A book that changed me Writers, critics and bibliophiles talk about a book that changed their thinking – or even their life
This mountaineering yarn from 60 years ago still makes me laugh out loud. How? Tim Key I discovered WE Bowman’s The Ascent of Rum Doodle in my twenties. And I’ve been rediscovering it ever since, says poet and stand-up Tim Key
I learned what it was to love and leave a place after reading Raymond Williams Lynsey Hanley The Welsh critic’s 1960 novel Border Country is an intimate history of a working-class family, says Lynsey Hanley, the author of Respectable: Crossing the Class Divide
Angela Carter's exploration of life in a female body taught me to be comfortable in my own Evie Wyld I was 15 and in the bottom set for most subjects at school. The Magic Toyshop changed everything, says author Evie Wyld
As a 20-year-old student I didn't laugh very much. Then I read Tristram Shandy Liam Williams I was a rookie standup when I came across Laurence Sterne’s classic, and it changed my view of not just comedy, but life, says comedian and writer Liam Williams
I thought I was too different to see myself in a novel – but Sayaka Murata got me Naoise Dolan The heroine of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman gave me confidence in myself as an autistic writer, says Naoise Dolan
How a badly behaved heroine transformed my grey little life Sophie Mackintosh Alan Warner’s Morvern Callar taught me about rooting for the wicked, giving up control and the beauty in ambiguity, says author Sophie Mackintosh
How Steinbeck's Cannery Row spoke to me – even in small-town Indonesia Eka Kurniawan The 1945 novel released to me the secrets of authorship in my own language, says the writer Eka Kurniawan
I thought my writing too shameful, too feminine, until I read Karl Ove Knausgård Megan Nolan The emotional power of his six-part epic My Struggle gave me permission to write to my strengths, says the writer Megan Nolan
I can never look at an alsatian without thinking of Martin Amis's London Fields Rosa Lyster When my dad introduced me to the novel, he didn’t say what it was about, says the writer Rosa Lyster
My mind and body were not my own until I read The Fruits of the Earth Kamel Daoud The 1970s Algeria I grew up in was religious and austere. André Gide’s hymn to the human body liberated me from that, says Algerian writer Kamel Daoud
How a book by Gertrude Stein taught me to write about myself Deborah Levy The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas investigates the art and artifice of the genre – and transformed how I thought about it, says the author Deborah Levy
A book that changed me: the elusive perfection of For the Time Being Mark O’Connell Annie Dillard’s 1975 book taught me, a non-believer, that religion can access deeper truths, says the Dublin-based writer Mark O’Connell
An education from Alan Watkins, the master columnist of Fleet Street Peter Oborne The political writer’s A Short Walk Down Fleet Street vividly describes the characters and culture of a golden age in newspaper publishing
I embraced Henry James’s fight against complacency Colm Tóibín The complexities of The Ambassadors made me see that there’s no need to settle for anything small
The Wimbledon Poisoner taught me the exoticism of suburbia Catherine Shoard Nigel Williams’s comedy is piss-take and celebration: it gave me some insight into why people might have liked a civilisation defined by Margaret Thatcher
The rabbit language of Watership Down helped me make the leap into English Philip Oltermann As a German-speaking teenager, reading Richard Adams’ book gave me confidence – and I learned about how language works
Prince Cinders, the spotty hero who made me hang up my tiara Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett Babette Cole’s deliciously irreverent tale subverted the Cinderella story – and set me on the path to feminism
Help me trace the book that prompted my political awakening George Monbiot George Monbiot: In a dusty box in the school sanatorium I found a book that had escaped the censorship of the headmaster. But what was its title?
Malcolm X’s autobiography didn’t change me, it saved me Lemn Sissay Aged 17, I felt like an outsider. This book opened the door to reading – and to discovering my identity
Half of a Yellow Sun shocked me into a sense of my own expatriate identity Claire Armitstead At last I had found a novel that challenged the stories I had been told, growing up as an insider-outsider in Nigeria
About 80 results for A book that changed me 
