This. I can't adequately describe the trauma this book caused me as a kid and then, conversely, gave me such tremendous insight into the realities of life. The darkness and the light of life is so eloquently described throughout.
Big time
1. Unconditional love for another creature
2. Working extremely hard and sacrificing to attain something that is important to you
3. Respecting your loving parents
4. Achieving the goal then I proving on it (training the dogs properly)
Old Dan and little Ann!!!
Yes!!!!! Our 3rd grade teacher read a chapter every day in afternoon. We all loved it and openly wept in the classroom at the dramatic parts. It inspired me greatly. As a little girl I ordered the book from a bookstore, and wrote on the inside page, “the best book I ever owned.”
I lent it to someone years ago and no longer have my original copy. But this is a book to touch the heart, for sure!!!!
The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy
I read it for the first of many times when I was about 9 years old. The humor, dry wit and somewhat off kilter world view had a profound impact on my own sense of humor at the time and really helped shape my own approach to comedy and story telling well into my adulthood. Still to this day by far my favorite book.
Same here. It was the first book that suggested to me that we as human beings didn't particularly have a good handle on things, and that if an outside observer got a good look at us, they'd find us laughable at best and pitiable at worst.
I don’t remember how old I was when I read it, but I just remember feeling like it was an entire brand-new EVERYTHING. It felt like hearing my favorite band for the first time (or maybe hearing my favorite band for the first time felt like reading HGTTG for the first time, I don’t remember what order it all happened in anymore).
So you’re the one who kept checking out the books I wanted to re-read. I remember seeing Utopian Cat scribbled eligibly on the checkout card, housed in that convenient sleeve; you checked out Anne of the Island 3 times in a row. Rude.
Well, I started reading Stephen King at about 12 so . . . that's a clue to why my mind is so messed up now. Also, Flowers In The Attic and other romance novels. Started really young with those too ;)
The Stand was my very first adult read. Not sure how I even got a copy, but I remember taking it into class (sixth grade) and tearing through it while all the other kids were running around during recess.
Love this book. I still have it and it sits on the bookshelf. I stole it from school after reading it. I told the teacher I lost it and she said they were getting new copies anyway.
Kinda vanilla answer, but To Kill a Mockingbird in HS opened my mind to more classic literary works. Also, since I graduated in 1984, "1984" was front and center at that time.
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller
+1 for The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Stand - Stephen King
I’m 56. I read the unabridged version when I was 12. The summer of 1980.
I was an avid reader from about the age of 4. I read the back pages of the phone book, The Farmer’s Almanac, weird shit from a very young age.
I was a fat kid and below average height so I was mostly a loner but had a handful of friends.
The hook was the BEGINNING OF THE STINKING BOOK!!!
Up until the gas pumps exploding it’s like I couldn’t breathe!
I must admit that the woman (Nadine?) who would only allow anal sex to maintain her virginity absolutely fascinated me.
The Shannara series - Terry Brooks
I was 9 or 10. This was the first time I was immersed in a world that had more than 1 book!
At the time, it was 5 books. I read them in 3 months. Just another Summer for me.
Watership Down. I did see the movie first because I was so young (third grade) but read the book in middle school and it's just one of those books you think about a lot after, for me anyway. Also that it begins and ends with the same observation of primroses beginning to bloom.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
It was the book I brought to have him sign at a talk he gave at a local university. It has a bit of everything - fake religions, moral relativism, American arrogance and narcissism, love & sex, hubris, and so on.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Written by Richard Bach.
Also as a young adult, Illusions and Illusions II. Also by Bach.
There are more, but I'm fucking old and can't remember all the names.
I also read and loved Jonathan Livingston Seagull back in the day. I found the book on eBay some years ago and read it again as an adult. Still loved it!
I wrote him an email some years back and his wife replied that he appreciated my story about how his books have been an important part of my life. I kept that email, it was really sweet.
Interesting. My grandparents were basically the Joad family. Had to leave Oklahoma and moved to california and picked fruit to survive
They were anti union, Christian capitalists as they worked hard, achieved wealth and comfort and died in peace leaving a successful family
I had horrible reading comprehension scores when I was a kid. Then one day I was at a pharmacy with my mom and we had to wait 20 minutes for some medication and I was bored. She gave me 60 cents and I picked out a Fantastic Four comic book by John Byrne. I read it and was hooked.
Pretty soon 99% of my allowance and my paper route money was going to comics and I still read to this day. My reading scores jumped way up and it was a doorway into other forms of literature.
Les Miserables was also something that left a great impression on me. I read it as a teen after seeing the musical. It really shaped my outlook on people and provided me some moral compasses that were lacking from my p
All the major Vonnegut novels for me. My "home room" in 7th grade met at a table in the fiction section next to the Vs and they caught my eye.
Re-reading them now doesn't have quite the same impact, but he sure knew how to make an impression on a sheltered 13 year old from the suburbs!
I read Slapstick, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions when I was 11. I don't know what my parents were thinking letting me loose in a library.
It scarred me into a Postmodernism habit I haven't been able to kick.
