life-changing books
scribblingwoman and The Guardian pursue the question: what books can change a woman's life? The results are a bit interesting; I didn't realize so many women were Douglas Adams fans (bad gender knee jerk!) but are mostly typical fare like Austen and the Bronte sisters. (Have I yet mentioned my Bronte story? Sorry to slip into an anecdote, but I swear this conversation actually happened the first time I met a friend of a friend in college. He looks at me, takes in the glasses and the complete lack of response to childish jokes, and says, "Are you like, a writer or something?" I admit that I have been known to put pen to paper, as it were. "Yeah. Yeah," he says, real enthused now. "I knew it. You've got that... what's-her-name look about you. Like, the one who wrote that book that, uh, I read in high school? "Wuthering Heights" I think..." "You mean, Emily Bronte?" "Yeah. Yeah. Like her.")
Anyway, back to the main point, books that have changed my life. Since I haven't yet reached the quarter-way mark, I'm a bit hesitant to say, considering that I haven't read most of what I want to read yet. It is quite possible that I could agree with them that George Eliot's Middlemarch is a work of genius and earth-shattering... but I haven't gotten that far down my reading list. I will admit, however, that pretty much every book that has become my most beloved and most frequently re-read started off as a book that I initially detested or put aside through boredom, head pain, or whatever. For example:
1. Elizabeth Peters' The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog. It was the book that started the whole Peters' obsession and made me a confirmed follower of historical fiction, the good and the bad. I had bought it, if memory serves, because the cover's hieroglyphics looked cool, and set it aside because then (I was in ninth grade) I went through a "modern phase" in which I wouldn't read anything for recreational purposes that wasn't set in the present day. (Yeah, like that was gonna last.) Forced myself to crack it open on a plane ride back to the States from Poland and devoured it in a matter of hours, only to re-read it first thing the following morning in a gleeful jet-lagged stupor. In the few precious weeks before school started again, I had read everything Peters' had published... ever... and all pseudonymns. I still hold her as one of my favorite authors of all time. (So it's not Dickens. Bite me, I love my Amelia Peabody.)
2. Dorothy Dunnett's Game of Kings,, the first of the Lymond Chronicles. Picked it up because I read an interview of E. Peters wherein she confessed that her fantastic character John Tregarth was slightly based off of Dunnett's Lymond. As I was head over heels for John (still am, ::sigh::), I thought I'd give his precursor a try. Dear god, I thought I'd shoot myself reading that first chapter. It sat on my shelf for almost two years before I revisited it, and had no idea what my former problem had been. Utterly fantastic and started me on such a binge with the rest of the series that lasted one glorious year (and god help me, I'm terribly in love with him too.)
3. Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter mysteries. As a youngster I rifled through my mother's bookshelf without compunction. Every Agatha Christie was done by seventh grade. However, a paperback copy of Murder Must Advertise remained elusive and boring to my middle school tastes. Too English, too weird, too hard, too... whatever. It took a reading of Gaudy Night in high school (and for the life of me, I can't remember how it fell into my hands, or how I was persuaded to read it...) to secure my deep and abiding love for Peter Wimsey. I have read that book too many times to count- more than some Peters' books, which is really saying something.
Those are really the big three for me, those authors, those books will never leave me for the rest of my life I am certain. But were they life-altering? Not really. I remember one of the first books that I re-re-re-read was Paul Zindel's The Pigman and the first real historical novel (which is most likely to blame for the life-lasting obsession) was Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle from fifth grade English. Finishing the last book, down to the very last footnote of Lord of the Rings certainly felt like a considerable right of passage, but I don't really think it affected me any more than the movies. Tom Jones was a similar experience- I was unbelievably proud of myself for tackling that on my own (not to mention enjoying it). I have a sneaking suspicion that whenever I pick up the huge Collette anthology that has been collecting dust, I will fall in love with Claudine (at least, that's the prediction from the very patient family friend who loaned me the book).
I will say that Dickens does grow on a person, and that it helps considerably if you pass over Great Expectations in favor of A Tale of Two Cities. (And yes, David Copperfield is on my big book list. I'll let you know how that turns out if I ever live long enough to get to it. Especially now that I've added all these women's life-changing books to my list.)
Anyway, back to the main point, books that have changed my life. Since I haven't yet reached the quarter-way mark, I'm a bit hesitant to say, considering that I haven't read most of what I want to read yet. It is quite possible that I could agree with them that George Eliot's Middlemarch is a work of genius and earth-shattering... but I haven't gotten that far down my reading list. I will admit, however, that pretty much every book that has become my most beloved and most frequently re-read started off as a book that I initially detested or put aside through boredom, head pain, or whatever. For example:
1. Elizabeth Peters' The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog. It was the book that started the whole Peters' obsession and made me a confirmed follower of historical fiction, the good and the bad. I had bought it, if memory serves, because the cover's hieroglyphics looked cool, and set it aside because then (I was in ninth grade) I went through a "modern phase" in which I wouldn't read anything for recreational purposes that wasn't set in the present day. (Yeah, like that was gonna last.) Forced myself to crack it open on a plane ride back to the States from Poland and devoured it in a matter of hours, only to re-read it first thing the following morning in a gleeful jet-lagged stupor. In the few precious weeks before school started again, I had read everything Peters' had published... ever... and all pseudonymns. I still hold her as one of my favorite authors of all time. (So it's not Dickens. Bite me, I love my Amelia Peabody.)
2. Dorothy Dunnett's Game of Kings,, the first of the Lymond Chronicles. Picked it up because I read an interview of E. Peters wherein she confessed that her fantastic character John Tregarth was slightly based off of Dunnett's Lymond. As I was head over heels for John (still am, ::sigh::), I thought I'd give his precursor a try. Dear god, I thought I'd shoot myself reading that first chapter. It sat on my shelf for almost two years before I revisited it, and had no idea what my former problem had been. Utterly fantastic and started me on such a binge with the rest of the series that lasted one glorious year (and god help me, I'm terribly in love with him too.)
3. Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter mysteries. As a youngster I rifled through my mother's bookshelf without compunction. Every Agatha Christie was done by seventh grade. However, a paperback copy of Murder Must Advertise remained elusive and boring to my middle school tastes. Too English, too weird, too hard, too... whatever. It took a reading of Gaudy Night in high school (and for the life of me, I can't remember how it fell into my hands, or how I was persuaded to read it...) to secure my deep and abiding love for Peter Wimsey. I have read that book too many times to count- more than some Peters' books, which is really saying something.
Those are really the big three for me, those authors, those books will never leave me for the rest of my life I am certain. But were they life-altering? Not really. I remember one of the first books that I re-re-re-read was Paul Zindel's The Pigman and the first real historical novel (which is most likely to blame for the life-lasting obsession) was Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle from fifth grade English. Finishing the last book, down to the very last footnote of Lord of the Rings certainly felt like a considerable right of passage, but I don't really think it affected me any more than the movies. Tom Jones was a similar experience- I was unbelievably proud of myself for tackling that on my own (not to mention enjoying it). I have a sneaking suspicion that whenever I pick up the huge Collette anthology that has been collecting dust, I will fall in love with Claudine (at least, that's the prediction from the very patient family friend who loaned me the book).
I will say that Dickens does grow on a person, and that it helps considerably if you pass over Great Expectations in favor of A Tale of Two Cities. (And yes, David Copperfield is on my big book list. I'll let you know how that turns out if I ever live long enough to get to it. Especially now that I've added all these women's life-changing books to my list.)
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