Titan
Ron Chernow
Changed my life in January 1997

During my first semester in college, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Even worse, I felt completely as if I didn’t belong there. I grew up rather poor, no one in my family had ever attended college beyond a semester at a local community college, and I was only there due to a scholarship that I didn’t feel as though I’d earned. Basically, I felt like I didn’t belong there and as though I didn’t belong there.

The problem was that I had no real role model, no one tangible with a background like mine that I could clearly understand how they went from nothing to something. I had a sense that I had something greater inside of me, something more than just going to college and then going back home and becoming a park ranger (which is what I was planning on doing at that point), but I couldn’t see how that transition happened.

I never had a problem seeing a long term goal with my life, but before I read Titan, I felt aimless, almost like I was waiting for something to happen, that someone or something had to rescue me from who I was.

Then I read Titan, and for the first time in my life I felt like I had some sort of purpose.

What’s it about?

Titan is a biography of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil. Wikipedia covers the highlights of Rockefeller’s life quite well and these events are covered in detail in the book.

If Titan were just an ordinary biography, however, it wouldn’t have stood out in my mind like a beacon. The real power of Titan lies in the way that it lays out Rockefeller’s growth from rather ordinary circumstances to the unparalleled levels of success that he found later in life, even down to the specific mechanics he used to organize his life and motivate himself. Although I had avidly read countless biographies before this, almost all of them related the person’s childhood in very broad strokes and didn’t connect their early lives to their later successes (there are some, but I hadn’t read them yet).

This is a book about work ethic, about taking what you have and making something out of it without anyone else’s help. It made me realize that I was just sitting around feeling sorry for myself and it changed my life’s path forever.

How did Titan shape the person I became?

It made me realize I wasn’t alone in starting off with nothing. I was surrounded by people who grew up never wanting for anything. Many of them had attended private schools and they had everything they could possibly want or need to help them to succeed. I was literally the only resident in my dormitory without a personal computer, for example, because I came from a background that couldn’t afford one, so I had to do much of my work in the public labs on the far side of campus. I felt like I was the only person in the world who came from a poor background - this book made me not feel alone.

It made me see I already had all the tools I needed to succeed. Everything I needed I already had: a work ethic, a desire to learn, and a sharp mind. I didn’t really need anything else.

It made me broaden my horizons. Before I read this book, I wanted to be a park ranger. It was something familiar, something safe. I grew up near a state park where the ranger was quite old and I visualized replacing him. It wasn’t long after I closed the book that I realized that it was up to me to define my own destiny, and that destiny could be pretty much anything I wanted.

Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis
Changed my life in October 1996

It’s probably safe to assume that some readers will simply shut the door on this blog right now because I dare to mention the “C” word, especially on a personal finance site. After all, given the political climate in America for the past twenty years, anyone who dares call themselves a Christian should be tossed in a dungeon with Pat Robertson and locked up for good for the safety of us all, right?

To address this, I’m going to make two statements. First, I’m a Christian, but in today’s political landscape, I would be hesitant to ever call myself a conservative, because I don’t agree with a whole lot of what conservative politics in America stand for today. Second, I have no interest in converting anyone to Christianity via this blog, and this is probably the only time there will be a significant discussion of a single religion on this site.

When I first read this book, I was a pretty strong atheist. I believed that the default position for comprehending the world was that there was no God at all, and I couldn’t see any sort of logical argument that would lead me to believing in a God of any kind. It was an issue that I basically thought was settled until one lazy afternoon in a college dormitory, where I was asked about my beliefs, and an astute young man named Ben asked me if I had ever read an actual solid Christian apologist. When I confessed I had not, he loaned me his copy of Mere Christianity.

At this point, my exposure to Christians had been almost wholly negative. My parents were nominally Christian, but spent a great deal of time criticizing churches and pointing out their hypocrisies. In my school days, most of the Christian children stuck together closely in their own social group that I was aware of and friendly with, but I made it clear to them I wasn’t interested in their religious views, particularly towards a few of them who were quite open and loud about their beliefs. I had also witnessed the blathering evangelists on television, most of which were preaching a Gospel that an intelligent twelve year old could punch holes through.

