Tags
Lots have been important in mine. Below, to limit it, is fiction that shaped my internal geography in vital ways through my childhood and teens:
- Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- “The Women Men Don’t See” by James Tiptree, Jr.
- The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
- The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
What about you?
It’s very hard to separate out favourite books from books that changed/shaped the way you think about the world. Possibly I would suggest these for myself:
Possession by A. S. Byatt
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
And anything by Joanne Horniman, who is still the author who always seems to write what I would write if I ever wrote a YA novel.
The Claidi Journals by Tanith Lee (4 books)
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede (4 books)
The Little Prince <3 <3 <3
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis (also his book The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963)
The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods by Ann Cameron
The View from Saturday by E. L. Kongisburg
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
There’s more but I should probably stop at this point…
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Probably in chronological order, even, at least according to when I read them:
Caddie Woodlawn — by Carol Ryrie Brink
The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (third in the Lioness Rampant series) by Tamora Pierce
Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project
English language books that I think of as part of my brain functioning:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Being and Nothingness> by Jean Paul Sartre
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath
Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teen, Freaks and Other Outlaws by Kate Bornstein
Oh this is a question that makes this librarian so happy! How to choose… here’s just a few.
Cloudstreet – Tim Winton
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Someone Knows My Name – Lawrence Hill
A Last Chance to See – Douglas Adams