“Has any piece of literature affected you in a major way? If so, explain how. If not, explain why not.” Throughout my English career I have read many books, short stories, and poems that have affected my life today. But the ones that have affected my life the most are not just one but three books. They are very important because they have not only given insight into their time and life, but have also shown how to overcome adversity and tough times. This is not in a lot of books now. These lessons have almost become obsolete to the world around them. Partly because readers don’t want to read them, and partly because they don’t know where to find them. But nevertheless, these books to me shine through all the rest because of the morals and teachings they hold.
The first book is A Bus of My Own, written by Jim Lehrer. This book has a lot of great stories and great morals. These stories are about greed and other things that affect people today. But what I like about this literature is the fact that he ends it in a way where he fixes the problem at hand. This is good. In modern times, the main thing people do is to just ignore the problems. But this does not help anything, and that is why this book is great. He writes about his life, but also how he overcomes adversity in his career, in his childhood, and in his older days. Not many books on the shelf today hold these teachings. But this one does, and that is what makes it such an interesting and intriguing read.
The second book that has held lots of information, is not an autobiography, but what I think has affected me in a major way. The book is Fahrenheit 451 and is written by Ray Bradbury. The book is very dystopian, as it takes place in the future where reading is obsolete. Life goes on as normal for people , except books and reading are illegal. I like this book so much because of the redemption story inside of the book. The main character is named Guy Montag, and he is a fireman. Except he burns things instead of extinguishing them. He burns the houses when books are discovered there. However throughout the book he comes to the understanding that what he is doing is wrong. And he ends up escaping the city before it is blown up. However, I like this novel so much because of the complicated yet easy to understand story about tragedy and redemption.
The last book that affected me is the book Hellen Keller wrote that I just finished. This book is the most important to me because of the story it tells. It is an autobiography about her life. She tells the story of her childhood, being blind, deaf, and mute. She wrote about the constant struggle she was up against. She wrote about being in her own prison. Yet she pushed through and continued to keep at it even when things got worse. She even eventually learned to talk. Using her hand, she would place it on the person’s mouth and feel and mimic the vibration of the sound. This book is so important because of the grit and determination she had shown.
JBSchool 