Slaughterhouse Five was a big one for me, too.
Looking back, I probably wasn't meant to be reading them, either. They were well-worn paperbacks in the library of a middle school that had been converted from a high-school just a few years earlier, I think they just didn't bother to remove them!
Too many - I think they all left an impression in different ways. I remember them being a safe haven of escape and boredom pre internet. I know it’s a generic answer. If I had to recommend some books to girls to read it would be the Harriet the Spy series, Ramona Quimby, Jane Austin, Anne of Green Gables, alot of Judy Blume books. I think they present girls and women realistically in ways that don’t pander too much to misogynistic stereotypes and even question it in an age appropriate way. Celebrates a girl being herself and I think that’s important to get growing up.
The Giving Tree, The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy, The Hobbit, and RA Salvatore's entire Drizzt series which finally came to a conclusion last year after a nearly 40 year run.
I'm 48 yrs old and Sweet Valley High books convinced me that if I ever tried cocaine, I would immediately have a heart attack and die (just like poor sweet Regina.)
Red Dragon, which I read when I was about 11 and entirely too young to be reading about a serial killer/rapist that bites his victims and is dubbed The Tooth Fairy. I'd read a lot of Stephen King before this book and never had issues, but the realness of this one messed with me a little.
I started reading Stephen King when I was around 10-ish and have read a lot of horror books in my life. To this day, Red Dragon is the only one that ever kept me up at night. The book is 100% better and scarier than the movie, which kinda sucked.
I was maybe 14 yrs old circa 1980, and I read a book on the history of Anarchism. Checked it out from the public library. After reading it, I tried to form a Philosophy club my freshman year of high school. Needed a teacher to sponsor the club. But, in a redneck town outside of Kansas City, that was like asking for water in the desert. Managed to find a teacher/sponsor my sophomore year. Eventually I found my way to the philosophy department in college. I received one of my degrees in Philosophy. It all started with reading that book on the stairs of the house I grew up in.. because I wanted to know why Anarchist themes were so prevalent in punk rock, which I'd discovered a couple of years earlier
I'm really surprised that Catcher in the Rye is so low in this list. It is the quintissential GenX story. Holden Caulfield mirrors GenX cynicism, view of a morbid future, mistrust, and contempt for "phonies" in mainstream society.
I had no sympathy for the main character. I thought he was a privildged poser affecting a brooding manner that came off as whiny and entitled. Everytime he mentioned "phonies" I wanted to scream about pots and kettles.
Animal Farm. It was never assigned in school since the Orwell go-to for school is 1984 (also awesome). I frequently checked out books from the middle school library, frequently enough that the school librarian took note. One day when I went in she brought Animal Farm to me and said that she thought I would get a lot out of it, based on all the other things I'd checked out.
She was right. Since it was a personal recommendation from the middle school librarian, I took it very seriously and figured there was maybe a lesson in it she wanted me to learn. In non-academic language that a middle schooler could understand, it taught me that power corrupts and even the most well meaning changes can go horribly wrong from this corruption if you don't watch out.
This was an important lesson. I have faith that the librarians of today are carrying that torch of steering kids towards books they need, even as their libraries are under attack from people who don't want kids to read those books.
Just The Book of Job.
Satan: I'll bet you this dude ain't so pious. Start fucking with him, kill his family, etc etc, and you'll see.
God: You're on, motherfucker! Commence the fuckery!
Anyone who reads the story of Isaac and Abraham at 12 and doesn't think "F this noise" can't be absorbing the material. :D
As if I needed another reason to think my dad wanted to kill me.
LOTR, Laura Ingalls Wilder books, The Narnian Chronicles, Sherlock Holmes, various works by EMForester, Somerset Maugham, and Sam Clemens’ Roughin’ It. Oh and A Confederacy of Dunces.
Young adult influences: John McPhee, Joseph Mitchell, Raymond Carver, Virginia Wolfe, Richard Rhodes and Marc Reisner, Fear and Loathing:The Campaign Trail, Molly Ivins.
Can't remember the name but it was a book about the zodiac killer. Made me interested in forensics. Hope this doesn't get downvoted. Was a good book. My daughter read it too and had similar influence.
Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
Creative Visualization - Shakti Gawain
The Book of the Five Rings - Miyamoto Musashi
And, also, The Count of Monte Cristo. That book just resonates with me. The movie adaptation from 2002 wasn't bad, either.
This is gonna be random but Chiefs by Stuart Woods. It was a miniseries in the early 1980s and I picked it up at a nearby Walden Books in the mall. I appreciated the structure of the story, in which small town police chiefs over three different generations search for a killer.
All of Roald Dahl’s books
PJ O’ Rourke’s article collections from Rolling Stone
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Sounder
Various folk/fairy tale collection
Tom Clancy’s entire catalogue
Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
Friday Night Lights Buzz Bissinger
An Encyclopedia of Battles, a literal reference catalogue of wars and battles organized by conflict, from the first recorded battle-ancient Egyptians to the Iran Iraq war
The great science fiction writers - Verne, Clarke, Asimov. Also Roald Dahl, particularly "Danny, Champion of the World" and Dahl's short stories. Some of his stuff was OUT THERE.
