Core texts.

[eurydicebound]

If you tend toward books (and if you don't at least somewhat, the odds of you being an LJ devotee to whatever degree are pretty slim), then it's a good bet that you've got a number of books that really resonated with you, often to the extent of informing your development as a person and your view of the world. These are not always classics of literature. Often they are, viewed objectively, really deeply awful books. That's not the point. The point is that they were the right (or wrong, nothing says they had to have a positive influence) thing for you to read at the right time, and they stayed with you in a meaningful way.

The number of these varies, but most people if queried can come up with three of them. One or more of them were likely encountered between the ages of 11 and 13, and may have been the first "grown up" book you read. Beyond that, I can't think of any set pattern, and even those may just be a coincidental cluster of data points. Nonetheless, I'm newly fascinated by this question and I wish to ask it here.

Help me out then, my friends. Name your top three core texts. If you wish to include age when encountered, positive or negative influence, general summary of the text, or type of influence it exerted on you, that would be likewise awesome. I wanna know about YOU! And books! Humor me. :)

Comments

[hot493.livejournal.com]

SO core texts for me..
Definately Stranger in a Strange Land. This book has meant different things to me in different stages of my life. I first read it as a teenager and really did not agree with any of it and found it offensive. As I have gotten older I grok the book more and feel a connection to it.

The Ethical Slut this book has helped me figure out how I want to live and love in life. I have passed this book on to multiple different people and when I first read it I recieved it as a gift from a dear friend.

I'll have to put some thought into other books that have touched me on a really deep level.

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

The Hex Witch of Seldom by Nancy Springer; copies of Playboy magazine at Mom's friends' houses; Judy Blume's Forever. All in my early teens or younger, and they all had an influence on my sexuality, or at least what I thought and felt about sex and relationships.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Critical thinking:
works of C. S. Lewis, including apologetics and lit crit books -- teens
works of Ayn Rand -- high school
Rose Macaulay, the 1950s New Yorker, Angela Thirkell, etc etc; language used consciously, self-consciously, good-naturedly

Values:
Lang's fairy tales; adventure stories; the good old stuff

[herrw.livejournal.com]

Wow... ok, here goes:

1st, Johnathan Livingston Seagull, at the age of 5 or 6. I can't remember which. I read it and re-read it at least a thousand times through to my 16th year or so. Several times since, as well. I believe it was written by Richard Bachman. Might have the name wrong. Regardless, it convinced me that I wanted to fly, although I didn't quite know how. I still think that roof-top jump would have worked if the cape hadn't fallen off.

2nd: The collected works of Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Barsoom stage. They opened my mind to the magic of possibility, even though the concepts were dated and largely unrealistic.

3rd: the 'Riddle of Stars' trillogy by Patricia A. McKillip, made up of "Riddle Master of Hed", "Heir of Sea and Fire", and "Harpist in the Wind". They set my mind on fire, and convinced me to begin writing at age 12. That year, I took first place in the young author's conference, and the rest was history.

4th: the series that solidified my outlook on life and convinced me that I was not a wierdo: Midshipman's Hope. There were others, most notably the works of Aeschillus (which I translated at college and happily so) but they didn't have the same effect on me. I don't remember the author, nor the year it was published. I was in my mid 20's, I think, and trying desperately to convince myself that I was not the self-absorbed waste of human flesh that I had become. The 'Hope' series gave me a protagonist who resembled who I was striving to become. It sounds silly, but there were few positive role models to follow at that time.

I should add that authors who also seriously shaped my thinking and my life were (in no particular order):

Robert H. Heinlein
J.R.R. Tolkein
Aldulous Huxley
Neitche (oppositely... I utterly rejected his thoughts)
Machiaveli (neutrally. I used him to understand power and its machinations)
Kung Fu Tse (I read the Analects at age 8, because there was nothing else around at the time. They are candy for a young mind.)

