{"id":17080,"date":"2009-04-16T09:01:05","date_gmt":"2009-04-16T13:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=17080"},"modified":"2014-12-26T20:18:55","modified_gmt":"2014-12-27T01:18:55","slug":"the-most-inspirational-books-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2009\/04\/16\/the-most-inspirational-books-of-all-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The most inspirational books of all time"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to a poll run by The Telegraph<\/i><\/a>, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird<\/i> is the most inspirational book of all time.<\/p>\n

Here’s the newspaper’s full list:<\/p>\n

1.\tTo Kill a Mockingbird<\/i>, Harper Lee
\n2.\tThe Bible
\n3.\tA Child Called It<\/i>, Dave Pelzer
\n4.\tMen are from Mars, Women are from Venus<\/i>, John Gray
\n5.\tDiary of Anne Frank<\/i>, Anne Frank
\n6.\t1984<\/i>, George Orwell
\n7.\tA Long Walk to Freedom<\/i>, Nelson Mandela
\n8.\tThe Beach<\/i>, Alex Garland
\n9.\tThe Time Travellers Wife<\/i>, Audrey Niffenegger
\n10.\tThe Catcher in the Rye<\/i>, J D Salinger<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1984<\/i> leapt out at me, causing a “Huh?” moment, because I never thought of it as inspirational. Powerful, influential, horribly depressing, sad, maybe, but never inspirational. Reading it, rather than inspiring me, made it want to just give up and slit my wrists. I can accept Diary of Anne Frank<\/i> as inspiring in spite of its grim story, because she does, after all, feel that “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”<\/p>\n

But 1984<\/i>, which says that “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever,” and ends with one of the most chilling images I’ve ever read … inspirational? <\/p>\n

Not to me. How about you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a poll run by The Telegraph, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the most inspirational book of all time. Here’s the newspaper’s full list: 1. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee 2. The Bible 3. A Child Called It, Dave Pelzer 4. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, John Gray […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17080"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17082,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions\/17082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}