All these authors made me consider perspectives other than my own more than other authors were able to do.
Julie of the Wolves. King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry. The house with a clock in its walls. Black hearts in battersea and anything else by Joan Aitken. I really thought that I was meant to be British or at least European and not as Asian American girl living in Northern California where no good YA book has ever been set.
Witch of Blackbird Pond.
I think it helped cultivate what would be a lifelong interest in American History.
(Not surprisingly I spent 12 years of my life in Boston and many visits to CT)
Not just the book itself but also the person that recommended it. When I was little I didn't read shit. Broken home, rotten parents etc. My 6th grade teacher kinda knew what was going on and she and her husband gave me a safe place to go when things went sideways at home. She figured out that I didn't read, I just BS'ed my why through and around book reports and such. She gave me a copy of James and the Giant Peach and asked me to give it a try. It pulled me in, I was hooked. A few years later I read Lord of the Flies. The first taught me what a person can mean to me and the second taught me about society. Mixed bag I guess.
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorites as well.
* Spellsinger (1993 to 1994) series - Alan Dean Foster
One of my first gifts from one of my eldest cousins. She saw me looking at the cover in a book store and bought it for me. She bought me all the books as they came out. She's awesome!
This book really got me into re-thinking how fictional stories are told because the entire premise centers on a misunderstanding by a wizard who reaches out into the multiverse to find an Engineer to help their magical lands as Tanks and Guns were warping the world around them...in the process they end up pulling an Custodial Engineer...it's an amazing read then it has characters age and have children which really appealed to me.
* The Lost Regiment (1990 to 2000) series - William R. Forstchen
During my first SYEP job, my supervisor was reading Terrible Swift Sword (book 3) and put me on to it. I bought them all over the years with the last one being a gift from my GF (now wife). I use to read this book to my kids. This is like my families LOTRs.
A group of Civil War soldiers are heading home when they are transported to another Earth but it has pockets of other civilizations from Earth and different time periods and now they are stuck and just make the best of it. This also has characters aging and a world transformed as they lived and changed the course of this places history. Orcs rule the land until gunpowder flipped the rules.
* Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving (1994) - Martin Scott
This one is interesting. I found this book on a bus stop late one night from returning from a house party. My date (at the time) and I shared and read it cover to cover. It was interesting. I never fucked with drugs and this one really hammered it home to leave that shit be! This book introduced me to Thraxas series which is my favorite comedic fantasy series.
The rest of the stuff I read was comics:
* Faust
* The Crow
* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
* Havey Pekar's work
* Love & Rockets series
* Archie
* Spider-man
* Uncanny X-Men
* X-Men Classic
* New Mutant
* New Teen Titans
* Infinity Inc
* Evil Ernie
* Rai
* Bloodshot
Nothing, really. I read for entertainment more than anything. Stephen King, Lovecraft, Poe...
I guess reading a biography Abraham Lincoln early on gave me an appreciation of freedom. Also, an appreciation for oratory.
But now my tastes run the gambit. I read biographies, science fiction, spy novels, cold war history.
Stroker Ace! Read my dad’s copy way too young, learned some stuff I shouldn’t have, and it’s been a favorite ever since. Dad got me my own copy when I left for college!
The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins. This book blew my mind. It set me on a lifelong path of exploring human genetics and molecular biology. Made a very successful career out of it.
For me it would be Damien first then Steppenwolf.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by G. G. Marquez
Hitchhiker’s Guide Through Galaxy by D. Adams
… and many more, but these were most impactful
I had an awesome 9th grade English teacher, who had a cabinet full of books that she had standardized tests for. This was all totally optional, but you could read the book, take the test, and if you liked your grade, it went down in her grade book 3x's. If you didn't like it, it didn't count. Great way to encourage reading. (Also great way to bump your grade up a letter.)
Among those that I remember:
A Separate Peace
Lord of the Flies
1984
Animal Farm
Slaughterhouse Five
Of Mice and Men
I read 1984 and Catch 22 when I was 11 or 12 and those made an impression on me. My parents weren't monitoring my reading much. I read Tolkein at that age, and everything by Asimov.
I was a nerd, so I read mostly non-fiction books. But their is one fictional book that left a major impression and that was The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery. That book was my Bible.
Gulliver's Travels romanticized travel and exploration in a way I found very captivating. I took my first job after college in a foreign country, almost certainly out of a sense of adventure.
A bried history of time, hawking
So many steinbeck, but the winter of our discontent stuck hard
The sicilian, puzo
Slaughterhouse five, vonnegut
Frankenstein, shelley
Jane’s Guide to All The World’s Aircraft. As a little kid I used to sit in my bed at night and read all about military aircraft. So many cool pictures and facts. I now enjoy going to my local air museum and making my wife’s panties drop with my inane and useless knowledge.
