I read a lot. For as long as I can remember, I’ve preferred having my nose perpetually stuck in a book to almost every other activity. Some of my earliest school-related memories involve being busted reading fiction when I should have been reading about United States’ presidential history or practicing math equations.
I started high school in a brand new Honors English class, and took AP English (and History and Biology) until I graduated, which took care of ensuring I was perpetually assigned a hefty reading list, both throughout the school year and during the summer, too.
I liked it that way; I loved those lists. “Required reading” lists helped me find some of the best fiction stories I’ve ever read in my life. Some of the best books I’m sure I will ever read.
Awhile back some friends on Twitter were listing books that changed their lives, and I made a mental note to revisit the topic in more detail than 140 characters would allow.
So which (fiction) books changed my life? So many of them. But first and foremost were these:
1. & 2. The Secret Garden and The Velveteen Rabbit. Let’s start at the very beginning. (A very good place to start.) These were the first two books I ever remember reading with my grandmother, and two books that shaped the way I looked at the world.
The Secret Garden had me convinced I was going to find an old door to which I would find an old key and I’d open it and walk straight into…Narnia, or someplace equally more fantastic than a secret garden I would probably have to weed. While I did routinely daydream about finding Narnia (Under my bed? Nope. Maybe under the stairs? No. Hmm…In a hole I could dig from the backyard?), I did verily love reading about that secret garden, and how non-cranky it made Colin.
The Velveteen Rabbit, which started as a story I loved, later became the first book to give me nightmares and make me look wearily at the impressively massive collection of stuffed animals occupying my room after I read the book when I was older (and more prone to imagining my toys coming to life at night). Toys coming to life when I’m asleep did not make me believe in magic or whimsy, but rather, made me believe I should lock all of my toys in a wooden chest and place my heaviest books on it, thereby stifling my toys’ abilities to wander about unsupervised in the middle of the night. The Indian in the Cupboard? More bad sleep juju for Kerri.
3. Phantoms, by Dean Koonz. I was twelve and a half, OK? Cut a girl some slack. I promise my choice in reading materials vastly improved as I kept reading. My dad died when I was in the 7th grade and among his things I found a Dean Koonz book. I’m not sure if Phantoms was the actual book, or if I just went and picked the first one I could find, but knowing my dad had at least entertained the thought of reading one of his books made me curious enough to want to read one, too. So I read Phantoms, and it’s a story I can still vividly recall to this day. It would have made a really compelling film, I remember thinking. Apparently someone else thought so, too. (Ben Affleck and Liev Schreiber? Annnd, added to my Netflix queue.)
Book Nerdery Rabbit Hole: Phantoms led to Sphere (below), which ultimately lead to Pet Sematary** (WHY, Kerri, WHY?), and a super brief Stephen King phase, wherein I realized he was a talented and prolific powerhouse while simultaneously realizing I didn’t want to read books that provided me ample nightmares about dead pets and children coming back to life, or rabid dogs who hold you hostage in your car, or cars with homicidal tendencies themselves, or a girl sharing my name (different spelling, thank you Mom and Dad) who is relentlessly teased until she goes all terrifyingly telekinetic on her entire high school. (Given my thoughts on The Velveteen Rabbit, you can probably also guess how I felt about The Tommyknockers (WHY Stephen King, WHY?).)
4. Sphere. The first and only Michael Crichton book I’ve read, but an amazing one. This book was The Abyss and Phantoms all in one psychologically thrilling underwater package. This was also the book that expanded my vocabulary by leaps and bounds because I read it in the 8th grade and refused to read past a word I couldn’t readily define. And because Crichton likes to use big words. At least when he’s telling stories about scary scientific sea exploration he does. (Having never read any other of Crichton’s novels I suppose I can’t adequately vouch for his range in diction.)
