Books that change your life

 Many of the books that have influenced me are not on anyone’s list of great books in the Western canon.

I read The Whole Earth Catalog, in its many editions. It’s closer kin to the Sears Roebuck & Company catalog than to Plato’s Dialogues. My knowledge of the Whole Earth Catalog was never rewarded in the classroom. I don’t quote from it, but the ethos of learning to use tools so that you can do things for yourself made an impression on me. It influenced my life.

A lot of my life has been spent tramping around in wild areas. The writer who got me moving was not John Muir, whose books are routinely taught in classrooms, but Colin Fletcher, whose The Complete Walker, is not.

The idea of a canon makes sense to me. I’m probably more enthusiastic about the Great Books programs at places like St. John’s College than the average college professor. 

But someone raised the distinction between great books and the books that change your life. I had to admit that a lot of the books that had influenced me weren’t in the canon, weren’t even in the neighborhood.