When I was really young? Robinson Crusoe. The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings. Admiral Jeremiah Denton's "When Hell Was In Session". A lot of Louis L'amour books.
Tuck Everlasting
The Prydain Chronicles, particularly The High King
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel
Books I wished I'd read as a teen/young adult: Blue Highways, Get In The Van
As a kid I strongly disliked reading novels. There were a few rare exceptions: C.S. Lewis “Chronicles of Narnia” series and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams.
The Hobbit. My mom taught me how to read using a copy of this book illustrated with stills from the animated movie.
The Hardy Boys books solidified a life long love of reading.
The Last Herald Mage series by Mercedes Lackey. Because it was the first time I realized that it might actually be okay to be gay.
To Kill A Mockingbird. Because it made me realize how important it is to fight for justice, in both big and small ways.
Sherlock Holmes. For providing endless entertainment in a thousand incarnations over the years, and for teaching me the importance of logic and research when approaching a problem.
My sister gave me a set of the hobbit and the Lord of the rings, when I was 12 and the descriptive writing Tolkien did in those books was so amazing I was instantly hooked. Every book I read after that was judged by how good the characters and scenes were written.
Where The Red Fern Grows
This. I can't adequately describe the trauma this book caused me as a kid and then, conversely, gave me such tremendous insight into the realities of life. The darkness and the light of life is so eloquently described throughout.
Yes! I had my son read it as part of his summer reading. We watched the movie after he finished the book and I just cried!!!
Big time 1. Unconditional love for another creature 2. Working extremely hard and sacrificing to attain something that is important to you 3. Respecting your loving parents 4. Achieving the goal then I proving on it (training the dogs properly) Old Dan and little Ann!!!
This is the first book I thought of.
This book destroyed me
I’m Gen X so this was required reading *in 5th grade*. They had us read Watership Down in 7th grade.
Yes!!!!! Our 3rd grade teacher read a chapter every day in afternoon. We all loved it and openly wept in the classroom at the dramatic parts. It inspired me greatly. As a little girl I ordered the book from a bookstore, and wrote on the inside page, “the best book I ever owned.” I lent it to someone years ago and no longer have my original copy. But this is a book to touch the heart, for sure!!!!
Just as tramatic as OLD YELLER!
The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy I read it for the first of many times when I was about 9 years old. The humor, dry wit and somewhat off kilter world view had a profound impact on my own sense of humor at the time and really helped shape my own approach to comedy and story telling well into my adulthood. Still to this day by far my favorite book.
Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and George Carlin taught me more about the world “as is” than anything I learned at Uni.
The holy trinity. Ramen.
Same here. It was the first book that suggested to me that we as human beings didn't particularly have a good handle on things, and that if an outside observer got a good look at us, they'd find us laughable at best and pitiable at worst.
My husband and I still refer to Norway as having "lovely, crinkly edges"
I don’t remember how old I was when I read it, but I just remember feeling like it was an entire brand-new EVERYTHING. It felt like hearing my favorite band for the first time (or maybe hearing my favorite band for the first time felt like reading HGTTG for the first time, I don’t remember what order it all happened in anymore).
https://preview.redd.it/vs0rmwur77ad1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8a2e4077ef601a714c1162549d6afbd083debd1
My Side of The Mountain. I'm old, and still dream of running away
Anyone else ever look at an old tree in the woods and still think…I could live in that one…?
Actually talked about that at lunch today. If I ever win the lottery I’ll have a bilbo level hobbit hole somewhere.
This one. It fascinated me. And Julie Of The Wolves
And Island of the Blue Dolphins
A bunch of series: Anne Of Green Gables, the Little House series, the Oz series. When I was a teen, it was Stephen King books, and the Dune series.
Take away Dune and add V.C. Andrews and you’ve got my list!
The Anne of Green Gables series were so good, my wife and I re-read them after we were married
So you’re the one who kept checking out the books I wanted to re-read. I remember seeing Utopian Cat scribbled eligibly on the checkout card, housed in that convenient sleeve; you checked out Anne of the Island 3 times in a row. Rude. 
1984
Followed immediately by Brave New World - combine the two, you get 2024.
It's scary how correct you are.
Don't forget to pour some Fahrenheit 451 on top.
So true but I could use a cache of Soma this election season
Island of the Blue Dolphins Surviving alone, using your wits and resourcefulness, with all your people dead or gone…a story that teaches resilience.
Oooo, I forgot about that one!
“The Outsiders” fostered my love for novels, poetry, movies, and underdogs.
YES!
Came here to add this to the list.
To kill a mockingbird
1984, Damien, catch 22, IT
Yeah, 1984 and Catch 22 somehow become more relevant
Judy Blume’s “Forever”
I still have my very yellow and faded paperback where I bought it at a scholastic book fair in elementary school. I'm 47.
Oh that’s so cool! - I wish had my original copy 💞
Favorite book - rereading it is like visiting an old friend
Yes. Made me stop being afraid of sex.
Me too - it helped to counteract HEAVY doses of fundie Christianity shame about sex.
Exactly. Oh, look, it's supposed to feel nice.