5. Go Go Gadget Grisham! OK, so that isn’t an actual title of a book I read. Though I would most likely read a book with that title, even if it was about mid-nineteenth-century accounting policies or the history of dental floss. From 7th grade until starting my freshman year of high school, I read nearly every single book John Grisham had written at that point in his writing career (which ultimately ended up being his first eight novels). A Time to Kill (based on a true story Grisham witnessed while working as an attorney in Mississippi) was my favorite of them all. Though surely harrowing in places, it was such a dynamic and emotional story, and so well-told. At the time I had no idea it was Grisham’s first-ever novel, as rather than chronologically, I read his books in the order of whichever-I-could-get-my-hands-on-first. Realizing (years later) that A Time to Kill was his debut, I remember being shocked, and quite impressed.
6. Interview with the Vampire. One of the first books I read in my aforementioned Honors English class, this book appeared on our summer reading list and I chose it to read and report on the first week of my freshman year of high school. At the time I remember thinking what a strange selection this was for me, as it was my very first vampire-centric novel (and perhaps then unsurprisingly my first bout with Anne Rice), but noting my Koonz/King/Grisham phase, I think maybe my choice was a bit less surprising than I originally thought. I remember this book being interesting and bizarre, and while I haven’t read another Anne Rice novel since (and don’t know that I ever will), this story paved the way for diving into a diverse and intimidating reading list, and is one that’s stuck with me over the years. A fact, I’m sure, aided by the presence of a pasty Brad Pitt and an even pastier Tom Cruise (and hi, Kirsten Dunst in her first big movie role!) in the film version.
7. Sense and Sensibility. My most favorite of all of Austen’s works, this book is one I’ve read multiple times, and one I would tell anyone leery of or intimidated by Austen to read. It’s such an engaging story, with perfectly lovable (and deplorable) characters you’ll swear you know even while the entire story is happening in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
8. & 9. Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies. More high school/AP English reads, and the two I really did love from start to finish, and back again. I’ve read Heart of Darkness three times, and Lord of the Flies at least as many, and I find something new to appreciate about the story and the storytelling each and every time I read them.
10. The Virgin Suicides. One of the first books I ever read that wasn’t on a required reading list. And the first book I ever read after arbitrarily choosing it from a local bookstore based almost entirely on its cover. I would be highly rewarded for stumbling onto Eugenides. (I proselytized this book to everyone I knew in college, that’s how much I loved (and still love) it.) But this method of choosing books would come back to give me literary indigestion later, and has since been altogether abandoned. If you haven’t read this book, I highly highly, oh so highly recommend it. It’s definitely dark, but perpetually visually stunning, and Eugenides employs one of the most interesting frame narrative techniques I’ve ever read.
11. As I Lay Dying. My first and favorite Faulkner, I didn’t read this until junior year of college. I know a lot of people who have read and verily hate this book, and I can’t pretend to understand why. I still think about this story, recounting particularly interesting and/or grief-stricken scenes, and/or laughing at the name “Darl.” As I Lay Dying showed me how much I enjoy characters who get their own chapters to tell me their stories. It’s unreliable narrating at its finest, and I love it.
12. Moby-Dick. I don’t even know where to start singing the praises of this book, except to say it’s one of the most interesting and allegorical stories in the history of ever. Is Melville crazy long-winded? You bet he is. Is he going to tell you all about whales and whaling and seafaring and Queequeg? Until you want to stab him with a harpoon, probably. But I can’t help myself; I just dig Melville and his nautical themed pashmina afghan storytelling. He’s a sailor after my own heart, and I will forever be grateful one of my most beloved professors in undergrad was herself a Melvillean scholar, and petitioned the university to teach a class solely devoted to him. (His short stories are also some of my favorites.)
