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Books that made me who I am
I've always had trouble picking a favorite movie, but I've never had trouble pinpointing which books are my favorites, and that's because there's a simple test: If I truly love a book, I re-read it. Many times. In fact, I often re-read them every couple of years, or sometimes I'll even re-read favorite passages from them. (Yes, I was the girl in the corner in the library. Every weekend.) Given the amazing response to thelinster's post What book got you hooked? last summer, I'm guessing that many of you might be just as bookish as I am. So I thought I'd share a few of the books that made deep, lifelong impressions on me. They shaped me as a human being and as a writer, and every time I read one of them, I feel like I've come home. A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time is more famous, but A Ring of Endless Light will always win out for me. It's the third book in a series about Vicky Austin, a girl who writes. She's 15 years in old in this one, and spending the summer with her grandfather, who is dying of leukemia. Sounds depressing, doesn't it? Well, the book is a lyrical exploration of faith (in God and other things), mortality and love. Plus, Vicky goes swimming with dolphins, thereby launching my brief but intense desire to become a marine biologist. Number of times re-read: at least five. The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley McKinley has become quite well-known for her retellings of fairy tales (and they've influenced me a lot as a writer), but my favorite book of hers is this somewhat dramatic adventure about Harry Crewe (she's about 18, I think) who is essentially kidnapped by a desert chieftain, given a magical sword, fights evil and saves the world. Along the way she rides a lot of amazingly beautiful horses (thereby launching my continuing desire to, um, learn how to ride horses) and has visions. Yes, it's romantic, and yes, it rocks. Number of times re-read: on average, every three years. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Obviously, I loved Jo March; when she left home to pursue her dream of being a writer in Big Bad New York City, I listened, and did the same later on in my real life. But my favorite passages of Little Women involve little sister Amy in Europe. I remember vividly the scene where she's sitting in that garden after hearing the news that Beth had died, and Laurie comes over to comfort her. My girlish heart leapt at that moment, and I have to say, I think I started searching for a female version of Laurie (at least subconsciously) beginning right then. Number of times re-read: countless. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen I first read this in my high school English class when I was 14, and every time I re-read it, I find something new. Austen's wit is just incredible, and I can only sit there in slack-jawed admiration at the way she structured this classic love story. Sure, I loved the Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth version (I felt a bit meh about the Keira Knightley one), but there's no comparison to Miss Austen's original. Number of times re-read: at least five.
This isn't a book I read as a child, but it is actually one of the few books I've read and re-read as an adult. It's about lesbian private eye/ass-kicker extraordinaire Aud Torvingen and the way she deals with the grief of losing her lover. Yes, it starts out in a dark place, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and following Aud on that twisting journey is what makes this book so memorable. My favorite scene is quite a simple one: It involves Aud building a chair. Griffith's descriptions of the wood peeling off as Aud planes the arms of the chair put me there, viscerally, and I felt it. Number of times re-read: three. So there you have some of my classics. What are yours? Which books helped make you the person you are today? Submitted by on March 7, 2008 - 4:32pm. |
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I've been thinking about books lately. I guess it's 
Stay by Nicola Griffith
Love, love, love this post.
What first caught my eye about this post was the Fragonard painting on top. It's one of my favorites.
As Marina on The L Word would put it, the following are my most 'life changing' books, for better or worse:
1. "We the Living", Ayn Rand.
2. "The Waves", Virginia Woolf.
3. "The Picture of Dorian Gray", Wilde
4. "The Awakening", Chopin
I always tell my gfs, 'if you want to know who I am, and why, just read these books'. Alas, they're never interested, which is why I'm currently single, lol.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray"
That's one of mine. Also:
The Bell Jar - Virginia Woolf
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Stranger - Albert Camus
and my favorite book of all time:
Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
I've related to every single one of the lead characters in these books, and they have all inspired me. Without them, I highly doubt I would be the person I am today.
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"Less Than Zero"
I haven't read "The Stranger," but the rest of those books are my tops. It's so exciting to see "Less Than Zero" on someone elses list!
Plays aren't novels, but I really love "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "A Raisin in the Sun" as well.
correction..
Ugh, I meant Sylvia Plath, not Virgina Woolf. And YES! for somebody else loving "Less Than Zero!" That book is so amazing, and Bret Easton Ellis is one of my favorite authors because of it.
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Haven't read "We the
Virginia Woolf was a
Virginia Woolf was a goddess. I have pictures of her all over my room, especially on my bookshelf, which my friends call 'the altar', because it's covered in pictures of Virginia and Vita Sackville-West.
