{"id":594,"date":"2010-09-09T06:47:14","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T06:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html"},"modified":"2010-09-09T06:47:14","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T06:47:14","slug":"which-books-have-shaped-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html","title":{"rendered":"Which Books Have Shaped You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several times in my life,<\/b> I’ve been in social, get-to-know-you situations where a group of us were supposed to tell, as individuals, which person or persons in our lives had influenced us the most. We were supposed to talk about elementary-school teachers or grandparents or pastors, but I always thought of…writers. <\/p>\n

This is because 1) I am an introverted book nerd who generally prefers a good book to, you know, real-life social interaction and deep, influential relationships; and 2) Because much of who I am has evolved due to books I’ve read that have changed me, challenged me, and inspired me.<\/p>\n

Last week, my sister Micha<\/a> (inspired by Helen Lee<\/a>) asked her blog readers “What books have shaped you?<\/a>”
\nThe conversation that ensued was fun, revealing, and became a great
\nlittle thread for talking about books and discovering new authors. I love talking about this kind of stuff. <\/p>\n

So I thought I’d steal her excellent question and pose it here, to you:<\/p>\n

Which books have had the most impact and influence in your life…and why?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several times in my life, I’ve been in social, get-to-know-you situations where a group of us were supposed to tell, as individuals, which person or persons in our lives had influenced us the most. We were supposed to talk about elementary-school teachers or grandparents or pastors, but I always thought of…writers. This is because 1)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-questions"],"yoast_head":"\nWhich Books Have Shaped You? - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Which Books Have Shaped You? - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Several times in my life, I’ve been in social, get-to-know-you situations where a group of us were supposed to tell, as individuals, which person or persons in our lives had influenced us the most. We were supposed to talk about elementary-school teachers or grandparents or pastors, but I always thought of…writers. This is because 1)…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-09T06:47:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Which Books Have Shaped You? - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Which Books Have Shaped You? - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"Several times in my life, I’ve been in social, get-to-know-you situations where a group of us were supposed to tell, as individuals, which person or persons in our lives had influenced us the most. We were supposed to talk about elementary-school teachers or grandparents or pastors, but I always thought of…writers. This is because 1)…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2010-09-09T06:47:14+00:00","author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html","name":"Which Books Have Shaped You? - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-09-09T06:47:14+00:00","dateModified":"2010-09-09T06:47:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/09\/which-books-have-shaped-you.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Which Books Have Shaped You?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture & Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}