13. Harry Potter: Books 1-7. (That would be all of them, for those who haven’t yet been baptized in the goblet of fire.) I honestly can’t remember exactly when I read the very first book of the (literally and metaphorically) magical Harry Potter series, but I know it was all due to my lovely cousin Frances, as she had stumbled on them before I did and was tearing through them as literature lovers are wont to do. I was hooked from moment one, and stopped sleeping to read these stories about three little kids who stumble into a world of magic and friendship and mail-delivering owls, and remained happily hooked through books two and three, and into four, which quickly became the (longest, and) my favorite of the entire series. Book five made me want to throw it across the room on multiple occasions, so despicable and perfectly evil was Dolores Umbridge, and I don’t know that another book will ever make me cry as hard as I did when (SPOILER ALERT) Dumbledore dies, and the last book? The last book is why people comparing the Twilight series to anything Harry Potter are (on drugs, yes, and) will find their comparisons perpetually full of the brown stuff if they’ve actually read both series (which, yes, I have, somewhat regrettably when it comes to Twilight). J.K. Rowling, aside from being a much more creative and dynamic storyteller (and better writer) than Stephanie Meyer, also understands characterization, and how sometimes, to get at the real heart of the protagonist, and thus the heart of the story (and to get at the heart of the reader), some characters have to DIE. There is just no way around it, but Meyer (ANTI-SPOILER ALERT) can’t even come close to pulling the proverbial literary trigger in any of her books. See also: It’s hard to care about a BIG FINAL SUPER IMPORTANT BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL when three and half books of anxiety and “character building” leads to…ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. But, I digress. Vampirically. Suffice it to say Harry Potter et al. will forever be beloved literary characters, and for good reason. And that’s all I’ll say before this delves into five-paragraph-essay territory.
Book Nerdery Bonus Round: Recent Favorites
Neverwhere. This was my second book of Gaiman’s (the first was Coraline), and I somewhat stumbled on it after reading and loving Sunshine (another interesting pseudo-vampire novel) based on a trusted literary friend’s recommendation. Gaiman had written a blurb on the back of Sunshine, and I was curious about who he was, and what he wrote. I absolutely loved Neverwhere, and devoured the story in less than two days. It was the first for-adults novel I’d found in ages that featured just the right amount of magic, whimsy, and impressively creepy bad guys, and I found myself smitten with both the story and the storytelling, with both the villains and the imperfect heroes attempting to outrun them.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians. There are five books total in this series, and I’m pretty sure I have Kali to thank for ever finding them in the first place. These are like Harry Potter meets Greek myths, and they’re SO MUCH FUN to read. Some of the fastest books I’ve ever torn through, and some of the most memorable re-tellings of traditional Greek mythology, thanks to author Rick Riordan. If by chance your only experience with these stories is the somewhat recent film adaptation (I don’t know what that screenwriter was smoking), I beg you: Ignore the movie and run to your nearest library and check out Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief. The movie is horrible, gets most everything wrong, and attempts to squash the first three books into one movie. Fail, fail, and more fail. But the books really are equal parts entertaining and educational, especially if you’re in need of a Greek mythology refresher course. And I mean, who isn’t really?
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So tell me, which fiction books changed your (reading or otherwise) life?
What are you reading now?
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*Post title is a quote from Arrested Development. One of my favorites, as it were.
**Actual title’s spelling. Everyone calls it “Pet Cemetery” but for whatever reason that’s not what King called it. Probably just to give me nightmares about misspelled words on top of nightmares about…everything else.
What an excellent list — there are definitely some things on here I need to check out. So! Quickly, before I have to go to work, here are two books that changed my reading life.
1. Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather. The whole book is beautiful, but the image of the underground river has been, for some reason, the most enduring literary image of my life.
2. Plainsong, by Kent Haruf. In fact, everything Kent Haruf has written. In my opinion, one of the best contemporary American writers.
I’m so glad you turned me on to Percy Jackson! And you turned me on to those werewolf books, Stay and Linger, also EXCELLENT! And you told me about Hunger Games and how awesome they were.
Damn, I should just make you pick my books.
First of all, BEST TITLE OF A BLOG EVER.
Secondly, my books: To Kill A Mockingbird, Great Gatsby, She’s Come Undone.
I’m currently reading Little Bee and it’s AMAZING, btw.