'The Waves' completely changed my emotional perspective on the world, as ridiculous as it sounds. And 'Orlando' just made me smile, she was so vulnerable in writing it that I blushed reading every page, :).
I'm going to stop before this gets too embarrassing, but suffice it to say, you're not the only one who feels the 'love that dare not speak its name', lol.
Wait, seriously? You sound
Wait, seriously? You sound a lot like me. My Woolf shrine sounds oddly similar. ::blushes:: Reading Woolf profoundly changed my capacities as a reader, and those experiences are totally a large part of the reason I'm in grad school now (so I can't help but be grateful).
[Insert rantings about "The Waves" here]. I'd love to hear you expand your thoughts on "The Waves," actually. It's one of the most challenging (and rewarding) texts I've ever read (and maybe the only one published in the 20th-century, as the other ones tend to be Renaissance-y, like "Paradise Lost" and "The Faerie Queene"). Anyway. Totally changed me as a reader and as a human being.
"Orlando" is my closet favorite -- how can you not love a book where gender-bending protagonists drop toads down the shirts of cross-dressed noblemen? (Also, Woolf's conscious meditation on producing writing, and women's writing particularly? Funny as hell!)
Yeah, I'll stop here, too. :) Have you seen "Portrait of A Marriage" (about Vita's relationship with Violet Trefusis)? Or read any of Vita's books? God, I'm starting to obsess. Stopping now!
Yes, I've seen 'Portrait of
Yes, I've seen 'Portrait of a Marriage', in fact I own a copy! And I am absolutely obsessed with Vita-Sackville West. OBSESSED, lol. I actually collect the first editions of everything she published. Especially those works that were published in the Hogarth Press (always chasing the Woolf connection, lol). Vita's 'Collected Poems, Vol. I' is divine, especially 'Early Love', one of my favorite poems. 'All Passion Spent' was also exquisite, and I now own two genuine first editions of it from the Hogarth Press. See, I'm a total Virginia/Vita freak, :).
It took me years to fully appreciate 'The Waves'. It is my favorite book, and truly an intellectual minefield. My favorite quote is from Louis: "I cried with fury - to be remembered with pity". BRILLIANT! And I completely relate to what you said, because the book also changed and challenged me as a human being.
"Paradise Lost" - my God! Also one of my favorites! I took a Milton course in college and was enraged because the professor kept ridiculing Milton, I walked out of class a few times because of it.
But I'm going to stop before people start throwing tomatoes at us, :)
To choose...
Is pretty hard, but I really love John Fowles' "The Collector", as well "The French Liutenants Woman"...
Books that i really treasure, though, are often of a fairytale genre, like Francesca Lia Block's "The Rose and the Beast" which almost softens the hard reality of real life issues, it says to me life isn't always a fairytale but lets me cling on to the hope it could be.
Finally, "The Girl in the Swing" by Richard Adams is a pretty amazing book. It had me thinking for days... And Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber".
In my mind, a book that makes you think is a book that changes you.
I totally agree with the
I totally agree with the part about Pride&Prejudice (well, except about the film part, I have a silly crush on Keira Knightley). Every time I read it, I feel like it's a whole new story I forgot all about.
My "books-that-made-me" are mostly young adult's books (I'm only 18 after all). First (and only, I don't have anything else in mind for now) : Harry Potter. I first read it when I was 10, and I devoured it, it was nearly a frenesy. All the people that counts for me, I met them thanks to this book. I started to get interested by the internet thanks to this book, which is now a big part of my life. Without HP, I wouldn't be the person I am now.
Endless Right
Great post topic!
This is a difficult list to compose, given my many choices. All for different reasons and all at various significant moments in my journey so far.
The Awakening
The Yellow Wallpaper
Mrs. Dalloway
Nightwood
Jazz
The Divine Comedia
Hope Leslie
Crime & Punishment
All the President's Men
Postcards from the Edge
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Patient: There's like this longing ... this pull. I mean, does that make me, you know, like, some kind of...?
Maeby: Homosexual.
Tobias: Maeby, please. She's right, though, you probably are a homosexual.So many...
I'm a big re-reader, but I'll do my best to narrow it down to a few:
Lizard Music (Daniel Pinkwater): this novel about an oddball boy who loves Walter Cronkite and, with an old man and a chicken, visits an island populated with human-sized talking lizards, was my introduction to Daniel Pinkwater's writing. And now I've been reading his irreverent, silly, intelligent satire for more than 25 years. I've always aspired to be able to write on multiple levels the way he does. Thank you librarian, Phyllis Judman for introducing me to Pinkwater!
