How can an avid, lifelong reader have only one answer to that question? I have been an independent reader since I was four years old, which makes for more than 40 years of hitting the books. Different books have affected me in different ways over lo these many years, but in roughly chronological order, I'll highlight a few that have truly stayed with me over time.
(Note that I've always had a completist streak; especially when I was younger, I tended to want to read everything my favorite authors wrote - and if I was truly obsessed, I'd want to read about them, too. Also note that sometimes a book doesn't have to be Serious Highbrow Literature to have an impact.)
- Little Women, its sequels, and the other youth novels of Louisa May Alcott: I touched on this a bit when I recently reviewed The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees. I read and re-read most of the novels, and sought out biographies of the author. Little Women in particular shaped my behavior for years to come in some respects; the love everyone seemed to have for shy, quiet Beth inspired this childhood chatterbox to become a bit more retiring. This hasn't always been a good thing, though, as it's led to a learned timidity that I still struggle with. It was a challenge to grasp that the culture and manners of the 1860's really weren't always that helpful in navigating the late 20th century.
- The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank: Every attempt I've ever made a keeping a journal can be traced back to this book, although this is far from the ordinary "diary of a young girl."
- A Wrinkle in Time, its sequels, and the other youth novels of Madeleine L'Engle: Madeleine superseded Louisa in my author pantheon as I went through junior high and into high school. As I noted when I reviewed Lizzie Skurnick's reading memoir Shelf Discovery,
"Madeleine L'Engle's "holy trinity" of teen heroines is discussed at length, with the premise that all of us were either a Meg (Murry), a Vicky (Austin), or a Polly (O'Keefe). (I was a Meg, definitely. Vicky always had too many boys flocking around for me to relate to her. Speaking of boys, how could I have forgotten Zachary Grey, the Heathcliff of my youth - or is he the non-vampire Edward Cullen? Oh, that's right, I can't stand boys like that. I probably blocked him out.)"
I was a Meg because I identified with the brainy, ugly-duckling misfit. (Still do, I guess.) I read everything of L'Engle's I could get my hands on, although I wasn't quite as entranced by her adult novels as I was with her YA fiction; I also read quite a bit of her nonfiction, which may have been my earliest exposure to memoir (although I wouldn't have known to describe it that way at the time). As an interesting side note, I've recently discovered that L'Engle has a granddaughter who is following in her footsteps: Léna Roy's first YA novel, Edges, will be published later this year, and in the meantime, she writes a pretty engaging blog.
- Forever..., by Judy Blume: This novel was the "first time" for many, many of us, I suspect...
- The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood: I read this post-college, at a time when conservative, religion-driven forces were really beginning to steer current events, and it seemed quite plausible - and utterly terrifying - to me. Unfortunately, it still does.
- A History of God, by Karen Armstrong: Objective study of various religions can do a lot to dislodge any certainty that any one of them is the "right" one. During my mid-to-late thirties, a lot of my certainties were dislodged - and during the years since, I've come to be grateful for that (in some cases, anyway).
- Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, by Julie Powell: The book that inspired me to kick this "blogging" thing around, and make it more than just a reading journal, has certainly impacted the last several years of my life!
Because books have an impact and make a difference, BlogHer.com and BookRenter, a company that rents textbooks to college students, have joined forces. From May 3-28, they are working together to make a difference in children's lives by donating books to Head Start -- a federal program for preschool children from low-income families that helps them prepare for kindergarten -- via the nonprofit organization First Book.
The Head Start program is operated by local non-profit organizations in almost every county in the country, and with them children participate in educational activities, receive free medical and dental care and get healthy meals and snacks.
Want to help? Check out sassymonkey's BlogHer post, Books Make a Difference: Share a Book That Changed Your Life to Donate a Book to a Child in Need, and answer this question in the comments:
What book has had the greatest impact on your life?
For every answer BlogHer receives in the comments on that post, BookRenter will donate one book to Head Start (up to 1,000 books).
Want to help even more? You can do what I'm doing right here. Blog about the campaign, then add the specific URL of your post to Mr. Linky, and BlogHer and BookRenter will add another book to the tally.
photo credit: PicApp/BlogHer.com
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