Awesome post. I love Heart of Darkness, too, and my not-written-except-in-my-head (NWEIMH) screenplay is a modern day HoD in a college setting. It will probably always remain NWEIMH.
I love Grisham for the brain candy that it is. Legal fiction is my dirty little secret. I started reading novels like Koontz, King and (omg) Danielle Steel in 6th grade, which is way too early for someone to be reading Danielle Steele.* Where was good YA back then?
Favorite book ever is Their Eyes Were Watching God. Also up there is Papillion, although I am still irritated at the casting of the movie. Hoffman would have been a much better Henri.
*Zoya was my favorite.
Oh Kerri. Love this topic, for I am a fellow nose-in-a-book person! Also, if you DID write a five-paragraph essay about Harry Potter, I would love that, because that goes on record as my favorite book series EVER. I can’t wait for the final movie in July. There will be chills, and also tears.
*moving on!*
Another of my all-time favorites is A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. It is simply amazing. Also, anything by David James Duncan, especially The River Why and The Brothers K. Oh! And also Outlander for historical fiction. LOVE.
Oh man, I love books. And actually, you introduced ME to Percy! :) And I’m so glad you did. I spent a lot of time reading: Little House on the Prairie, Mandee books, the original Wizard of Oz books (12 in all) and a lot of Harry Potter growing up. :)
Lately I’ve been devouring books about cooking, Paris and culinary school. :)
Four comments:
1. Arrested Development is one of my all time favorite shows!
2. I read a LOT of Stephen King in the seventh grade because I had a mean teacher who thought his work was “trash.” I always had one of his books in class just to spite her.
3. I read a LOT of Koontz is ninth grade because he was a favorite of the first boy that I ever kissed.
4. These are my top ten books:
http://www.freshoutoflemons.com/something-to-talk-about/2011/2/7/my-very-first-blog-giveaway.html
:)
Love this! Growing up, I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and all of the Anne of Green Gables Books. Now, I’m reading really, really boring things. I need to find something not so boring.
“Kid” books…I was definitely influenced by the Little House on the Prairie books.
“Adult” I’d have to say “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card.
Right now, I’m reading “The Wise Man’s Fear” by Patrick Rothfuss. excellent new second book in a series that started off with the excellent “The Name of the Wind”.
The Velveteen Rabbit got me off stuffed animals for life. Word.
I’ve really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series. My oldest boys and I take turns reading them to each other.
I read The Vampire Diaries way back in the sixth grade and really liked them.
Right now I’m reading The Girl That Played with Fire.
First and foremost, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. BEST BOOK EVER.
As a child, Corduroy, Charlotte’s Web, and everything Roald Dahl.
Everything Tom Robbins has written, but especially Still Life With Woodpecker and Jitterbug Perfume. That man is a master with words.
Everything Margaret Atwood has written, but especially Alias Grace and Cat’s Eye.
Right now, I am mostly reading school-related textbooks and such, but also rereading Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake when I can find the time to indulge myself.
Books! COME TO MAMA!
I’m laughing, because didn’t Amalah just write about how she could NOT get into Heart of Darkness? And Hans above me loves Alias Grace, which made me want to STAB MYSELF IN THE EYE, even though I adore Margaret Atwood.
I’m with Bearca: A Prayer for Owen Meany is an all-time favorite. As is Dracula, which you know. Stephen King’s Bag of Bones is a recent read, but shot to my top five. I mention that because it’s not really nightmare-inducing, but almost delightful in its creepiness. I LOVED it.
Neil Gaiman is kind of a big fat MEH to me. I’ve read three — Coraline, Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book, and I keep waiting for the earth to move, and it never does. But I feel like — and I get that this is probably just me — he keeps his characters at arm’s length. Like, he refuses to get too emotionally invested, lest we think he actually CARES.
Oh, I loved this, Kerri!
I’d have to spend a lot of time to think about my all-time list, and I just don’t have that time today, but a few thoughts:
*I am SO glad you had me read Neverwhere. I loved it.
