At Books to Eat, we’ve featured many “books that will change your life” book list, filled with incredible books. These books, while very good books to read, are mostly geared towards people who may be new to reading and are still new to emotionally experiencing a book.
In this new book list, Books to Eat wanted to find the books that will change you, rock you, or devastate you as an adult; at a time when you have had a good number of years to have yourself and the world around you figured out.
This, in other words, is a list of great books that will fundamentally change how you approach the world.
6 Books That Will Change Your Life as an Adult
1. Man’s Search for Meaning
Writer: Viktor E. Frankl
Review: Frankl, who survived the concentration camps, writes that suffering is inevitable and that avoiding suffering is futile. Rather, one should be worthy of one’s suffering and make meaning of it instead of surrendering to nihilism, bitterness and despair. He uses poetic, moving anecdotes from the concentration camps to illustrate those souls who find a deeper humanity from their suffering or who become animals relegated to nothing more than teeth-clenched self-preservation.
This is a quick read and could conceivably change your life. Man is more than the sum of his biology and his environment. We inevitably choose to be who we are. Frankl’s argument is that, if we choose wisely, we can triumph even in tragedy. A book that will undoubtedly change your life after you read it.
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2. The Stone Diaries
Author: Carol Shields
Review: In The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields attempts to chronicle the life of Daisy Goodwill. It is a life first told through the eyes of Daisy, and then through the eyes of those who presumably knew her best: her friends, children and relatives.
How can one define a life lived? If we had a chance to have our life story written, and then told through the eyes of those who were closest to us, what would they say about us, and more interestingly, how accurate would they be in truly understanding the inner nuances that make each of us tick?
This book is a fascinating read, particularly for women who are living their life in full; however unfascinating and uneventful that may seem.
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3. Tropic of Cancer
Author: Henry Miller
Review: Henry Miller’s novel Tropic of Cancer was first published in Paris in 1934, but banned as obscene in the United States for 27 years until a historic court ruling made it available.
The book tells the story of an American writer named Henry Miller who lives in Paris. Henry lives in the seedy underbelly of the city and the book follows him to the bars, cafes, and whorehouses, detailing his encounters with a number of colorful characters.
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4. Thinking Fast and Slow
Author: Daniel Kahneman
Review: The main theme of Daniel Kahneman’s’ book is that the human animal is systematically illogical.
The basis thesis of the book is simple. In judging the world around us, we use two mental systems: Fast and Slow. The Fast system (System 1) is mostly unconscious and makes snap judgments based on our past experiences and emotions. When we use this system we are as likely to be wrong as right. The Slow system (System 2) is rational, conscious and slow. They work together to provide us a view of the world around us.
Not only do we mis-assess situations, but we do so following fairly predictable patterns. Moreover, those patterns are grounded in our primate ancestry.
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5. The Handmaids Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Review: Set in the present-day Massachusetts of the future, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is the chilling portrayal of a totalitarian society as told through the eyes of a Handmaid named Offred.
Offred, who can remember the time when she had a home, a husband and a daughter, now serves as a “birth vessel” and is valued only for her powers of reproduction. Sterility is the norm, and fertile woman are treated as cattle. The handmaid’s are not allowed to look directly at anyone else. They all wear the same outfits, live together, spend most of their time together, and are taken care of so they will produce children for this barren society.
Unlike most dystopian novels, this one feels more likely to happen, which makes it even more haunting.
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6. Meditations
Author: Marcus Aurelius
Review: When it comes to Stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius is second to Epictetus in the discussion of avoiding the indulgence of emotion. However, Aurelius’ Meditations is different simply because it’s the first leadership memoir based on Stoic philosophy.
The book is raw – it seems that these were never going to be published, so it had a bluntness to it and an honesty rare for a military leader, let alone one of the best Roman Emperors in history. He was a spiritual man, and tried to rationalize his duties. It lacks rhetorical flourish but it’s honest.
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