100 books that most influenced me

[silverflight8]

https://www.listchallenges.com/books-that-influenced-silver/

100 books that most influenced me personally. How many have you read?

Comments

[ambyr]

45! We might have some commonality of taste. And I can't believe I forgot My Father's Dragon.

[silverflight8]

Oooh, no doubt!!
I love My Father's Dragon so much.

[hamsterwoman]

The Endless Steppe! Wow, it's been 35 years since I thought about the existence of that book... It was not foundational for me, but it might be the first proper-length book I read in English, because we were reading it in my 6th grade class and that was before I started reading for pleasure.

Lovely to see Brust on there :D

[silverflight8]

It was in an elementary school classroom library and it stuck with me. I think I learned about pushing back one's cuticles then, though it'd be another like 20 years until I did that with mine lmfao

Of course!

[landofnowhere]

44/100! Flatland! (Though TBH my edition was in a 2-in-1 omnibus with Sphereland by Dionys Burger, which captured my imagination even more.)

[silverflight8]

That's a lot! and OMG, that means I should check out Sphereland immediately, thanks for the rec!

[landofnowhere]

Yes, please do and report back! (Though it probably can't actually be as good as I thought it was when I was 10 :-) )

[silverflight8]

Ha, it sounds fun though! And will do.

[landofnowhere]

Oh, right, also The Spirit Lens was the other book that I wasn't expecting to see on a booklist! (Though I think I liked Berg's Lighthouse Duet better once I got past the initial slog, but I have not reread it.)

[silverflight8]

Hm, I haven't tried that one. I did try to read Dust and Light and got distracted by how much it was like Spirit Lens, so kind of foundered. But for whatever reason Spirit Lens I really love. Plus, Ilario de Sylvae!!

[landofnowhere]

Yes, Carol Berg is very much doing A Thing. The Lighthouse Duet was the first of her books that I read, and I think maybe the Spirit Lens was the most recent, which may be why I like it less -- though also I felt like the series did not stick the landing, with my memories of book 3 mostly being *have we tortured Portier enough? of course not, this is Carol Berg!*. I liked book 2 the best of the series; book 1 felt unsatsifying because I could tell there was another twist to the mystery plot, and was hoping Portier would figure this out, but no, it was left for book 2.

Ilario de Sylvae indeed! :-D

[silverflight8]

She LOVES to whump her male heroes. Which is not really my thing but is definitely hers XD
Ahh that makes a lot of sense - I started from Spirit Lens, so that probably accounts for it. Agreed on the disappointment of the third book. COMPLETELY agreed about poor Portier. I like Anne's book though.

He is my fount of joy in these books. I have an awful weakness for swordsmen, AND fools that are secretly smart, so it was like a double-collision of things I like!

[landofnowhere]

Oh, also, if you aren't aware, Carol Berg also wrote a trio of fantasy heist novels published under the name Cate Glass. They are maybe a bit lighter in tone than her other work though otherwise pretty similar.

[silverflight8]

Thanks for the tip! Yes I could do with a little less grim.

[spiralsheep]

About a third, which is surprisingly high considering you listed children's books that didn't exist when I was a child (and some novels not easily available over here except as ebooks that I don't read). If we added + related media in franchise then we'd have even more crossover, although not at an author level.

[silverflight8]

That is a lot. I agree, the overlap definitely has a generational aspect to it. There's also more Canlit than I thought there'd be, haha

[morbane]

34! Adequate.

[silverflight8]

That is a lot!! Some of my friends' I only got like 11, haha.

[delphi]

19! (Plus one that was assigned reading in high school that I absolutely refused to crack, and now I've always meant to read it as an adult.)

And oh man, I'd forgotten about Kit Pearson's Guests of War books, but I really liked those as a kid.

[silverflight8]

omg the falseknees icon, I love it.

Ha, what was the assigned one?

Kit Pearson deserves a medal. *looks it up* She's a Member of the Order of Canada. Deserved.

[delphi]

Aw, that's lovely to know that Kit Pearson got the Order of Canada!

The book I refused to read was The Mayor of Casterbridge. I don't know what it was about it - I was bad about doing assigned reading in general, but usually I'd at least skim something. But I absolutely refused to with this one. I wrote an exam on it, complete with essay question, but it lived in the bottom of my backpack for two months. I think I was just having a particularly teenage time of things.

[silverflight8]

Ooh, that one is a bit difficult. I nearly quit in the very first chapter, which made me really mad. But I really liked the rest, hah.

It really is amazing how putting a book on a Must Read List makes my interest drop like a rock, lol. You're so not alone!!

[littleoldliv]

Wow, I'm a pretty voracious reader (especially in my first three decades of life) and I've only read 19 of these. I'm going to have fun choosing some!

[silverflight8]

Honestly, in some ways, it's more about how similar our early reading contexts were! A lot of these formative books happened when I was a young reader, and did not have a lot of ability to seek out books I knew I'd like - just read whatever was available to me. So it's tilted towards books that were literally physically near me haha. Hope you enjoy these new ones!