Hang For Treason (Robert Newton Peck): I read a lot of historical fiction as a kid and was always particularly pulled to stories of colonial America and the American revolution. This compelling story of a teenager who joined Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys was the best I read and I kept going back to it.
Happy Endings are All Alike and Trying Hard to Hear You (Sandra Scoppetone): I originally read Sandra Scoppetone's lesbian and gay YA novels when I was pretty young -- and they stuck with me. I've read them many, many times since.
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen): I don't need to add to what Malinda wrote. Possibly the best book ever written. I reread it all the time.
Valley of the Dolls(Jacqueline Susann): Possibly the best trash novel ever written. Oh my, I love this book.
Red Sky at Morning (Richard Bradford): Richard Bradford only wrote the one good novel (I think there was a second mediocre one I've never found.) It's about a southern mother and son who move to a small New Mexico town to ride out World War II. Very funny, poignant, and well-written. I pick it up when I need a lift.
Marjorie Morningstar (Herman Wouk): My mother told me to read this when I asked her about the first time she ate Chinese food. (The instruction to read it makes sense if you've read the book.) I reread it every couple of years. In fact, I just reread it two weekends ago!
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee): Maybe the second best book ever written. It probably had a little something to do with why I went to law school.
mrs dalloway said she would buy the flowers i said
gotta love that line!
Ditto to Crime and Punishment,,.
Other major books that stayed with me...
Clockwork Orange
Anything by Jane Austen....Vilette by Bronte (Charlotte).
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Midnights Children - Rushdie
Gonna stop now!
tamora pierce
i have recently started reading the young adult fantasy author Tamora Pierce and she is amazing. she has some of the best female heroines i have read in a long time! in addition she does an amazing job of bring social and political issues into her novels. her treatment of lesbian relationships is casual, she never makes a big deal out of them at all, in fact, she treats them like every other relationship...
she has written a bunch of books, i would recommend starting with Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen. they are not the chronological beginning, but they really give you a taste for Pierce's work. enjoy!
Tamora Pierce!
I would have to say..
I would have to say..
The most influential ...
1) Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery (obvious, but there it is)
2) The Idylls of the King, Tennyson (which is a work of epic poetry, but I count it)
3) Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen
4) The Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving
5) The Mists of Avalon, MZ Bradley (all 890 pages)
6) Misty of Chincoteague, Margueritte Henry
7) The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
8) Orlando, Virginia Woolf
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
It's always our self we find in the sea
What a fabulous post ;)
I grew up with my nose in a book, constantly. So much so that my parents took to calling me "worm," short for "bookworm," instead of my actual name until i was about 12, when I insisted they stop embarrassing me with the name in front of the "cool friends" I was bringing over to hang out. (I remember my mom suggesting I simply explain to them that it's short for bookworm and has nothing to do with an actual worm. I told her the fact that it meant bookworm was more mortifying than letting them think it had anything to with a real worm. *sigh*) The books that have made me who I am are books I've read repeatedly, and mostly books that have left such an impression on me they've changed my entire worldview...They're in the order in which I read them for the first time, starting with the earliest (read the first in 5th grade and the last in 12th grade):
1-To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
2-Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen
3-The House on Mango Street-Sandra Cisneros
4-Their Eyes Were Watching God-Zora Neale Hurston
5-The God of Small Things-Arundhati Roy6-To the Lighthouse-Virginia Woolf *all time favorite book. absolutely transcendant*
7-Between the Acts-Virginia Woolf
8-Reading Lolita in Tehran-Azar Nafisi
too many books..
so little time. I tend to re-read books every year or so if they're important to me. Of course that means that whenever I move, I'm hauling alot of heavy boxes with me. These are some of the titles I've hauled around from place to place.
Horton Hears a Who
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
The Eyre Affair
Lions of Al Rassan
Monkey Beach
The Way the Crow Flies
Middlesex
Handmaid's Tale
The Harry Potter Books
Ender's Game
Did anyone else read this in high school and totally relate to the kids? I was always in the special smart kid classes, which can be a big burden (not as big of a burden as training to save the world one day from buggers but still), so i related to this book sooo well. I ended up reading the entire series more than a few times.. and i'll still read ender's game again every couple of months or so.
Also, while waiting for the Girl, Interrupted movie to come out, I read the book. And as a depressed teenager, it totally affected me.
