pretzelcoatl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pretzelcoatl) wrote2009-06-14 09:59 pm
pretzelcoatl) wrote2009-06-14 09:59 pm
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15 Influential Books
I posted this on Facebook too, but there are some variations here compared to those I posted on Facebook, plus some explanations.
Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
1) Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse stated that this was his most understood novel, because people focused more on the main character's suffering and angst, and I'm sure picking this book would give me some ridicule as a result. But I read it the way Hesse intended it, apparently, because it was a book which helped to heal me. While I frequently cite Siddhartha as my most influential book, in actuality it's a tough choice between this one and that one. I read it the summer after the year I went through therapy, in which I started hashing out some of the inner conflicts I was facing and noticed that I had a lot of anger within me, much like the Steppenwolf. While I spent most of the year angsting about, the book helped me realize at that pivotal moment once I wore myself out with my self-pity, that there is humor in the world and that I should lighten up every once and a while.
Explaining this makes it all come out clunky, but believe me, this book (like Siddhartha) changed my world.
2) After Dark, Haruki Murakami
This is still my favorite Murakami novel. The book takes place within one night, and concerns the thinning of the line between reality and dream which occurs during this time period. I'm a sucker for "blurred line between reality and fantasy" stories, unsurprisingly, and I think Murakami really nailed the sensation of what the night does to make people act differently, what secrets it reveals. It's hard to articulate, but if you like adventures, female wrestlers who run love hotels, or cigarettes and novel-reading at Denny's, then you'd like this book.
3) The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
I rented the movie (the one with the animated segments by Chuck Jones :) ) and saw it first before reading the book. I don't care if it's anvilicious with its emphasis on Learning Is Fun, I freakin' love this book. It's fun and it's weird, and it's everything that I wanted as a youngin'.
immelmanturn says that I am Tock. I am inclined to agree.
4) A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
I was torn between mentioning this book, L'Engle's A Wind in the Door, Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising. I went with this one for reasons I'll articulate here:
This book had everything for me. It had sympathetic characters, for one. While I couldn't exactly relate to Meg, nor did I relate to Charles Wallace to the extent I did with The Dark is Rising's Will (though I did), they were different. And yet they were not. They were, well, actual people and yet very bright people at that. God, they (and I can't forget Calvin here) were awesome, awesome characters. Are awesome characters. The book challenged conformity (and giant brains), made that important blurring between reality-and-fantasy that I love, combined Christian belief and the occult, and stirred up something which would never die within me.
5) Lamb, Christopher Moore
This is the saddest hilarious book I have ever read.
6) Matilda, Roald Dahl
My first chapter book, and certainly not the last Roald Dahl book I would read. I loved Dahl's sick sense of humor and his characters, and this is still probably my favorite of his works.
7) If on a winter's night a traveler..., Italo Calvino
I think this is the only book I have read where the majority of it is in second-person. Well, okay, maybe Choose Your Own Adventure books. Anyway, after I loved this book, I realized that I'm a big fan of books which mix up narratives, and that is what this one does and does it wonderfully.
8) My Antonia, Willa Cather
I'll just say that this book actually made pioneer novels, which were previously hella boring to me, seem interesting. There are so many strong female characters in here which reminded me of women in my life; combine that with reverence and respect for nature, and you have a book I enjoyed immensely.
9) The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
It hasn't been that long since I read this book, but it's still probably my favorite nonfiction book. It made me angry. I don't think that IQ measurement is entirely devoid of merit (and neither did Gould), but the lengths to which people justified prejudice was enough to make me rage. A good nonfiction book doesn't have to immediately call me to action, but this one certainly did.
10) Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
I originally had Edith Wharton's Mythology here, but I think that this book is probably more influential. It is my favorite Vonnegut novel, bar none, and also has Important Significance for me.
I read it later than I wanted to. For some reason, I wanted to read Cat's Cradle while in high school but never mustered up enough enthusiasm to actually crack it open. I did so while I was studying in Australia, and it could not have come at a better time. Let me set the scene for you: I went to Australia in the second half of my junior year. I had already declared my Psych major back in my previous year, but I was still uncertain of what I wanted to do with it. Despite how much Hesse helped with my recovery, I still had some issues I was resolving, and I brought these with me to Australia. A new world, an uncertain future, all of that epic stuff.
So where does the book come in? It comes into everything and nothing. It's a silly book, and a deadly serious one. It made me reflect again on how stupid humans can be, and yet made me love them even more. This was a book which came when I was blurring lines, when the past and future were existing side-by-side, when I felt extremely lonely despite being around plenty of people. Through the book, I got a reminder that regardless of what conflict might be occurring, humans will always do horrible things... and yet there will always be some goodness there as well. Breaking down these black and white distinctions between good/evil, nothing/everything, and cynicism/optimism helped me begin to reclaim some power, and helped me get through the rest of my trip, and my senior year.
11) The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Because even though I haven't finished it, I savor every word in it.
12) The Cloud of Unknowing
Did I mention I was going through therapy at one point? Reading a book which talked about searching God through silence and love was really appealing at the time, and synthesized a lot of what I loved from Taoist philosophy into Christian theology.
13) And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
I really should read more mysteries. This one was a great one, and made me realize I quite liked the "people get bumped off one-by-one" formula, much to my horror. (OH SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)
14) The Giver, Lois Lowry
Here, again, it was really nice to have a protagonist who I could relate to. And my god do I love dystopian novels.