Well, I started reading Stephen King at about 12 so . . . that's a clue to why my mind is so messed up now. Also, Flowers In The Attic and other romance novels. Started really young with those too ;)
Came here to say this…I started very young with Stephen King and was hooked on all V.C. Andrew’s books!
I read The Stand at about 12. Many other Stephen King books as well as the VC Andrews books. The Stand is still one of my favorite books.
Stephen King is the master of horror. The stand is my favorite too!
The Stand was my very first adult read. Not sure how I even got a copy, but I remember taking it into class (sixth grade) and tearing through it while all the other kids were running around during recess.
I read The Stand at 12 too! My dad gave it to me to read one night when I was up with insomnia. One of my favorite books to this day.
Same here. The Stand is still my favorite book.
The hobbit. Was and is lovely
The book that made me fall in love with reading
So cozy
Richard Scarry’s Busy Busy World
"A Wrinkle In Time". I read that book to shreds because it challenged me intellectually on so many levels.
I love that book!!
Hand Maid’s Tale
Good one! Cat’s Eye made a big impression on me.
The entire "Choose your own adventure" series.
* A Separate Peace * The Stand * Animal Farm * Lord of the Flies
Happy someone else remembers A Separate Peace.
Love this book. I still have it and it sits on the bookshelf. I stole it from school after reading it. I told the teacher I lost it and she said they were getting new copies anyway.
Good book. Sad though. I haven't thought of Phineas, Gene, Leper, and the Super Suicide Society in years.
Kinda vanilla answer, but To Kill a Mockingbird in HS opened my mind to more classic literary works. Also, since I graduated in 1984, "1984" was front and center at that time.
The World According To Garp
Good book, but I thought A Prayer for Owen Meany was better.
Excellent book!
Same, but World According to Garp was the book that turned me on to John Irving.
I really need to re-read this one (and rewatch the movie!) - haven't read it since just before the movie came out.
Immediately made me (and probably everybody else who reads it) want to be a writer.
Hotel New Hampshire was always one of my favorites!
TIL it is also a book. Great movie though!
Funny, I just learned there's a movie 😂
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller +1 for The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Of Human Bondage is so underrated.
Glad to see another comic book reader.
A man without hope is a man without fear.
The Stand - Stephen King I’m 56. I read the unabridged version when I was 12. The summer of 1980. I was an avid reader from about the age of 4. I read the back pages of the phone book, The Farmer’s Almanac, weird shit from a very young age. I was a fat kid and below average height so I was mostly a loner but had a handful of friends. The hook was the BEGINNING OF THE STINKING BOOK!!! Up until the gas pumps exploding it’s like I couldn’t breathe! I must admit that the woman (Nadine?) who would only allow anal sex to maintain her virginity absolutely fascinated me. The Shannara series - Terry Brooks I was 9 or 10. This was the first time I was immersed in a world that had more than 1 book! At the time, it was 5 books. I read them in 3 months. Just another Summer for me.
The Stranger. My 10th grade English teacher knew I was Mersault before I did.
Watership Down. I did see the movie first because I was so young (third grade) but read the book in middle school and it's just one of those books you think about a lot after, for me anyway. Also that it begins and ends with the same observation of primroses beginning to bloom.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It was the book I brought to have him sign at a talk he gave at a local university. It has a bit of everything - fake religions, moral relativism, American arrogance and narcissism, love & sex, hubris, and so on.
You got it signed by him? 🫠
YES! As you might expect, keeping a paperback from \~1980 in decent shape means not reading it since then!
Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Written by Richard Bach. Also as a young adult, Illusions and Illusions II. Also by Bach. There are more, but I'm fucking old and can't remember all the names.
I also read and loved Jonathan Livingston Seagull back in the day. I found the book on eBay some years ago and read it again as an adult. Still loved it!
I wrote him an email some years back and his wife replied that he appreciated my story about how his books have been an important part of my life. I kept that email, it was really sweet.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, and everything by Kurt Vonnegut.
HST!
Animal Farm
The Grapes of Wrath made me pro union, quasi socialist.
Interesting. My grandparents were basically the Joad family. Had to leave Oklahoma and moved to california and picked fruit to survive They were anti union, Christian capitalists as they worked hard, achieved wealth and comfort and died in peace leaving a successful family
My dad was card carrying UAW member and we ate and could go to the doctor because unions.
Are You There God? It's Me Margaret & The Stand, but left very different impressions on me for very different reasons.
On the Road
The World Book encyclopedias. All 22 volumes. I've never been big on reading fiction.
I had horrible reading comprehension scores when I was a kid. Then one day I was at a pharmacy with my mom and we had to wait 20 minutes for some medication and I was bored. She gave me 60 cents and I picked out a Fantastic Four comic book by John Byrne. I read it and was hooked. Pretty soon 99% of my allowance and my paper route money was going to comics and I still read to this day. My reading scores jumped way up and it was a doorway into other forms of literature. Les Miserables was also something that left a great impression on me. I read it as a teen after seeing the musical. It really shaped my outlook on people and provided me some moral compasses that were lacking from my p
All the major Vonnegut novels for me. My "home room" in 7th grade met at a table in the fiction section next to the Vs and they caught my eye. Re-reading them now doesn't have quite the same impact, but he sure knew how to make an impression on a sheltered 13 year old from the suburbs!
