Sunday Scribblings: The book that changed everything

Is there a book that you read at a particular time in your life that changed everything for you?  Is there a book you think should be written that would change everything? Words have an incredible power if they are read/ heard by the right person at the right time.  What collection of words has been powerful for you?

So many books have changed my world, I can easily pick one for this question.  There is one book that changed and shaped me so much that I still read it once a year.  Fahrenheit 451.  The book that changed everything for me was about books being banned.  It really made me start thinking about what would happen if censorship went crazy and everyone got their wish to ban whatever books they want to ban.  Just because something is offensive to someone, that doesn't mean it doesn't have something important to say.  Whenever I read this book, I am always struck by how much the society in the story resembles our own society.  And every time I read a story about how some group or individual is trying to ban a book, I think about this cautionary tale and wonder if our society is on the road to a group of drones who watch TV and never challenge their minds or their world views.  I wonder if we are on our way to total apathy while the government takes our books, the treasure trove of knowledge and opinions and observations that we have in print, and burns them before our very eyes.  All of them.  Gone forever.  It scares me.  


If you haven't read this book, you absolutely should.  Here is the Wikipedia article about the book in case you are not familiar with it.  Read it.  And then fight censorship.