What books changed your life as an adult?

Reddit user medioxcore asked the question in Reddit’s Books community, writing, “Any time I see “books that changed your life” threads, the comments always read like a high school mandatory reading list. These books, while great, are read at a time when people are still very emotional, impressionable, and malleable. i want to know what books changed you, rocked you, or devastated you as an adult; at a time when you’d had a good number of years to have yourself and the world around you figured out.”

Here’s what people wrote.

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

In Tolstoy’s novella, death suddenly confronts a middle-aged Russian man named Ivan, a high-court judge who always avoided human connection and never reflected much upon his life.

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

The story of one seemingly unremarkable woman with an extraordinarily vivid inner life.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

A tour of the mind that explains the two systems driving the way we think—the first being fast, intuitive, and emotional; and the second being slower, more deliberative, and more logical.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

A man’s search for his wife’s missing cat leads him to a bizarre netherworld beneath the gentle surface of Tokyo.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood



Margaret Atwood’s dystopian feminist novel set in a futuristic America run by religious fundamentalists.

See the full discussion in the original Reddit thread.