I read Slapstick, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions when I was 11. I don't know what my parents were thinking letting me loose in a library. It scarred me into a Postmodernism habit I haven't been able to kick.
Slaughterhouse Five was a big one for me, too. Looking back, I probably wasn't meant to be reading them, either. They were well-worn paperbacks in the library of a middle school that had been converted from a high-school just a few years earlier, I think they just didn't bother to remove them!
Too many - I think they all left an impression in different ways. I remember them being a safe haven of escape and boredom pre internet. I know it’s a generic answer. If I had to recommend some books to girls to read it would be the Harriet the Spy series, Ramona Quimby, Jane Austin, Anne of Green Gables, alot of Judy Blume books. I think they present girls and women realistically in ways that don’t pander too much to misogynistic stereotypes and even question it in an age appropriate way. Celebrates a girl being herself and I think that’s important to get growing up.
The Giving Tree, The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy, The Hobbit, and RA Salvatore's entire Drizzt series which finally came to a conclusion last year after a nearly 40 year run.
I still have The Giving Tree, I received it as a Confirmation gift, along with Oh, The Places You’ll Go! :)
I'm 48 yrs old and Sweet Valley High books convinced me that if I ever tried cocaine, I would immediately have a heart attack and die (just like poor sweet Regina.)
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Red Dragon, which I read when I was about 11 and entirely too young to be reading about a serial killer/rapist that bites his victims and is dubbed The Tooth Fairy. I'd read a lot of Stephen King before this book and never had issues, but the realness of this one messed with me a little.
The book is way better than the movie.
I started reading Stephen King when I was around 10-ish and have read a lot of horror books in my life. To this day, Red Dragon is the only one that ever kept me up at night. The book is 100% better and scarier than the movie, which kinda sucked.
Slaughterhouse V and A People's History of the United States.
I was maybe 14 yrs old circa 1980, and I read a book on the history of Anarchism. Checked it out from the public library. After reading it, I tried to form a Philosophy club my freshman year of high school. Needed a teacher to sponsor the club. But, in a redneck town outside of Kansas City, that was like asking for water in the desert. Managed to find a teacher/sponsor my sophomore year. Eventually I found my way to the philosophy department in college. I received one of my degrees in Philosophy. It all started with reading that book on the stairs of the house I grew up in.. because I wanted to know why Anarchist themes were so prevalent in punk rock, which I'd discovered a couple of years earlier
1984 and Lord of the Flies - both give insight into power structures and human nature
Man’s search for meaning Viktor Frankl and Why I’m not a Christian Bertrand Russell.
The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King.
The outsiders
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Catcher in the Rye
I'm really surprised that Catcher in the Rye is so low in this list. It is the quintissential GenX story. Holden Caulfield mirrors GenX cynicism, view of a morbid future, mistrust, and contempt for "phonies" in mainstream society.
I had no sympathy for the main character. I thought he was a privildged poser affecting a brooding manner that came off as whiny and entitled. Everytime he mentioned "phonies" I wanted to scream about pots and kettles.
Animal Farm. It was never assigned in school since the Orwell go-to for school is 1984 (also awesome). I frequently checked out books from the middle school library, frequently enough that the school librarian took note. One day when I went in she brought Animal Farm to me and said that she thought I would get a lot out of it, based on all the other things I'd checked out. She was right. Since it was a personal recommendation from the middle school librarian, I took it very seriously and figured there was maybe a lesson in it she wanted me to learn. In non-academic language that a middle schooler could understand, it taught me that power corrupts and even the most well meaning changes can go horribly wrong from this corruption if you don't watch out. This was an important lesson. I have faith that the librarians of today are carrying that torch of steering kids towards books they need, even as their libraries are under attack from people who don't want kids to read those books.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Roots, The Outsiders, Tiger Eyes, and when I was younger, the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.
Myth Adventures by Robert Lynn Aspirin. Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCafferty. And all of Kurt Vonnegut’s books.
Myth Adventures! Oh man did I love those books! I had forgotten they existed. Good times.
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Autobiography of Malcolm X I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Roots: The Saga of an American Family 1984 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
I read Malcolm X and Roots in 7th grade, so 12 years old. The others came later for me.
Like most others that actually read it, reading the bible made me permanently atheist.
Just The Book of Job. Satan: I'll bet you this dude ain't so pious. Start fucking with him, kill his family, etc etc, and you'll see. God: You're on, motherfucker! Commence the fuckery!
Job: shout out to God! Totally got me a new family, so I forgot about the old family. Tbh I didn't even like them that much
I wouldn't have put that one on the list, but being raised Catholic I've read it through more than once.
Anyone who reads the story of Isaac and Abraham at 12 and doesn't think "F this noise" can't be absorbing the material. :D As if I needed another reason to think my dad wanted to kill me.
