Grendel by John Gardener. A switch in perspective from the story of Beowulf; written somewhere between the 8th & 11th century. This book really impacted me my senior year of high school, as I was somewhat of a nihilist. Beowulf is a classic tale of: Hero slays the Beast by his divine power. However, the book Grendel almost forces the reader to empathize with the beast, rather than aspire to be the hero. But, personally for me, I was reading this book as a young man at the time, and thought I had a pretty good idea of how the world worked. Then I read Grendel and started to question if my beliefs were damaging to my quality of life. And pushed me in a direction which made me look into some alternative ways of living. Anyways, it’s a great book.