This is an amazing question. Three books that helped form me are: Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh; Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself by Sabrina Ward Harrison; and much, much later, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk.
I love that Emily & Italic Type (which I'm about to check out this very minute!) are focusing not on how many books, but the connection that we have with them. For me, that's the whole reason I read: to connect, to characters, settings, authors, ways of being and thinking! For books off the beaten path, these are from the past few years, but all impacted me deeply in a different way: Small Mercies, a middle grade novel from South African author Bridget Krone; Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations, by Richard Wagamese, an indigenous Canadian author; and the novel Against the Loveless World, by Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian-American writer and human rights activist.
Wow, I'll have to check it out. Off the beaten path, you say? A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel by The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, by Lorrie Moore. My favorite reads during the pandemic years were The Comfort Food Diaries, by Emily Nunn, Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood, and American Dervish, by Ayad Akhtar. I really need to find a book group...
This is fantastic--love the work being done with Italic Type.
My three books...what a question. Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty, Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, and either The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. They were each an important part of figuring out who I am as a person and a reader.
I credit The Phantom Tollbooth with turning me into a voracious reader. I just loved the idea of disappearing into a strange world full of Dulldrums and Watchdogs. I recently re-read Mandy by Julie Andrews, my mom gave it to me in an Easter basket when I was 9 and I still have that copy, 50 years later. Also must include The Secret Garden by Frances H. Burnett, another great story to escape into. Any book by Judy Blume, too.
Amusing Ourselves To Death is a great read. As a youth, I remember the Homer Price books, Emil and the Detectives, and, what I thought was, The Mystery of Green Knoll, but I couldn't find it via a search. Perhaps my all-time favorite that was a big influence is, Last Exit To Brooklyn, which I've read four times.
The Black Stallion as a child. The Hobbit and the LOTR triligy as a teen. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in college. Honorable mention to The Elements of Style in college and still used today. Now reading The Club by Leo Damrosch. I can't help but mention Rex Stout - all! LOL
This is an amazing question. Three books that helped form me are: Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh; Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself by Sabrina Ward Harrison; and much, much later, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk.
I love that Emily & Italic Type (which I'm about to check out this very minute!) are focusing not on how many books, but the connection that we have with them. For me, that's the whole reason I read: to connect, to characters, settings, authors, ways of being and thinking! For books off the beaten path, these are from the past few years, but all impacted me deeply in a different way: Small Mercies, a middle grade novel from South African author Bridget Krone; Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations, by Richard Wagamese, an indigenous Canadian author; and the novel Against the Loveless World, by Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian-American writer and human rights activist.
Wow, I'll have to check it out. Off the beaten path, you say? A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel by The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, by Lorrie Moore. My favorite reads during the pandemic years were The Comfort Food Diaries, by Emily Nunn, Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood, and American Dervish, by Ayad Akhtar. I really need to find a book group...
This is fantastic--love the work being done with Italic Type.
My three books...what a question. Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty, Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, and either The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. They were each an important part of figuring out who I am as a person and a reader.
I credit The Phantom Tollbooth with turning me into a voracious reader. I just loved the idea of disappearing into a strange world full of Dulldrums and Watchdogs. I recently re-read Mandy by Julie Andrews, my mom gave it to me in an Easter basket when I was 9 and I still have that copy, 50 years later. Also must include The Secret Garden by Frances H. Burnett, another great story to escape into. Any book by Judy Blume, too.
Amusing Ourselves To Death is a great read. As a youth, I remember the Homer Price books, Emil and the Detectives, and, what I thought was, The Mystery of Green Knoll, but I couldn't find it via a search. Perhaps my all-time favorite that was a big influence is, Last Exit To Brooklyn, which I've read four times.
The Black Stallion as a child. The Hobbit and the LOTR triligy as a teen. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in college. Honorable mention to The Elements of Style in college and still used today. Now reading The Club by Leo Damrosch. I can't help but mention Rex Stout - all! LOL