Ender's Game kicked ass! ..
I was in seventh grade when I first read Ender's Game
kinda opened up my love for Orson Scott Card's books. Now, he's not the most lovable guy (Mormon and anti-gay), but his books are just fabulous. I love The Worthing Saga and the Homecoming series a lot. My favorite book of the Ender series, besides Ender's Game itself, is Xenocide. It's absolutely engrossing as well as torturous in a beautiful way.
I really need to give most of his series re-reads. And Girl, Interrupted was a very moving book. Hard to read at times, but good.
As for books that I re-read? I don't know if I really do that anymore.
It's weird, but I guess the book I'm most proud of reading is As I Lay Dying (11th Grade), because it kicked my ass. I definitely have a love hate relationship with it, and I haven't read it since. But maybe I should...
Great post, Malinda!
I always get crap for this...
...but my favourite novel is 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand (no, I'm not an objectivist nor a capitalist). I generally find most people who write off Ayn Rand for her political views have never even read her- she writes in a way that totally engrosses you in her stories, her character development is rich and detailed, and I've read no one else that can capture the spirit of repression like her (with the exception of some of the classics like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre).
Even if I love a book, I can't bring myself to re-read it. One reason is, the experience of reading an awesome book is so blissful and I would hate to tarnish it in any way by perhaps not enjoying it as much on subsequent readings due to knowing what happens etc. The main reason though, is that there are so many books that I want to read, and life is so short, that I don't want to miss the opportunity of reading something new and enriching that may become as loved to me as what I might want to re-read.
Favourite books that appealed to me when I was younger were 'The Silver Sword' by Ian Serraillier and the Judy Blume books. When I was an adolescent I was engrossed in The Thomas Covenant Chronicles by Stephen Donaldson (and later, The Gap series), though I am uncomfortable with what I feel to be his misogynist and exploitative treatment of female characters. I also adored Anne Rice and Poppy Z Brite.
My favourite lesbian novels would be 'The Well of Loneliness', The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, 'Fair Play' by Tove Jansson, 'Torchlight to Valhalla' by Gail Wilhelm, 'Art and Lies' and 'Written on the Body' by Jeanette Winterson, and anything by Sarah Waters.
My most loved graphic novels are The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, The Lucifer series by Mike Carey, 'Fun Home' by Alison Bechdel, the Persepolis books by Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Hothead Paisan by Dianne DiMassa, and of course Buffy Season 8 by Joss Whedon et al.
My favourite non-fiction at the moment would be 'Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity' by Julia Serano. Other notables are 'The Beauty Myth' by Naomi Wolf, 'Female Chauvinist Pigs' by Ariel Levy and 'Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde.
I know I'm going to be thinking all day
of ones I missed, but 'To the Lighthouse' by Virgina Woolf was very influential, and later, Orlando.
Out of the Anne Rice books, 'Violin' was my favourite- I cried after I'd finished that one, I was so overwhelmed (that happened after I finished the Thomas Covenant Chronicles too...).
Ayn Rand
Love her too
I have to admit though, that I've had "Atlas Shrugged" on my bookshelf for ages and ages, and just haven't gotten around to reading it. See I'm one of those who save the best candy for last, and since "The Fountainhead" almost blew my head apart, I'm guessing AS is candy I want to savour. "We the Living" seems like a very immature work compared to those that followed, but gotta love it just because the somewhat autobiographical character of Kira Argounova shares my first name. And that's rare. Not Keira, not Kyra, not Shakira, Kira. Rock on.
She is a difficult person to grasp, I mean what I've read about her, I just can't like her. But the hero-worshiping world she creates in her books, it's a fascinating, absorbing and inspiring one.
Will definitely be interesting to see how Atlas Shrugged the movie will turn out (if it ever gets made), with Angelina playing Dagny.
Sorry for posting for the
Sorry for posting for the billionth time, but I just felt that I had to defend 'We the Living', :)
I agree that it's very different from 'Atlas Shrugged' and 'The Fountainhead'. But that's precisely why it's my favorite! While AS and TF are much too polished and very self-conscious works, 'We the Living' is absolutely raw. My theory is that since this was the first major novel she wrote everything that had up to that point been brimming inside her, especially after the Revolution, had to be released on the page, she had no choice. That is why WTL is so euphoric. The protagonist, Kira, speaks to the reader with such anxiety, such a desire to make the reader feel what she feels and experience what she has experienced. Again, that is why 'We the Living' is by far my favorite. I don't see Rand's eagerness to get her message across as 'immature', but merely that Rand was so frightened that what she had experienced in the Soviet Union would soon overtake the rest of the world, that she sacrificed stylistic finesse in favor of passion. While reading 'We the Living' I always feel as if she's grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me while screaming, "Don't you see??!!!", while with AS and TF I feel she's too emotionally distant for me to truly relate to the characters.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, :)
Oh, Ayn...