That's my list. Note the lack of smut or porn. It isn't because I thought them wrong or disinteresting, but rather that the printed word seemed sacred somehow, and to allow it to devolve from a communication of deep thought and shadowed beauty to an arena of base, carnal pleasure seemed sacrilege somehow. I've never quite gotten over that. Don't much want to, these days, though I do not think less of those who explore that avenue of desire. It's just empty somehow, which makes it undesireable for me.

Hope this meets your wishes.

[mysticalforest.livejournal.com]

In no order:

• D&D books, without question.
• The Left Hand of Darkness. Probably the most formative book on how I read books. This was an awful, terrible book. It convinced me that if a book isn't good in its first chapter—it's not a good book no matter what anyone says and it should be abandoned immediately. Life's too short and there are too many books. That samples of ebooks usually include the first chapter is something I find deliriously awesome and reason #789 why I prefer them over physical books. LHoD also showed me that book awards are suspect. I bought the book solely because it was an award winner (I'd never heard of it) and I haven't paid attention to book awards since.
• 2010: Odyssey Two. I read this book instead of studying for finals in high school and was the first book I can remember being one that I had to give priority over other things I was doing.

I'm sure there are others but that's three. ;)

[eynowd.livejournal.com]

I think for me, the top three would have to be:

Urban Shaman by Serge Kahili King. It's a book about the Hawaiian Huna shamanic tradition and when I first read it back in 1995, it resonated really strongly for me. I remember just about bursting into tears that night, because things suddenly made more sense to me. I still love rereading it and some of the ideas in it have changed my life and thinking forever.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I first heard about this one watching Northern Exposure back in about 1993 and laughed at the title. My flatmate wandered into his room, and wandered back out with a copy which he handed to me. I read it then, but didn't understand it. It wasn't until a couple of years later when I reread it that I got what Pirsig was on about. I reread it every couple of years to remind me. It, and the sequel Lila, have both had a profound effect on my thinking.

Missing Persons League by Frank Bonham. I bought this back in 1979 from the Scholastic bookclub and I still own it (albeit in a very battered form). It's a science fiction story about the breakdown of the environment that's years ahead of its time. I still love rereading it, even though it only takes me a couple of hours to get through the whole book these days. There's just elements in the story that really capture my attention and I adore it.

[knowmad.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd have to say "Frankenstein." For me, it's about the struggle to deal with being a creation in a world in which your creator is indifferent and cold to you, and everything is hard because of that. Needless to say, I've often felt it.

Reading early Marvel and some DC comics in reprints, like, say, the first six issues of Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, or Dr. Strange in editions by, I think, Fireside Books. Hard to explain what the influences on me are, but, even now, I get a charge thinking about those comics.

"The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov ... not a book, but I read it as a short story in a book. Got me excited in thinking about old stories and ideas in new ways.

[effrenatus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if my lame data point helps, but I don't think I fit this pattern. If there's a single book that has most influenced my life path, it's probably The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. A sitter read it to my sister and me when I was about five, even doing voices. It was probably my strongest, earliest push towards fantasy, and I can't think of a book I've read more times.

Between 11 and 13 I was probably reading Tolkien, Donaldson, King, and the like, but I can't think of any singular books that really affected me. I was also still reading young adult fiction, I'm sure. I read a lot more back then.

[doccross.livejournal.com]

1: Pretty much everything by Dr. Seuss (ages 3 to 7-8)
2: My Life And Hard Times by James Thurber (age 11)
3: At The Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (age 11)

Of course, other books came along thick & fast before I hit my teens. The Sherlock Holmes stories, various sci-fi collections, Doc Savage, The Shadow, any book on animals or dinosaurs that I could find.

[shellyinseattle.livejournal.com]

LotR. So far above everything else I can't even think of a 2nd or 3rd.

Tried packing these books up for summer camp, but my mom knew me well enough to search my luggage the night before and confiscated them.

I debated putting them back in, but figured mom would re-check, so decided to memorize various poems instead, which I still remember to this day. Yeah, core geek here.