Anyway, I took the copy of Mere Christianity and read the whole thing in a single Saturday afternoon. I remember thinking before I started reading it that I fully expected it to be tripe. When I closed the back cover, though, I was deeply shaken, and it sent me on a long journey of figuring out who I was and what I believed. Today, I would \describe myself as a Christian, but I wouldn’t say that I was converted by this book alone (there were many factors). I would merely say that it provided the first serious exposure I had to a well thought out and intelligently described discussion of Christianity from the perspective of a follower of the faith, and to see the religion laid out in such a sensible fashion really shook my belief structures to the core.

What’s it about?

Mere Christianity is a Christian apology; in other words, it seeks to explain the belief structure of Christianity in a way palatable to both believers and nonbelievers. Thus, he focuses on only those elements of Christianity that have been part of the belief structure in almost all times and all places, and thus avoids the differences between denominations and also issues with Christian history. This book is about the foundations of Christianity, not the details.

Rather than starting off by reiterating Christian doctrine (which would cause a nonbeliever to shut the book), Lewis begins with morals and ethics. From the Wikipedia entry:

Lewis bases his case for Christian belief on the existence of a Moral Law, a “Rule about Right and Wrong” commonly known to all human beings. This “law” is like mathematical laws in being real, not just a matter of convention, contrived by humans. But it is unlike mathematically expressed laws of nature in that it can be broken or ignored by humans, who possess free will.

Using this as an underpinning, Lewis goes on to lay out the basic tenets of Christianity, including the role of Jesus and the reasons behind atonement for sins. The entire book moves in a rather logical fashion, which is often unexpected to people who have not been exposed to a strong, intelligent discussion of Christian beliefs.

How did Mere Christianity shape the person I became?

It made me respect the beliefs and belief structures of others. This book was the first one that ever thoroughly destroyed a strongly-held belief structure of mine. I basically believed that all Christians were deluded fools, and to see a rational, well-constructed argument in favor of Christianity, even if I didn’t agree with it, altered my perspective on Christians as a whole.

It sent me on my own spiritual journey. In the ten years since I first read this book, I’ve read countless books on countless religions. I’ve spent hours upon hours considering difficult questions about my own beliefs and my own place in the universe. I wound up reading a lot of works from theological schools and other sources, including a few that really altered my viewpoint on various things, but none were capable of making that fundamental shift like Mere Christianity did.

It taught me that I didn’t have to simply accept the dogma of others. After reading this book and thinking about things for a while, I began to realize that a big part of my atheistic perspective wasn’t from my own thought process. I merely bought into what everyone else was saying around me without really thinking about it too much. Many people might expect that a book that would lead me to Christianity would cause me to think less; the truth is that Mere Christianity made me think about my beliefs and ideas more. In fact, that’s a big reason why this site exists: so many people in my generation accept that money works in a certain way, when the truth of the matter is that it works entirely differently.

It started me down a path of redefining my own moral rights and wrongs. I had some seriously skewed views during my college years about what constituted right and wrong, but as time went on, I found myself listening more and more to the little voice inside me. Eventually, I began to completely trust that voice, and it hasn’t led me wrong in a very long time.

Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
Changed my life in October 1994

I spent my high school years reading approximately two books a day, many of them quite lengthy. I eschewed having a lot of friends then because, well, I simply had no interest at all in most of the high school social games. I generally kept completely to myself, but made a point to be friendly and social enough to enough people so that I was generally left alone to follow my own path.

This left me with a lot of time to think and to try to figure out how the world worked - or at least figure out how I believed that the world worked. To be honest, I felt very lost at the time, even to the point that I was despondent that the world made little sense to me.

Then I read Atlas Shrugged and, with that one book, I began to assemble an overall understanding of the world around me.