*I’m also glad you told me about Percy Jackson – I’ve read the first four (I still need to get 5) and Graham loves them too.
*I read the Hunger Games trilogy over Christmas break and couldn’t put them down.
*Right now I’m reading two books, one Thousand Gifts and Rob Bell’s controversial one – I want to see what all of the hoopla is about.
LOVE Harry Potter MAD LOVE, although I actually did throw the book across the room and SOBBED when Dumbledore died. Poor Willy, he hadn’t read the book yet and had no idea what was going on and just had to comfort his wife while she lost her damn mind.
For fairy and fae sort of fiction I love Charles de Lint.
I have read a crap ton of Dean Koontz, my first was Midnight, read in one weekend along with Thornbirds and Gone With The Wind (yes, all that, one weekend. We were camping and my brother caught me in the eyelid with a fishhook so I refused to go back to the lake after that) mainly because it was easily accessible at the grocery store when I was a teen and I could get my mother to buy them for me. My favorite of his is Strangers.
I have also read A TON of King. For some reason, the books don’t give me nightmares but the movies (even though horrid) do. The one exception is Misery. I can watch that one just fine even though I know she actually cuts his feet off and cauterizes the wound with a blow torch, not the whole sledgehammer deal.
We have the Percy Jackson books but I haven’t read them yet, Willy read them first.
I also loved Tricksters Choice and Tricksters Queen.
Totally cliche, but To Kill a Mockingbird resides at the top of my list. I read it in high school, and again in college, and I’ve seen the movie a few times, and I just love it so, so much.
More recently, though, I’ve been reading memoirs and other works of non-fiction, usually with a focus on food. I’m trying read fiction in between, but nothing has grabbed me in the way that non-fiction does.
I’ve got Neverwhere on my nightstand as well as Middlesex, and I’m determined to get through them this summer. I’d like to read a classic I’ve never read before, too.
Also, if you’ve seen the movie version of Pet Sematary, I think it’s misspelled because a child scrawled the sign to the graveyard. I never read the book, but the movie is cah-reepy. As the mother of a young boy, I have zero desire to see it again.
I hated (HATED!) the only Faulkner I’ve ever read (I think it was “As I Lay Dying”? I don’t remember, that’s how much I hated it), but maybe it’s time to give it another shot. After I’ve read all the other books on my list, I mean. :)
I also always had my nose in a book as a kid AND was in AP English in HS (which is why I entered college as an English Major). That being said, there are some books on your list I still need to read! Eek!
I remember reading Romeo & Juliet (by Shakespeare, natch) in 8th grade and loving it. There began my love affair with all things Shakespeare. (As You Like It is a personal fave.) I’m with Jen, as cliche as it is, To Kill a Mockingbird made a deep impression on me. And in college I’d say two life-changing books I read included- The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker and Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins.
Some later in life loves include: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer, Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver and The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Nifffenegger (to name a few!).
Love to love you, baby.
Rhi- I devoured the entire series of Anne of Green Gables!
Jen- I loved Middlesex. It’s worth getting through.
Hans- Charlotte’s Web! YES!
Ok. I will stop. I could go on and on!
I recently joined a book club and the first pick was Stephen King’s The Dome. Which is not the best choice for a book club since it’s ridiculously, incredibly long. But it was SO GOOD. I couldn’t stop dreaming about it because my brain was trying to work out how to end it the whole time.
Have you read The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper? I read them as a preteen and now that I’ve enjoyed the Harry Potter series so much, I think I’ll go back and reread them!
Some of my book-loving highlights
1) Little House on the Prarie: I remember my mom and dad curling up with me at night, all taking turns reading pages to each other. We read a chapter a night, and I loved every second of it. Eventually, I would read ahead with a flashlight under the covers, which my parents mostly encouraged (except for when I was exceptionally cranky the next day).
2) R.L Stine/Christopher Pike books: So not literary geniuses by any means, but I remember picking up my first of these in 4th/5th grade and devouring every single one I could get my hands on. It kept me extremely busy.