And I still don't come close to John R.

[shellyinseattle.livejournal.com]

Actually, I did have another book but I haven't re-read it since I was young nor need to own multiple copies like LotR.

D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d'Aulaire and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, which influenced my turning away from religion. I checked it out from the school library again and again and again when I was about 7. Kept seeing the parallels between it and what I was being taught in Sunday school, and questioned why one was religion and the other myth.

[mudcactus.livejournal.com]

1. Our Bodies, Ourselves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Bodies,_Ourselves
My mom passed me this book when I was pretty young (maybe 9?) and I read it over and over as I digested the info. Before that book, I had not realized that the vagina and the urethral opening were two separate holes. I was shocked that there. The stories and information in there were also from a feminist - learn to depend upon and do it yourself - viewpoint and I have no doubt that influenced my personality.

2. The Dragonriders of Pern series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern
10ish - 14
Strong female characters and I'll admit I was obsessed with the whole telepathic dragons thing. I would dream about dragons and I wanted one so bad.

3. Clan of the Cave Bear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clan_of_the_Cave_Bear
12-14yrs
Interesting book on social commentary and probably influenced my view on people who have physical deformities/handicaps

[bodybag-pilgrim.livejournal.com]

Jebus. JUST three?

OK, le's see.

Cannery Row by Steinbeck. I first read this when I was twelve. Fifteen years on, I'm scheduled to reread it next year (it gets read every two years) and it remails a core text because I haven't read the same book twice. The piece in the introduction about the man looking through the knothole and seeing " 'whores and pimps and sons of bitches' by which he meant Everybody. Had he looked through another hole he would have said 'saints and angels and holy men' and he would have meant the same thing," becomes more true the more I've read it.

Starship Troopers AND Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein
This two have to be considered as a pair. One of them read, first off, as a paean to a militaristic restricted-franchise democracy. The second was a radically (to my 16-year-old mind) anti-government attitude. The two coming from the same writer triggered a level of... thought... about my own political beliefs I would have entirely ignored had they been written by two separate people.

Here is where it gets tricky. One slot left, and so many options...

Mmm. I'm gonna say The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis, aged five. A hand-me-down, beaten, slightly torn copy from my elder siblings, with illustrations that felt scratched out by pen nib. I'd not read the others. I can trace my fascination with books that force you to decude the setting from context to it, and you could cheerfully argue that I'd not have had much of the early spiritual/philosophical past I had without it. Otherwise, this might have been the book that persuaded me to right, or the book that I consider the model of economical storytelling and characterisation, or the book that got me into unusual writing styles, or...

Also, totally borrowing this for my own LJ.

[heronymus-waat.livejournal.com]

Hm. OK.

1) Starship Troopers. I read it at 13, which was the PERFECT age to read this book. Other books had talked about some of the things in it, but ST was the only book to put everything in one package. It changed the way I thought about being a citizen. I never wanted to join the military because of it, but it did help me to realize that citizenship was a participatory experience.

2) A Prayer For Owen Meany. It was the first book I read that actually SHOOK me, to the core, at the end. I tend to re-read it every year or two, and I still think that if you can finish the book's last 50 pages without crying, you're not human.

3) Believe it or not, Catcher in the Rye. I hated reading it, but I'm glad I did; it was my first experience with the Unreliable Narrator, and it was the first book where I could both identify with the main character and at the same time hated his guts. It helped me to see that you don't have to like a book to take something away from it. Which helped me to get through all of those Hemmingway books later on.

[owen-stephens.livejournal.com]

Galactic Patrol (Doc Smith), Starship Troopers (Heinlein), and John Carter of Mars (Burroughs). All of which were in the bookcases than lines the hallway from the living room to my bedroom as a child. I read each at least once a year from the ages of 7-17, and several times each in the decades since.

I'm not sure if I was affected more by books themselves, or by the fact I grew up in a house that had shelves full of similar novels.