I know what you mean. I have Atlas Shrugged on my shelf and every site that I've seen has said how its her masterpiece, but I still haven't read it. The size is daunting, I think, especially when I have so much more to read.
But the Fountainhead was brilliant. I did a paper on her and had to read three of her books. We the Living seems so immature compared to Fountainhead and Dominique is just... so complex.
But I still like Anthem better. XD Short, sweet, and brilliant.
I have to agree
Poppy is wonderful! The Lazarus Heart, Exquisite Corpse ad Drawing Blood
are soem fo the best novels I've ever read, Drawing Blood's style just threw me, it was the first I read by her. Anne was long one of my very favorite authors nad still is bit her latest work has thrown me since i am not religious. Her son is also very good Christopher's got an interesting style all his own.
And Mr Gaiman was a wonderful find for me while combing the comic book shop with my brothers as a teen, the Sandman is very good as are his regualr novels actually.
Great taste
I just wanted to say you have great taste...I've read and enjoyed most of the books you list.
As I mention elsewhere, I adored Brite and Rice when I was younger. I also totally heart Gaiman, he rocks.
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-Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
Who doesn't blog these days?
i adore...
I adore the blue sword!!! That was the very first fantasy book i've ever read and i've been addicted since. Speaking of Madeline, do you remember the name of the third book in the wrinkle of time series? It is the book about the IT and its kinda of 1984-ish. I remember loving that book and I really want to read it again.
swiftly tilting planet, i
swiftly tilting planet, i believe.
i too adore the blue sword, and hero and the crown. they're wonderful books.
hm..
Most life-changing book of all time would have to be East of Eden. Hands down. My copy is paperback and both the covers are industrial-taped back on because it's so worn out.
Then I'd go with Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst... and then Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
And anything by Madeleine L'engle!
I suppose Harry Potter should get some kind of mention since I'm part of that generation that really embraced it... and I'm not gonna lie, if I had brought those books with me to college I'd be rereading them over and over.
omg, inbd
Yay for mentionning Harry
Yay for mentionning Harry Potter :) It's the sort of book you can read many many times without getting tired of it.
And H2G2 is a really great book, Douglas Adams is a master
H2G2 ftw
Books that showed me who I am
Great choices, Malinda!
I actually have a copy of Nicola Griffith’s Stay in my to-read pile, and it has been there for months. I guess I should put it on top of the pile...
Some books that
madeshowed me who I am:I read these books at least 10 times during my teens...
The Salt Point-Paul Russell: It's about three friends in their mid twenties who go through their lives drinking, doing drugs, and having very messed up love lives, including all falling for the same 18-year-old boy. I first read it at 14-it was intriguing, but I did not know what I was reading. I had never even heard of bisexuality before. At 17 I reread it after having searched the entire library for it, and it made a lot more sense.
Lost Souls-Poppy Z. Brite: 15-year-old-boy who doesn't fit in and feels he is different from all his classmates, leaves home and finds out he is a vampire. Trust me, the book is 10 times better than that summary sounds. I liked vampires as a teenager, but it was all about the "feeling different and wondering where you fit in" thing.
The Witching Hour-Anne Rice: It's about the history of this great family of witches. I went through a vampire, werewolves and witches phase, but what makes this book so great is the characters. They are simply wonderful. I read it so often, the cover came lose.
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-Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
Who doesn't blog these days?
I went through a vampire, werewolves and witches phase.
Oh, so did I! I loved how Anne Rice fleshed out the characters too...so I went through an Anne Rice phase and decided to read everything she wrote.
I wasn't thrilled at all with the erotica she wrote and so never finished any of it. lol
But outside of the vampire, witches and ghost books...I really loved her book "Cry to Heaven" about the castrati.
Anne Rice
I have also read everything Anne Rice ever wrote.
Even though I loved all of her books (yes, even the erotica and all 20 vampire novels), these days they do not appeal to me as much as they did ten years ago.
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-Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
Who doesn't blog these days?
Same here.
I think it was a phase I was going through. I identified strongly with the characters in her books back then...but once I became clear as to who I am...and my voice...and my relationship with myself...I no longer felt connected to the her work.