15) To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Because even if I can never be Gandalf, it would be really awesome to be Atticus Finch.
Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
1) Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse stated that this was his most understood novel, because people focused more on the main character's suffering and angst, and I'm sure picking this book would give me some ridicule as a result. But I read it the way Hesse intended it, apparently, because it was a book which helped to heal me. While I frequently cite Siddhartha as my most influential book, in actuality it's a tough choice between this one and that one. I read it the summer after the year I went through therapy, in which I started hashing out some of the inner conflicts I was facing and noticed that I had a lot of anger within me, much like the Steppenwolf. While I spent most of the year angsting about, the book helped me realize at that pivotal moment once I wore myself out with my self-pity, that there is humor in the world and that I should lighten up every once and a while.
Explaining this makes it all come out clunky, but believe me, this book (like Siddhartha) changed my world.
2) After Dark, Haruki Murakami
This is still my favorite Murakami novel. The book takes place within one night, and concerns the thinning of the line between reality and dream which occurs during this time period. I'm a sucker for "blurred line between reality and fantasy" stories, unsurprisingly, and I think Murakami really nailed the sensation of what the night does to make people act differently, what secrets it reveals. It's hard to articulate, but if you like adventures, female wrestlers who run love hotels, or cigarettes and novel-reading at Denny's, then you'd like this book.
3) The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
I rented the movie (the one with the animated segments by Chuck Jones :) ) and saw it first before reading the book. I don't care if it's anvilicious with its emphasis on Learning Is Fun, I freakin' love this book. It's fun and it's weird, and it's everything that I wanted as a youngin'.
immelmanturn says that I am Tock. I am inclined to agree.4) A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
I was torn between mentioning this book, L'Engle's A Wind in the Door, Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising. I went with this one for reasons I'll articulate here:
This book had everything for me. It had sympathetic characters, for one. While I couldn't exactly relate to Meg, nor did I relate to Charles Wallace to the extent I did with The Dark is Rising's Will (though I did), they were different. And yet they were not. They were, well, actual people and yet very bright people at that. God, they (and I can't forget Calvin here) were awesome, awesome characters. Are awesome characters. The book challenged conformity (and giant brains), made that important blurring between reality-and-fantasy that I love, combined Christian belief and the occult, and stirred up something which would never die within me.
5) Lamb, Christopher Moore
This is the saddest hilarious book I have ever read.
6) Matilda, Roald Dahl
My first chapter book, and certainly not the last Roald Dahl book I would read. I loved Dahl's sick sense of humor and his characters, and this is still probably my favorite of his works.
7) If on a winter's night a traveler..., Italo Calvino
I think this is the only book I have read where the majority of it is in second-person. Well, okay, maybe Choose Your Own Adventure books. Anyway, after I loved this book, I realized that I'm a big fan of books which mix up narratives, and that is what this one does and does it wonderfully.
8) My Antonia, Willa Cather
I'll just say that this book actually made pioneer novels, which were previously hella boring to me, seem interesting. There are so many strong female characters in here which reminded me of women in my life; combine that with reverence and respect for nature, and you have a book I enjoyed immensely.
9) The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
It hasn't been that long since I read this book, but it's still probably my favorite nonfiction book. It made me angry. I don't think that IQ measurement is entirely devoid of merit (and neither did Gould), but the lengths to which people justified prejudice was enough to make me rage. A good nonfiction book doesn't have to immediately call me to action, but this one certainly did.
10) Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
I originally had Edith Wharton's Mythology here, but I think that this book is probably more influential. It is my favorite Vonnegut novel, bar none, and also has Important Significance for me.
I read it later than I wanted to. For some reason, I wanted to read Cat's Cradle while in high school but never mustered up enough enthusiasm to actually crack it open. I did so while I was studying in Australia, and it could not have come at a better time. Let me set the scene for you: I went to Australia in the second half of my junior year. I had already declared my Psych major back in my previous year, but I was still uncertain of what I wanted to do with it. Despite how much Hesse helped with my recovery, I still had some issues I was resolving, and I brought these with me to Australia. A new world, an uncertain future, all of that epic stuff.
So where does the book come in? It comes into everything and nothing. It's a silly book, and a deadly serious one. It made me reflect again on how stupid humans can be, and yet made me love them even more. This was a book which came when I was blurring lines, when the past and future were existing side-by-side, when I felt extremely lonely despite being around plenty of people. Through the book, I got a reminder that regardless of what conflict might be occurring, humans will always do horrible things... and yet there will always be some goodness there as well. Breaking down these black and white distinctions between good/evil, nothing/everything, and cynicism/optimism helped me begin to reclaim some power, and helped me get through the rest of my trip, and my senior year.
11) The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Because even though I haven't finished it, I savor every word in it.
12) The Cloud of Unknowing
Did I mention I was going through therapy at one point? Reading a book which talked about searching God through silence and love was really appealing at the time, and synthesized a lot of what I loved from Taoist philosophy into Christian theology.
13) And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
I really should read more mysteries. This one was a great one, and made me realize I quite liked the "people get bumped off one-by-one" formula, much to my horror. (OH SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)
14) The Giver, Lois Lowry
Here, again, it was really nice to have a protagonist who I could relate to. And my god do I love dystopian novels.
15) To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Because even if I can never be Gandalf, it would be really awesome to be Atticus Finch.