution teaches). Jesus was a great teacher and a lot of his teachings were very similar to Buddhism. But he was just a human and a mortal man. He was not the son of god. He was probably crucified, but he certainly never rose from the dead.

I also accept that there is NO holy spirit and there is NO heaven and no hell. What god would be CRUEL enough to send his followers to a lake of burning fire, just because they chose not to accept his words. That is NOT something that a supposedly loving god or father should do.

If this is the sort of god I am expected to follow and worship and believe in, then I want no part of him or his religion whatsoever.

Image source - This is the original book cover that I remember from the 1980s. I have also had this image on my harddrive since before 2007. It is no longer available online, so I don't know where I got it from - sorry

I didn't read this book until after the movie came out in 1987. But I love the book. It is one of the very few books I can read over and over again. This book introduced me to the idea that books are valuable - especially antiquarian books.

I loved Helene Hanff's wonderful sense of humour and the way she wrote. So I went on a search to read all her other books. She wrote a total of 6 books. My goal of reading all 6 books was not finally accomplished until some 20 years later when I was finally able to purchase and read Helene's autobiography (Q's Legacy) in 2008.

One of the first lenses I ever wrote here at Squidoo was about Helene Hanff's books.

Image source - This is the original book cover that I remember from the 1980s. I have also had this image on my harddrive since before 2007. It is no longer available online, so I don't know where I got it from - sorry

First published in 1989, this book was a real eye opener. I learnt all about computers, computer networks, security, cyber espionage and how to be a hacker from this book. This was all before the WINDOWS operating system was invented.

Part of the reason I like this book so much is because the events took place during the 1980s - around the same time that I was making my first foray into computers (with the Atari home computer my dad purchased). I even wrote a lens about my journey with computers

Now I read anything I can, about hacking, computer crimes and computer security. I still re-read this book every few years.

The entire text for this book is online and both the text and this original cover can be read here.

After my son was born, he was very strong willed. As he grew up, a lot of little things he did just did not seem normal. I watched him closely and I was desperate to find out what was wrong. By the time he was 2 years old I was reading anything i could find about kids problems, and whether or not the symptoms matched my son.

By the time my son was 4 years old and starting kindergarten, I had came across a book called Raising the Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. It explained a lot of my sons symptoms but not all of them. So I kept on reading. Next I read a few books about non-verbal learning disorders, and again came to the conclusion that my son had some of the symptoms, but not all of them.

It was not until he was 5 years old that I found THIS book - The Out of Sync Child. This book covered ALL of my sons symptoms, and indeed made so much sense that a good many of the symptoms matched ME when I was a kid as well.

I have read a number of other books about sensory issues and the more I read, the more I am convinced that my son has sensory issues. My husband and I also have some sensory issues as well.

Now that I know whats wrong with my son, I know how to deal with him. The day I read this book was a red-letter day for me.

Having made my decision in 1993 that I beleived only in a supreme creator and nothing else, I had no religion to follow so I did nothing. I still read lots of books on religion and apologetics, but none of them persuaded me to change my mind.

I had assumed that this new belief of mine was unique and that there was no name for this belief. It was not until after 9-11 (2001) that I came across an article that mentioned the founding fathers of the USA being Deists and the article also described what Deism was. That description matched my beliefs exactly. Finally after more than 10 years, I learned that I was not alone and that my belief had a name. I am a Deist.

The one book mentioned frequently by Deists in support of their beliefs, is the Age of Reason written by Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809). He along with famous founders such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were all Deists. Thomas Paine wrote several books and pamphlets. His most famous titles are Common Sense, Age of Reason and The Rights of Man. More Thomas Paine essays can be found here.

God gave us Reason, not Religion
God gave us all the Gift of Reason; Some just can't figure out how to open the box.

Image Source - Wikipedia Commons - not under any copyright.

I discovered Rostenberg and Stern in 2007 and from these two Jewish spinsters, I learned that collecting antiquarian books can be very valuable and rewarding. I reviewed this book on my blog.

Remember above, where I said that I love doing research. From Hoving I learned that researching art history was fun and rewarding. Well from Rostenburg and Stern, I have also learned that researching the history and provenance of antiquarian books requires detailed and meticulous research as well.

After reading this book, I made a declaration on my blog - that I wanted to study bibliography and become a bibliographer. That has not yet happened. Probably never will - but I can still dream.

This book finally gave me permission to stop accepting that the bible is the true word of God. IT IS NOT.

This book describes a good number of bible errors. Even before leaving the church, and for a long time afterwards, every time I tried to discuss these errors in the bible, I was told that God does not make mistakes.

So I started thinking logically. If God does not make mistakes, then God did not write or inspire the bible. Therefore Man must have written the bible. There are so many stories in the bible that simply cannot have happened the way they are written because they break the laws of physics, the law of gravity or the law of reason. I am not even going to mention the crucifixion. That is purely a re-telling of the ancient pagan resurrection stories.

NO - the one story in the bible that totally breaks the laws of physics - laws that God formulated when he created the universe - is that story where Joshua stops the sun from moving until the battle was over and all the bad guys were dead. See this explanation

I have also reviewed this book in my blog

This book was an eye opener about the damage that Aspartame can do to the body.
I reviewed this book on my blog.

I have since started reading a number of other books that talk about how chemicals and additives in our food, are slowly killing the human race. Unfortunately we cannot get these additives removed from our food because the food manufacturers lobby is just too powerful.

How industry manipulates public opinion

What's really in our food?

Image source - Sweet Poison website

Just last year (2010) I discovered something new about myself - specifically why I have never been able to settle down to just one job in the last 25 years since I left school. I am a scanner. I mention this in more detail on my lens - Top 10 careers for a Scanner.

I am currently working on starting a new business for myself - as an information professional. I really need to stay away from Squidoo for a while to work on my business. Squidoo is so addictive!!! Squidoo allows me to read, research and write about all the areas in which I am interested.

I wrote two posts about this book to my blog.

The problems with Polymaths
and
Refuse to Choose - Book Review

Image Source - Amazon