Think about
who you are.
You had to
get here somehow.
What were the books
that sent you
along the way?
Mine were (in no specific order):
1) The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
2) Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
3) The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
4) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
5) A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag by Gordon Korman
6) Cult Movies 1-3 by Danny Peary
7) Bring On the Empty Horses by David Niven
8) The Liar by Stephen Fry
9) Video Trash & Treasures by L.A. Morse
10) Men, Women & Chainsaws by Carol J. Clover
11) London Fields by Martin Amis
12) The Jeeves & Wooster Omnibus 1-4 by P.G. Wodehouse
13) Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
14) Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
15) Bad Movies We Love by Stephen Rebello & Edward Marguiles
Starship Troopers. Heinlein
This Kind of War. Auto-correct thinks the author’s name is Greenbacks, the idiots.
Speaking of auto-correct, there’s another named after the tracks of the wolf from the northern forests. And it’s not Timberlake, whatever that is. By Hoegh and Doyle.
The Bible
Ooh! The secret garden – good book. Definitely had an impact one me as a young girl.
1. Unbearable lightness of being.
Thinking of reading more Kundera.
2. Let the great world spin.
3. The rest of my reading has blended together. Nothing else strikes me as significant
I don’t know if I have a top 10 but one of most influential books I’ve read is How Shall I Live My Life?: On Liberating the Earth from Civilization by Derrick Jensen
Emmet, I salute your choice of “Shibumi,” as I’ve only met like 1 other person who’s read that book.
My list, in no particular order:
1. Watership Down
2. The Secret Garden
3. A Little Princess
4. Lolita
5. The Martian Chronicles
6. The Secret of the Unicorn
7. Spock’s World
8. Children of the Dust
9. Brother in the Land
10. The Hobbit
Now, you know someone else who read and loved Shibumi.
The following either reinforced my desire to be a writer, they taught me something about writing, or they made me strive to be a better writer: 1) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke) 2) Rendezvous in Black (Cornell Woolrich) 3) Green Eyes (Lucius Shepard) 4) The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) 5) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers) 6) An American Tragedy (Theodore Dreiser) 7) Down There (David Goodis) 8) The Stars my Destination (Alfred Bester) 9) Get Shorty (or pretty much anything else by Elmore Leonard. He taught me a lot about writing dialogue) 10)… Read more »
My top 10:
1. The Secret Garden
2. A Wrinkle in Time
3. The Color Purple
4. Cat’s Eye (Margaret Atwood)
5. The Robber Bride (Margaret Atwood)
6. The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
7. Pirate Jenny (April Bernard)
8. All the creepy Lois Duncan YA books from the 80s
9. All the creepy VC Andrews books from the 80s
10. Deenie by Judy Blume
This one is going around on FB, so I had mine ready. Books that influenced me include:
1. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
2. Roots by Alex Haley
3. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
5. A Rose in Winter by Kathleen Woodiwiss
6. A Quiet Odyssey by Mary Paik Lee
7. Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen
8. The Bible
9. Walking with the Wind by John Lewis
10. Sweeter the Juice by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip
Here are my 10.
1. Beloved
2. Poisonwood Bible*
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God
4. Jane Eyre
5. Lolita
6. The Bean Trees
7. The Awakening
8. Oral History
9. Still Life With Woodpecker
10. Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret
Wuthering Heights.
Shibumi, by Trevanian