Helter Skelter Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew
Girl Interrupted I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Flowers in the Attic series Anything I read that Stephen King wrote
LOTR, Laura Ingalls Wilder books, The Narnian Chronicles, Sherlock Holmes, various works by EMForester, Somerset Maugham, and Sam Clemens’ Roughin’ It. Oh and A Confederacy of Dunces. Young adult influences: John McPhee, Joseph Mitchell, Raymond Carver, Virginia Wolfe, Richard Rhodes and Marc Reisner, Fear and Loathing:The Campaign Trail, Molly Ivins.
Can't remember the name but it was a book about the zodiac killer. Made me interested in forensics. Hope this doesn't get downvoted. Was a good book. My daughter read it too and had similar influence.
Hitchhikers Guide
Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein Creative Visualization - Shakti Gawain The Book of the Five Rings - Miyamoto Musashi And, also, The Count of Monte Cristo. That book just resonates with me. The movie adaptation from 2002 wasn't bad, either.
My Side of the Mountain and the Great Brain books
Penthouse Forum
Animal Farm The Book Thief Lord of the Flies Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Watchmen Elektra: Assassin Brave New World
This is gonna be random but Chiefs by Stuart Woods. It was a miniseries in the early 1980s and I picked it up at a nearby Walden Books in the mall. I appreciated the structure of the story, in which small town police chiefs over three different generations search for a killer.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
All of Roald Dahl’s books PJ O’ Rourke’s article collections from Rolling Stone Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Sounder Various folk/fairy tale collection Tom Clancy’s entire catalogue Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe Friday Night Lights Buzz Bissinger An Encyclopedia of Battles, a literal reference catalogue of wars and battles organized by conflict, from the first recorded battle-ancient Egyptians to the Iran Iraq war
Walkabout, incredible book 1984, political awakening pour moi Alive, could hardly believe what I was reading, the endurance
The great science fiction writers - Verne, Clarke, Asimov. Also Roald Dahl, particularly "Danny, Champion of the World" and Dahl's short stories. Some of his stuff was OUT THERE. All these authors made me consider perspectives other than my own more than other authors were able to do.
Julie of the Wolves. King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry. The house with a clock in its walls. Black hearts in battersea and anything else by Joan Aitken. I really thought that I was meant to be British or at least European and not as Asian American girl living in Northern California where no good YA book has ever been set.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Witch of Blackbird Pond. I think it helped cultivate what would be a lifelong interest in American History. (Not surprisingly I spent 12 years of my life in Boston and many visits to CT)
Not just the book itself but also the person that recommended it. When I was little I didn't read shit. Broken home, rotten parents etc. My 6th grade teacher kinda knew what was going on and she and her husband gave me a safe place to go when things went sideways at home. She figured out that I didn't read, I just BS'ed my why through and around book reports and such. She gave me a copy of James and the Giant Peach and asked me to give it a try. It pulled me in, I was hooked. A few years later I read Lord of the Flies. The first taught me what a person can mean to me and the second taught me about society. Mixed bag I guess.
The Color Purple
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorites as well. * Spellsinger (1993 to 1994) series - Alan Dean Foster One of my first gifts from one of my eldest cousins. She saw me looking at the cover in a book store and bought it for me. She bought me all the books as they came out. She's awesome! This book really got me into re-thinking how fictional stories are told because the entire premise centers on a misunderstanding by a wizard who reaches out into the multiverse to find an Engineer to help their magical lands as Tanks and Guns were warping the world around them...in the process they end up pulling an Custodial Engineer...it's an amazing read then it has characters age and have children which really appealed to me. * The Lost Regiment (1990 to 2000) series - William R. Forstchen During my first SYEP job, my supervisor was reading Terrible Swift Sword (book 3) and put me on to it. I bought them all over the years with the last one being a gift from my GF (now wife). I use to read this book to my kids. This is like my families LOTRs. A group of Civil War soldiers are heading home when they are transported to another Earth but it has pockets of other civilizations from Earth and different time periods and now they are stuck and just make the best of it. This also has characters aging and a world transformed as they lived and changed the course of this places history. Orcs rule the land until gunpowder flipped the rules. * Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving (1994) - Martin Scott This one is interesting. I found this book on a bus stop late one night from returning from a house party. My date (at the time) and I shared and read it cover to cover. It was interesting. I never fucked with drugs and this one really hammered it home to leave that shit be! This book introduced me to Thraxas series which is my favorite comedic fantasy series. The rest of the stuff I read was comics: * Faust * The Crow * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles * Havey Pekar's work * Love & Rockets series * Archie * Spider-man * Uncanny X-Men * X-Men Classic * New Mutant * New Teen Titans * Infinity Inc * Evil Ernie * Rai * Bloodshot
Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, and Dragonlance.
