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

[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.