What I found life changing about the Hyperion Cantos, you mean? Well... the story line itself. I didn't identify a lot with specific characters; there was a process much larger than all their little lives unfolding, that they were caught up in.

Fundamentally it works just like any fiction: it starts by capturing your imagination, perhaps moving into your mind and emotions. If it's really good, it can touch even deeper than that.

Hyperion did that to me. And I don't know the mechanism. After reading it, my world was just bigger. Tremendously so. And I mean the real life world, not just the world of imagination and emotion we all go in to when reading great fiction. [ed: nonfiction too.] Something about it forever changed how I move through the world, how I treat myself and others, even my goals for this lifetime. Call it inspiration.

It's the same with all the other books on my list. That's why I put them there.