h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I would like to ask the community what story or fiction in any medium have you personally been inspired by. I don't want to know 'what is your favourite' but has there been a certain work which has inspired you to do something you would likewise would never have done or gave you a boost in confidence.

I've never been much of a reader, but films like Donnie Darko, Twelve Monkeys and Memento, which muck about with time and causality, have always left me wishing I'd been as inventive as that.

I have a copy of Clearing Clutter with Feng shui. I don't really believe the religious parts of it, and haven't tried the bagua or anything, but it gets me off my behind to do some cleaning, when the house is getting messy.

These have given me confidence at different times when I've needed reassurance that it's ok to be myself

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
Warning by Jenny Joseph (the Purple poem)

And almost anything by HH the Dalai Lama, but that doesn't fit the fiction criterion.

I can't recall being inspired to action by any novel, but I've had a frisson at aspects of a character or situation that I feel mirror my life. That recognition can be depressing or reassuring depending on the events unfolding!

Tyke, I'm with you on JLS. I have given away so many copies of that he should be paying me as his promoter. Inspirational, aspirational and uplifting!



MMF

Bach's Illusions was interesting as well, but I'm not sure I'd class it as inspirational - still trying to work that one out

I preferred Illusions to JLS, but I found neither quite to my taste.

TRiG.

Among several spurs, props and talismans on the bookshelf, one of the less well-known:

Skallagrigg - William Horwood

This book (and indeed the BBC's fine dramatisation) fosters empathy with and for people with learning disabilities like nothing I've ever read.

With you there, Pin, it's an amazing book, don't know how often I've read it. Shame there is no German translation of it as far as I know, or else all my friends would have got a copy from me.

BBC Radio 4 drama: Spoonface Steinberg.

TRiG.