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![full bookshelves illuminated by string lights; some of these might be formative books that made an impact](https://corporette.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/books-formative-effect.jpg)
A friend and I were talking the other day about formative books, and I thought it might be an interesting topic here — what books were formative to the person you are now? What books made a real impression on you and continues to be a reference point in your life, whether fiction or non-fiction?
For my friend, it was Your Money Or Your Life, which is one of the best financial books we’ve talked about — she was saying that it totally changed her relationship with money and her attitude towards saving.
Formative Books: My Own $.02
For me the answer has to be The 4-Hour Workweek, for better or worse — I read it a year or two after law school, when I was a BigLaw associate and trying to figure out if being a lawyer was for me or not. I, like a lot of lawyers, came from a long background of Type A behavior — pushpushpush, pull the all-nighter, get the A, you can sleep when you’re dead — and at 28 I was trying to figure out if that was the way I wanted to live the rest of my life.
(I think I’ve written before about this — I realized I was really driven by “gold stars,” as in the stickers your elementary teachers put on your work when it’s really good. Being in a situation with lockstep pay and bonuses, with a 7-9 year partner track, was just not motivating to me.)
The 4-Hour Workweek was revelatory for a lot of reasons, one of the biggest being that you could start a business that earned money but left you time to pursue your passions.
One example in the book that I remember is an entrepreneur who essentially created digital stock music for people to use in their own projects — he certainly wasn’t writing concertos or playing sold out stadiums, but he was making a solid living and not putting very much work into the endeavor.
Another example I remember (although I think it was from Tim Ferriss’s blog and not the book), was that the coding program for girls, Goldiblox, had been started for this purpose — and then became the founder’s passion.
My attitude towards email was definitely formed by The 4-Hour Workweek — he noted that he was almost never making money by answering or filing emails, so he wasn’t going to spend a lot of time on it. To this day, I only check my work email a few times a week — I don’t even have access to it on my phone. I’ve also resisted having an assistant sort my email for me. I’ve missed a few important things over the years (including at least two opportunities to be interviewed by The New York Times, oops), but being relatively unstressed about my work emails is, I think, a good thing.
(Of course, I try to check the moderation queue every 20-60 minutes even when I’m on vacation, so there is some stress, but hey.)
It’s interesting, also, how you can read the same books as your friends and they won’t have the same effect — it really depends heavily on where you were in life when you read the book and what other sorts of advice you were getting.
Sometimes a book hits a bit too close to home, also — for example, I should be writing about The Tools because I remember just eating it up when I first read it and thinking it would change my life. But for some reason, its message about pushing through your emotional blocks to complete your creative work hasn’t stuck the same way, although I tell myself almost yearly that I should reread it.
Readers, over to you — what formative books made you the person you are today (fiction or non-fiction)? If you view the book as problematic today, do you still look back on the lessons and impact it had on you in a positive way?
Anon
An odd one: The Tightwad Gazette. It’s about living a frugal life to achieve your goals, e.g., stay home with your children, early retirement, etc. It goes WAY beyond what I would be willing to do however it sure changed my thinking on wants vs needs, societal expectations vs my own values. It questioned what is considered societal norms in so many areas that although I never chose to follow it hook, line and sinker (few would!), it still challenges my thinking today.
Susan Godin
I subscribed to her newsletter before she wrote the book. She would mail out a newsletter with all of her tips and stories about frugality. I loved receiving it in the mail. The newsletters were the foundation to the book.
Anon
Cool. I found her after she stopped her newsletter.
Kate
Loose Woman by Sandra Cisneros. I realize this is a totally different vibe than the other answers thus far…
Reader
“Roots.” I read it in college and it completely changed my understanding of race in America. I was a privileged, sheltered, young white woman; this book made me realize that slavery and prejudice were not ancient history. These institutions were connected to my living, breathing contemporaries.
marise
The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler. It makes you rethink history, archeology, and whether we necessarily have to live in a world dominated by violence.
anon
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
I read it pretty young, maybe 10 or 11, and it was the first coming of age novel I was exposed to about a girl learning she would never fulfill her dreams and that her family could not be relied on. Its message resonated with me.
Peach
The Rules – Read this book in undergrad. Helped me understand the importance of not being or appearing desperate when it comes to dating. I wouldn’t say I implemented the tactics per se, and of course, looking back it seems pretty manipulative and not a book I would recommend.
Millionaire Next Door — It was a nice intro to the idea of living below one’s means and makes you realize that people who are wealthy are not necessarily buying expensive houses and cars
Law School Confidential — Terrific resource for navigating law school
The Feminine Mistake – Its thesis that not having a career is a risky way for women to live resonated with me at that time in my life when I was making decisions about whether to have kids, etc.
The Obesity Code – Dr. Jason Fung – More about intermittent fasting than obesity. Really blew my mind.
The 4-Hour Work Week influenced me as well, but I couldn’t figure out how I could delegate the 80% of my work that was not leading to results. I was always in the role of the delegatee. The 4-Hour Body was good, too.
Steal Like an Artist – a wise book on creating art.
The Culture Map – this book has really helped me put interactions into perspective when working with colleagues in different countries
This is another post by you, Kat, that makes me think we’d be good friends in real life!
Anon
I’d recommend you listen to the Podcast “If Books Could Kill”–they cover the four hour workweek/four hour body (and millionaire next door, if memory serves me correctly).
Anon
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch.
He interviews survivors and perpetrators of the Hutu genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. (800,000 people hacked to death by machetes in 100 days!) Who, how, WHY. I read it in college as an international relations major and it shocked me and changed me and taught me so much about humanity. It’s well-written, too, so it’s a compelling read.
(I don’t remember it being particularly gory; I’m sensitive to that kind of content. I remember it being more mindset driven.)
It’s one of the only books I kept from college.
Anon
Will add that to my list!
peteralston112
this book has really helped me put interactions into perspective when working with colleagues in different countries. can i pay someone to do my online class
Anon
Robinson Crusoe, the children’s condensed version
To Kill A Mockingbird
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Wings of Refuge by Lynn Austin
NatYG
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. Really helped me come to terms with my nature and how to balance social life and me-time.