And I have not read them again since.
Love her books!
anne rice has a very interesting style of writing, read them all... and loved them.
the last vampire chronicles books are specially good, i think.
but i have to agree, they were better when i was a little younger.
i reread one recently and it wasnt so thrilling aymore. and its not because of rereading it, i reread some of them before.
so i stop that, hoping to keep them as fabulous in mind as i thought them then!
:-)
So Many to Choose From:
This is going to make me sound like a big dork, but some of the first books I remember reading and devouring are the Baby Sitters Club books by Ann M Martin.
After that my grandma turned me on to the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffery, and I was hooked.
Nowdays, I'll read almost anything, but my favorite author at the moment is Anne Bishop and her Dark Jewels series (it must be an Ann thing....)
All of those books made me embrace my inner geek, and love for Sci Fi.
favorite books
Wow..how funny that so many books are repeated over and over as so influential. I too loved To Kill a Mockingbird..and that's why I am a lawyer.
On the Road
Catcher in the Rye
Rubyfruit Jungle..made it ok to be gay for me..and I went to the school she called the "armpit of florida" =)
Beloved
Bluest Eye
The Color Purple
These are just a few...
This is so easy
Tiger Eyes
Judy Blume
Girl, Interrupted
Susanna Kaysen
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracey Chevalier
I love chick books!
just one
Only one Book has hit me so hard.
Alyssa Brugman- Walking Naked.
My school librarian handed me this book and it forever changed my life. If I wasn't in a dark place or the age I was the book might not of had the same effect on me. But 4 years on I can still pick up the book and be as engaged in it now as I was the first time.
Mine is
Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
This was her SECOND story, believe it or not. Her first story was short, called 'Lost Laysen", which Mitchell wrote at 16.
I found out through my elder relatives that she is a distant cousin of mine. Maybe that's why I love to write so much.
Herman Hesse
with "Demian"...
Amazing author and relevant in so many aspects of life even though it was written in 1925!
Then I agree with so many others here: Go Harry Potter and Jane Austen with Pride and Prejudice!!
The Four Winds (by Gerd Brantenberg, reviewed here at AfterEllen) is also incredibly funny, and I think every women who is queer or slightly different would identidy with the main character!
Ancient readings
Ok, I will have to step up with some really OOOLLLLLDDDD books that really contributed to me. I have always been an avid reader so have read so much I am not sure I can even account for all that I have read.
As a child, The Bobbsy Twins, Hardy Boys and my fave, Nancy Drew kept me rapt. I longed to hang out with these adventurous ones. Perhaps leading me to a lifelong joy of 'Exploring'.
I remember going to the library in grammar school and cherishing all the volumes there. One standout was a little book called 'Juan of Paracutin' about a child who grew up where a volcano grew out of a cornfield in Mexico. It's a true story and it had such an impact on me and really contributed to my love of all things geological. I recently found a copy of that book and proudly have it in my bookcase.
Little Women was a great factor in my literary adventures and the sisters March had me longing for siblings. (I was an only child)
I think one of the all time great books I have read was 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. To this day I can picture Atticus and Scout and Jem, and that sultry town with its difficult times.
The Madeline L'Engle series was one I came to in my 20's but made no less an impression in it's quest for tesseracts and the power of Love. Malinda you brought a new one to my attention so I will be getting it soon.
'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran was one of the books that brought an interesting philosophy to my life. Richard Bach's books have touched me greatly, my favorite being 'Illusions'. I have found these both to be helpful in my search for myself and my place in the Universe.
Recently I have read a stirring historical novel called 'Pompeii" by Robert Harris. This book really brought me to the life of ancient Romans and it is wonderfully written and rich in description. It's made me delve further into that period and how our ancestors lived.
I think all books contribute to us in different ways, whether they are great literary works or just books for fun. How can I leave out Harry Potter, Patricia Cornwell, Stephen King, Clive Cussler and James Patterson?
Thank heaven there are new books to find every day!!!
Fav Books
My first books I would read over and over were
The Nancy Drew Series- Mildred Benson AND The Hobbit Series- J.R.R. Tolkien
The Talented Mr. Ripley- Patricia Highsmith
Hamlet- William Shakespeare
To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee
The Haunting Of Hill House- Shirley Jackson
Out Of Africa- Isak Dinesen
Fried Green Tomatoes- Fanny Flagg
The Stand- Stephen King
The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain
Lord Of The Flies- William Golding