3) Interview with the Vampire: I, too, read this going into high school, but it was actually after I saw the movie (which was 8th grade). It was the first book that truly made my mom uncomfortable with the subject matter (though I had also finished a book that referenced snuff films, and she found that one in my room around the same time). It was one of the first books that really had me comparing the merits of the book/movie versions – I even wrote it all out at some point.
4) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: Oh, how I HATED this book. It gave me the creeps every time I picked it up. But I made it through (after swearing off hot dogs for about 3 years) – one of the first books I truly despised, but managed to stick with it. Later non-fun books ended up being skimmed.
5) Galilee by Clive Barker: A friend mentioned this book to me in passing, and the following week on vacation, the beach house we were staying at happened to have it in the basket. I spent my entire vacation curled up on the beach blanket, reading this book. I (somehow) didn’t finish it, and bought the book with fewer than 100 pages to read. I’ve read it multiple times over, always finding something new in the pages – and one of those books that just evokes such vivid imagery and life.
6) The Harry Potter Series: My sister had me read the 1st one about a week before the movie came out – she insisted that I couldn’t see the movie without reading the book. I obliged, and fell in love. This was the series that made it “ok” to read something just for fun – it didn’t have to challenge me – I could enjoy the story for what it was. And it was awesome.
7) Jemima J: My first foray into “chick lit”. Before then, I eschewed anything with a pink cover and bubble letters. If it looked like pure fluff, it wasn’t worth my time. (Even the HP books were taken seriously since I read them in hardback and without the dust covers.) But this? I blame PMS. And I LOVED it.
My list would have to include Little Women, which I’ve probably read a million times. It might be my favorite book of all time. Pretty much all the Austen books, but Pride and Prejudice is probably my favorite. Then, strangely, A Tale of Two Cities. From a younger age, all the Little House books and Nancy Drew series, as well as Anne of Green Gables. I clearly love the strong female leads.
One of the better fiction novels I’ve read lately is “The Help.” Loved it. Right now I’m reading “Bossypants.” Like I said, I love strong female characters!
LOVE Arrested Development!
As for books: Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, 1984, A Fine Balance, Cat’s Cradle, Lamb…
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes to this list! Virgin Suicides, Harry Potter, Secret Garden & Lord of the Flies totally changed my world around. Also, Middlesex, Illusions by Richard Bach, and the Handmaid’s Tale. So, so good.
Harry Potter, yes yes yes! It’s incredible that a woman under the age of forty had so much language (Greek, Latin and French, at least) at her disposal, not to mention her abundant skill at building characters and plot.
To Kill a Mockingbird, which my son in 7th grade thought was called “How to Kill a Mockingbird.”
Alice in Wonderland, annotated if possible.
The Grapes of Wrath, which always made me hungry.
Pride and Prejudice and Emma, which my ten year old daughter and I read aloud to each other last spring.
FACT: I meant to comment on this post once I’d thought about it. Then I forgot. This is what comes of reading blogs over breakfast.
Little Women was an early one for me (I think I read some sort of abridged or young readers version, because I was pretty young and, while extremely book nerdy, it doesn’t seem realistic that I could have read the real thing). It was enough though to make becoming Jo March my life’s goal. And by far my longest-standing grudge continues to be against Amy March.
Even earlier, I loved Harold and the Purple Crayon books. Yay, imagination!
Then high school happened and I fell deeply in love with To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn. Then senior year I was introduced to one Jane Austen through Pride and Prejudice and decided to become instead a Jo/Elizabeth hybrid. Though later reading revealed to me my inner Elinor Dashwood.
I know a couple of bad books really helped me out too, from an “If this person can get published, surely I can” standpoint. There wouldn’t seem much point in trying to write if you’re only comparing yourself to the Jane Austens of the world.
More recently, I’ve loved Meg Cabot’s adult novels. (Adult as in non-YA. They’re not even terribly racy for chick lit.) And Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series.
Oh, and Anne Lamott. Traveling Mercies, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, Bird by Bird.