For me, it was a book called ‘The Outsiders’ by S.E Hinton. It is known as a literary classic these days, but it was quite hard hitting when it was released back in the 1960s.
In a nut shell; It is about a group of semi-impoverished greaser friends growing up in 1960s Tulsa, Oklahoma, and all the life challenges they face, and how they react to prejudice against them whilst coping with family issues.
It was the first book that made me realise that some people in society don’t get it easy growing up, and I discovered what it meant to live on the ‘wrong side of town’ and what societal prejudice was. The outsiders was the first novel I read that brought up hard subjects like; domestic violence, alcoholism, street gang violence etc.
It was the first book to shatter my naive way of thinking about the world, at 13 years old! It is still one of my favourite stories to this day, and for all its slightly dark themes, I love the compassionate friendship and brotherhood that is displayed in this book!
It’s a look at the obvious stand-in for the US, Unistat, and what would happen on three different time lines if there had been slightly different changes in ideology. One of the time lines turned the country into basically a Liberal Dream, and in it, he gives examples of why things have worked, the main one I remember being Universal Basic Income. I remember reading about it and loving the idea. Fast forward twenty-five years, and I’m reading articles talking about UBI being tried in Finland and the great success it’s having in creating a happier and more successful population, as well as universal basic housing. I was amazed at how he had been borderline pessimistic when saying how well it would work.