What’s it about?

The book tells the tale of an America slowly rotting away due to technological regression and a lack of leadership. The leaders of society and industry are slowly disappearing, and the remaining ones seem to be fighting a losing battle against a slow malaise.

The central story focuses on Dagny Taggart, a hard-working railroad executive who fights diligently to protect her railroad from the growing malaise. Yet her actions seem to be one step forward, two steps back, and society itself is becoming an irritant to her. The phrase “Who is John Galt?” in particular aggravates her, as it is a social meme that basically means “Don’t ask questions because there are no answers.”

Eventually, Dagny discovers that John Galt is not a meme, but an actual person, one who has convinced the most productive members of society to go on strike, leaving the rest of the world to fall apart.

For a different perspective, the Wikipedia entry for Atlas Shrugged is detailed and well written.

How did Atlas Shrugged affect the person I became?

I started to question the fundamental structure of society, government, and economics. Prior to reading the book, I generally accepted that society in the United States was the way things should be; after the book, I began to dive into economic, social, and political theory an an effort to understand why things were the way they were. I jumped wildly from theory to theory, shifting my worldview wildly from week to week before finally beginning to build a structure that made sense to me, but it was Atlas Shrugged that made me begin to question how things worked.

I began to appreciate the power of the individual. One of the primary themes of this book is that intelligent, hard-working people are the ones that make the world work, and these people deserve the rewards of their intellect and effort. Even today, the people that impress me most are the ones whose actions have a genuine positive effect on the lives of people.

I began to be disillusioned by celebrity. Why should I respect anyone who represents values that I don’t agree with? Why should I look up to people who don’t contribute to a greater society? To me, Norman Borlaug is a hero, not William Hung, and I consider it an indictment of society when more people are familiar with Hung than Borlaug.

I realized that it was up to me and me alone to make a success out of my life. This is perhaps the biggest lesson that this book taught me. Before I read this book, I had this belief that just because I was intelligent, the world owed me something. After reading this, I began to wonder what value I really had to offer to the world. I might be intelligent, but if I spent all my time in the corner ranting about how the world owed me something, I would be wasting my life. I needed to use my intelligence for my own benefit, to get off my lazy behind and do something with it, or else it would just fester and rot.

Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
Changed my life in October 1991

In January 1991, I started keeping a journal, one that I’ve kept persistently ever since. Each day, I would write down some of the big events that happened during the day, what the weather was like, and so forth. I also kept detailed notes on the books I read and the music I listened to and my reflections on them. I had already had some epiphanies about the power of music, but I still mostly thought of books as forms of entertainment.

Then Guy Montag entered my life and everything changed.

Fahrenheit 451 was the first book I ever read that left me thinking about my own value structure thereafter. It awakened me to the possibility that a book was more than a simple form of entertainment and left me asking fundamental questions about life and freedom that I’ve never adequately answered. In many ways, these questions led me to blogging which for me is a literary expression of self-discovery.

What’s it about?

Without revealing too much, the book tells the story of Guy Montag, a “fireman” in a future America where firemen burn books. This future America is actually rather frightening: as television becomes more prevalent and more interactive, books are seen by general society as being evil, containing critical thoughts that are better off banished.

Montag is quite happy burning books until he meets Clarisee McClellan, a teenage girl who lives in his neighborhood. She doesn’t convince him to read books, per se, but she simply points out that there are more things to life than television and work. It is her disappearance that makes Guy start to question things, but it is the burning of the home of an elderly woman with a large book collection that really makes him question whether society is healthy or not. He pockets one of the woman’s books and then begins hoarding books for himself.

Before long, he finds himself targeted by the firemen and is given the order to burn down his own home. He refuses and is forced to run for his own life.

The purpose of the whole story is to relate the growth of Guy Montag as an individual over a backdrop of a society rejecting free thought, much like 1984 except with a different conclusion. Montag starts off as a follower, then becomes a questioner, then a learner, then eventually a leader, and this growth is based on realizing that intellectual acceptance without question is a very flawed path.