[fortinbras16.livejournal.com]

1) The Narnia books. Combined with an audio book of the Hobbit, I think this set my love of fantasy, somewhere around the age of 4 or 5.

2)Dragonsword - probably an objectively terrible book in retrospect, which I why I haven't re-read the series in about 16 years. It was the first book I read that dealt with really SERIOUS adult stuff. I picked it up at age 10 or so. The fantasy world had somehow sprung from the mind of a sad old professor, and was tailor-made to live up to his need to fight and evil empire. The problem was, the "enemy" actually were PEOPLE, and he wasn't able to realize that at first. Issues of rape, self-loathing, grey areas I didn't find in earlier fantasy I had read, a group of characters being forcibly gender-swapped (and dealing relatively realistically with the aftermath), women's rights, and a smattering of pacifism and anti-war politics. It was pretty deep stuff for me at that age.

3) Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. Read it right before I went to college, and it kind of ties to that period of life in my head. It's not a massively deep book, but it deals well with issues of trying to figure out where you're going that crop up at that age. It's comfort food, really.

[ennui-13.livejournal.com]

Oh my... 3?
Emil the Detective: I couldn't see (and nobody knew) until the summer between 3rd and 4th grade. Until then I was stuck with small kids books because I couldn't read well. Emil was far superior to all of them and I read it a bajillion times.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: It took about 2 days to learn to read after I got the glasses. I read this over the summer. I think it affected me mostly because of the shock on the librarians face when she learned I had read it ... just after she tried to shove another Dr. Seuss in my hands.

I'm sorry I have to split it and make it 4.
The Dark is Rising: The first non-classic fantasy book I read which I was picking off the shelf when the librarian moved in with the Hop on Pop (which I also still love in a truly maniacal way). The split decision is The Man Who Was Thursday, which I stole off of the librarians chair on the same day. Vengeance reading. Yes, this morphed me horribly so.

[metallian.livejournal.com]

I about two weeks ago (while interviewing high school students for college admissions), I realized that I derived very little benefit from most of the books that I read in my formative years. This includes serious literature.

I read a lot, and was capable of churning out A-level schoolwork on my reading, but nothing really touched me or influenced my thinking very much. I generally dismissed most school-assigned reading as "books about how people were jerks in the old days," and even some of my self-directed reading of literature was driven by the sense that "this is something that smart people are supposed to read, so I'll read it." You could say that I memorized everything but understood little. I chalk this up to a combination of academic arrogance, a very sheltered environment, and how I was raised. I regret it immensely.

I suspect that I would have latched on to Ayn Rand big time and become insufferably smug about it, so I'm glad I never heard of her until later in life. Similarly, I read Ender's Game a few years ago and enjoyed it, but I could tell that I'd have enjoyed it a little too much in my youth.

Two books I do wish I had read earlier are Stranger in a Strange Land and Small Gods. I think they'd have gotten through to me and done me some good when I was younger. As it was, by the time they found me, they were preaching to the choir.

[metallian.livejournal.com]

Actually...I take it back, at least partially. While many perfectly good books did bounce off of my mental force field, a scan of my bookshelf after getting up from the computer made me realize that some did make it through:

1984 made a big impression on me! I think I took some of the wrong lessons away from it, but I also took some of the right ones.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy strongly influenced my sense of humor, and probably also nurtured my budding cynical/skeptical side.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, as a biography, gave me a much-needed window onto the real world (albeit dated) through the eyes of someone I could at least sort of relate to. He was a nerd (as I fancied myself at the time...I'm not as smart as I thought I was) but he was cool and funny got out and lived. A shocking development, from my young perspective.


Honorable mentions go to a book on the history of Communist China and a book on The Reformation that I read under the tutelage of a very special high school history teacher (in retrospect, those classes were amazing, and basically college-level). I don't remember the titles, but they opened my eyes to just how big, and different, and strange, and complicated the world really was.