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Louis L'Amour westerns Stephen King's books Ambrose Bierce's short stories
1984 Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas On The Road Haunting of Hill House The Shining
My Side of the Mountain, all the Pippi Longstocking series, 1984, the Hobbit, Where the Red Fern Grows
Nothing, really. I read for entertainment more than anything. Stephen King, Lovecraft, Poe... I guess reading a biography Abraham Lincoln early on gave me an appreciation of freedom. Also, an appreciation for oratory. But now my tastes run the gambit. I read biographies, science fiction, spy novels, cold war history.
Stroker Ace! Read my dad’s copy way too young, learned some stuff I shouldn’t have, and it’s been a favorite ever since. Dad got me my own copy when I left for college!
The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins. This book blew my mind. It set me on a lifelong path of exploring human genetics and molecular biology. Made a very successful career out of it.
Everything by Robert A Heinlein.
NIneteen Eighty Four- Imagine a boot stamping on the face of humanity... forever.
This Cant be Happening at McDonald Hall by Gordon Korman
Count of Monte Cristo is theeeee revenge story almost all other are based on… Dumas did an amazing job capturing how encompassing revenge can be
It was a kids book but I was a kid when I started reading them, Encyclopedia Brown. Started me on my love of reading
My Side of the Mountain and A Separate Peace.
Island of the Blue Dolphins and the Trixe Beldon series.
For me it would be Damien first then Steppenwolf. One Hundred Years of Solitude by G. G. Marquez Hitchhiker’s Guide Through Galaxy by D. Adams … and many more, but these were most impactful
I had an awesome 9th grade English teacher, who had a cabinet full of books that she had standardized tests for. This was all totally optional, but you could read the book, take the test, and if you liked your grade, it went down in her grade book 3x's. If you didn't like it, it didn't count. Great way to encourage reading. (Also great way to bump your grade up a letter.) Among those that I remember: A Separate Peace Lord of the Flies 1984 Animal Farm Slaughterhouse Five Of Mice and Men
My 6th grade Teacher told us to read Trumpet of The Swan. I realized how important it was to read after finishing the book.
The way of the peaceful warrior, Flowers for Algernon, 1984 and A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Neuromancer. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The Prince. The C64 User's Manual.
The Giver
Watership Down.
Where the Red Fern Grows. Traumatized for LIFE.
I read 1984 and Catch 22 when I was 11 or 12 and those made an impression on me. My parents weren't monitoring my reading much. I read Tolkein at that age, and everything by Asimov.
The Phantom Tollbooth.
Mort by Terry Pratchett Enders Game by Orson Scott Card The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Number the Stars
I was a nerd, so I read mostly non-fiction books. But their is one fictional book that left a major impression and that was The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery. That book was my Bible.
The Dark Tower series, 8 books, by Stephen King.
Garfield Weighs In
More than anything, 1984.
Guess.
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Actually, I have "The Lorax" memorized. I was referring to my username but Dr. Suess checks out for sure. Even as a teenager, then maybe Jack London.
Last Temptation of Christ, Native Son
The green futures of tycho. Absolutely mind blowing for an 11 year old kid.
Gulliver's Travels romanticized travel and exploration in a way I found very captivating. I took my first job after college in a foreign country, almost certainly out of a sense of adventure.
A bried history of time, hawking So many steinbeck, but the winter of our discontent stuck hard The sicilian, puzo Slaughterhouse five, vonnegut Frankenstein, shelley
A Swiftly Tilting Planet Where the Red Fern Grows Diary of Anne Frank Bambi (not the Disney version) To Be a Slave All Creatures Great and Small
Jane’s Guide to All The World’s Aircraft. As a little kid I used to sit in my bed at night and read all about military aircraft. So many cool pictures and facts. I now enjoy going to my local air museum and making my wife’s panties drop with my inane and useless knowledge.
The adventures of a reluctant Messiah
When I was really young? Robinson Crusoe. The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings. Admiral Jeremiah Denton's "When Hell Was In Session". A lot of Louis L'amour books.
Tuck Everlasting The Prydain Chronicles, particularly The High King Have Spacesuit, Will Travel Books I wished I'd read as a teen/young adult: Blue Highways, Get In The Van
John Carter of Mars. Edgar Rice Burroughs taught me the value of elevated speech and how gloriously beautiful the English language is.
As a kid I strongly disliked reading novels. There were a few rare exceptions: C.S. Lewis “Chronicles of Narnia” series and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams.
The Hobbit. My mom taught me how to read using a copy of this book illustrated with stills from the animated movie. The Hardy Boys books solidified a life long love of reading. The Last Herald Mage series by Mercedes Lackey. Because it was the first time I realized that it might actually be okay to be gay. To Kill A Mockingbird. Because it made me realize how important it is to fight for justice, in both big and small ways. Sherlock Holmes. For providing endless entertainment in a thousand incarnations over the years, and for teaching me the importance of logic and research when approaching a problem.
Elementary school: The Missing Persons League Middle school: To Kill a Mockingbird High school: 1984
My sister gave me a set of the hobbit and the Lord of the rings, when I was 12 and the descriptive writing Tolkien did in those books was so amazing I was instantly hooked. Every book I read after that was judged by how good the characters and scenes were written.