Maybe you’ve seen the posts around Facebook, or Brian Klems post on Writer's Digest, or around read on other blogs about the list of 10 books that never left you. Michelle Garrett of Utah Children's Writers blog couldn’t nail down her books so she chose 10 authors. I like the idea of choosing authors because it frees me up to include more books. :)
Here is my list of ten authors that have stuck with me (Suzanne Purvis.) A literary soup across the genres from picture books to adult literary fiction. Some classics, some contemporaries, some serious, some hilarious.
Dr. Seuss - Horton Hears a Who - plus every other one of his fantastical rhyming tales. I loved them growing up, I loved reading them to my kids and I still love them now, including Oh the Places You’ll Go, and You're Only Old Once.
Louisa May Alcott - Little Women - the first book that I cried while reading
Margaret Mitchell - Gone With the Wind - maybe the reason I ended up in the South :)
William Shakespeare - for his love stories - Romeo and Juliet, comedies - Taming of the Shrew, and tragedies, Hamlet and Macbeth - hard to read, but the stories and plots have stuck
Margaret Mitchell - Gone With the Wind - maybe the reason I ended up in the South :)
William Shakespeare - for his love stories - Romeo and Juliet, comedies - Taming of the Shrew, and tragedies, Hamlet and Macbeth - hard to read, but the stories and plots have stuck
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights - because as a teen I fell in love with Heathcliff (who didn’t?)
Margaret Atwood - Edible Woman is my favorite, but Surfacing is a close second
John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meaney, The Hotel New Hampshire, The World According to Garp
Jennifer Crusie - Faking It, Bet Me, Agnes and the Hitman
John Green - this summer I binge-read all his books, but Abundance of Katherines is my favorite, probably because I’m a bit of a math-geek
Kate DiCamillo - The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is wonderful, and her newest Flora and Ulysses is sensational, and who can forget Because of Winn-Dixie
How about you? Which books or authors have had an impact on you?
Feel free to share and comment.
Feel free to share and comment.
Great post!
ReplyDeleteMine include...
Nancy Drew.
Walter Farley.
Victoria Holt.
Sandra Brown.
Laura Kinsale.
Karen Robards.
Janet Dailey.
Margot Early.
Thanks so much for stopping by, D'Ann. I too loved Nancy Drew. She got me hooked on reading books in a series. Lots of great authors on your list, and some I haven't read. I'll check them out.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. It's so difficult to pick ten books so going for authors is a fab idea.
ReplyDeleteHeather, thanks so much for stopping by. I agree totally. Too hard to pick just 10 books. :)
ReplyDeleteI just finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. That was pretty terrific. Earlier today I was reading Kate Chopin, Regret. So many to pick from. I love The Red Pony and Uncle Tom's Cabin. To Kill a Mockingbird, of course! Irish mythology. Oh...poetry! This is still too hard! Maybe we should just go by genres.
ReplyDeleteSia, thanks so much for stopping by. I like your idea of picking 10 genres. :)
DeleteSo many more books we get to include.
Even using authors, this is so hard! I'll try ten different ones from yours, Suzanne, even though I share some of them! Laura Ingalls Wilder John Steinbeck, Jane Austen, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Edith Wharton, Agatha Christie, E.M. Forster, Mark Twain, and for non-fiction, Jonathan Kozol, and Barbara Ehrenreich.
ReplyDeleteWow, Nancy, I love your list. Many are also my favorites (keeping it to ten is just so hard). I haven't read your non-fiction authors. I will check them out. Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteI'm a life-long reader. Romance, mysteries, thrillers, sci fi, fantasy...I read anything--except non-fiction. As a pre-teen, I did lots of babysitting. My favorite "customers" lived down a lonely, wooded road and had an awesome collection of Nancy Drew books! So I guess I should thank Carolyn Keene for planting the seed.
ReplyDeleteI had a long career teaching English to middle schoolers. Judy Blume sparked my girls, and S.E. Hinton lit my boys on fire. And the d'Aulaires with their stories of myths and legends gave them wings to fly. Seeing that reading seed sprout and grow was my greatest reward.
So I can't list 10 favorite books or authors. I can't list 100!
Judy Blume and Carolyn Keen were definitely on my next list of ten. Maybe one hundred should've been the number I used. :)
DeleteThanks for stopping by, Sandy.
I also loved Nancy Drew mysteries and anything by Victoria Holt. The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder was a huge favorite of mine for a long time. As an adult I was obsessed with Kathleen Woodiwiss romances and The Reckless Heart Series by Madeline Baker---yummy Indian romances! Linda Howard, Nora Roberts...so many authors, so little time!
ReplyDeleteOh yes, Linda Howard and Nora Roberts, so many to choose from. Thanks for stopping by, Vicki.
ReplyDeleteGood grief! What a challenge as a voracious reader (or listener at the very beginning). I would read anything I could get my hands on. Dr. Seuss tops the list because I can still recite some of his books. But then my list of those that made the biggest impact takes a turn. Michael Moorcock’s Elric series was the first one I read from beginning to end with each subsequent book I purchased. I can practically recite those, too. Then came Anne McCaffery, Robert Heinlein, Rosemary Rogers and, of course, Stephen King. Actually Rosemary Rogers came in much earlier and I got in a lot of trouble for bring highly sexual historical romances to school in the 3rd grade! That’s six… Bradbury, Asimov, Terry Brooks, and Robert Jordan. There, that’s ten.
ReplyDeleteThat was harder than I thought it would be. I had to discard several that made a negative impact on me for various weird reasons. Great exercise.
Love your list, Anne. Love your third grade story, too funny. Thanks so much for stopping by.
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