If you’d like another perspective on the contents of the book, the Wikipedia entry for Fahrenheit 451 is quite detailed and well-written.

How did Fahrenheit 451 affect the person I became?

It taught me to define my own values - and to regret when I let others define my values. This is literally what The Simple Dollar is all about. For too long, I let the values of others - materialism and consumerism - override my own values, and it is something that fills me with regret on a daily basis. My finances were one of the last areas where I let others have so much influence over me; I kept letting the lifestyle of my peer group pull me along for far too long. Every time I have evaluated a portion of my life and put effort into aligning them with my core values, I’ve grown as an individual - and it all began with Fahrenheit 451.

It taught me to question everything. Reading this book was much like a light switch flipping on in my head. I realized that there were many, many things in life that I just took for granted, particularly in terms of how society and day-to-day life worked. Here’s an example: after reading this book, we were in the middle of a section at school where we studied World War II. I spent so much time questioning why the Germans simply accepted this that my teacher, out of frustration, called a professor at the local university to discuss this matter with me. I never stopped questioning things.

It taught me that obsession with popular culture puts blinders on your perspective on the world. It’s fine to be entertained by something, but when I finished reading this book, I looked at television in a much different light. I wound up spending about two years abstaining from television and even now I watch television rarely, and when I do it’s usually in sidelong glances while doing something else. I discovered that popular culture is like the shiniest trinket in an antique shop: it will attract most of the eyes, but the really interesting things are usually elsewhere.

It taught me to value books - in a certain way. Prior to reading Fahrenheit 451, I would read all sorts of things, most of them junk. After I read it, I got a lot more picky. I still enjoyed being entertained by books, but now I felt as though I had wasted my time if they weren’t enlightening. I spent a year reading a lot of classic literature after reading this book; most of them made me think quite a lot, but it was Fahrenheit 451 that provided the original spark.

It first brought about a desire in me to become a writer. Guy Montag was the first literary character that sprang out of the pages and came alive to me, and it seemed like a magic trick. It still does; it’s a trick that I keep working on mastering. Whenever I feel lost as a writer, Ray Bradbury is still one of the first authors that I turn to for inspiration.

After an interesting dialogue with my readers, I’ve decided to go ahead with a series on the ten books that changed my life.

Each Sunday around midnight (in the Midwestern United States, anyway) for the next ten weeks, I’ll post a detailed description and discussion of a book that changed my life. Each one of these titles changed my life, and each one in its own way led to my personal and financial outlook today. If you’re one of those people who thought this series was a bad idea, I’ve made it as easy as possible to ignore these entries: they’ll all start with “Ten Books That Changed My Life” in the post title. Just skip ‘em. There won’t be any reduction in the number of other posts, either; this series is “extra.”

So what can you expect? First of all, I’m going through the books chronologically in the order that they really began to impact my life. Thus, the first book (which I’ll post about in a few hours) is actually the earliest book that transformed my life, while the last book I’ll post about actually entered my life fairly recently (April 2006, to be exact).

What’s interesting is that when I was assembling this list, exactly ten books stood out almost immediately. I started just listing books that really had an impact on my life and when I reached ten, I paused for a very long time before realizing that, indeed, ten is the magic number here.

You should expect some glowing notations, as I really do love these books. In fact, these ten books would be my “desert island” books, as I continually refer back to them and often read them again (in fact, I’m reading them all again to aid myself in writing this series, so for the time being I’m actually reading two books a week).

You should also expect some attempts to tie them in with my modern life, particularly in terms of my personal development and beliefs as well as my financial mindset (this is a personal finance blog, after all).

One final thing: expect length. My love for some of these books is quite intense, after all, and I can already tell I’m going have a hard time being brief when describing some of them.

I hope you enjoy this series, and I can’t encourage you enough to give each of these books a read, even if they seem way outside of your normal reading appetite.

Without further ado, here’s the list:

1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury