Ten Books that Changed My Life

Many cool people like truepenny, Kate Nepveu, yhlee, and others who can be found on my friends list are writing, not about the best books they ever read or even the ones they loved the most, but the ones that were most influential. Here's mine, in more-or-less chronological order.

1. BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL, by Robert McCloskey

Sal and her mother go blueberry picking, but little do they know that a mama bear and her cub are also on a hunt for blueberries. Sal and the cub get so distracted by the sweet juicy berries that they end up following the wrong mamas. I'm pretty sure this gentle picture book was the first book I ever read by myself.

2. The ST. CLARE'S series, by Enid Blyton

A frightfully British series about a wildly idealized boarding school for girls. This got me hooked on the dreadful yet strangely compelling Enid Blyton, and also on many other girls' boarding school series. This probably warped my development, but it did give me lots of insight into why J. K. Rowling is so popular-- it's the idealized boarding school element, which is like crack for ten-year-olds.

3. ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL, by James Herriot

That and its three sequels are true stories about life as a country veterinarian in Yorkshire. They're extremely funny and often poignant, yet not at all sappy and rarely sentimental. I read them and decided to become a veterinarian. I even worked for a vet for years. Eventually I figured out that I just wanted to tell stories like Herriot did-- it was his writing I liked, not his job. Later I studied his books to learn how to structure chapters as individual short stories with beginnings, middles, ends, and punchy final lines.

4 and 5. DRAGONSONG, by Anne McCaffrey; THE STARS ARE OURS! by Andre Norton

My introduction to genre in general and science fiction in particular. I write about this experience at some length here:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020708/twelve.shtml

6 and 7. THE OTHER GLASS TEAT, by Harlan Ellison; also many of his short story collections

This collection of gonzo essays on old TV shows I'd never even heard of before blew off the top of my head when I was twelve. Harlan Ellison tends to have that effect on people. He ranted, he used slang, he talked about intimate and emotional details of his personal life, he insulted bad TV and praised the good stuff, and he made himself the most vivid character in a book of essays that were supposed to be about television shows.

I wrote my name and number on the inside cover, along with a plea that if anyone found it, they should return it because it meant so much to me. I also devoured his books of short stories, whose introductions also talked about himself in scarily honest detail. I'd never read anything that real in my life, raw as a scraped knee.

Ellison taught me that it was possible to write about one's real self and the squirmy details of one's private life, publish it, and not get struck by lightning. The rest is history.

8. THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, by T. H. White

My father read this aloud to me when I was ten or so, but it wasn't influential till years later. The young King Arthur, a boy called Wart who's ignorant of his parentage, is transformed into a series of animals by Merlyn to teach him life lessons which will make him become a good king.

The most haunting episode is one where Wart becomes a hawk in the mews. The hawks have a military fellowship, and they set him a challenge: he must stand beside the mad and murderous hawk Colonel Cully while the other raptors ring the bells three times. He also becomes an ant in a totalitarian ant colony on Merlyn's table, which is preparing for war with another colony-- a pointed and very funny episode-- and a goose flying with a peaceful flock.

It's a madly strange book, like many classic British fantasies, as full of deliberate anachronisms and homages and lists of items as a fruitcake is full of less pleasant things.

You can read it as a kid and love it, but it was the first book I re-read as an adult and realized how much I'd missed earlier. The part that really blew my mind is when Wart is telling Merlyn how fun war must be. Merlyn tries to disillusion him, but Wart is adamant. Finally, Merlyn, White, notes in the narration, seems to change the subject, and asks Wart which he preferred, the ants or the wild geese. When I first read it, and many times afterward, I took that at face value. I must have been twenty before I realized that Merlyn hadn't changed the subject. That was my first encounter with the power of understatement and suggestion.

9. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

I saw Kenneth Branagh's HENRY V when I was sixteen, because my teacher offered extra credit for seeing it and a lost purse had made me miss whatever forgettable movie I'd meant to see. I had gone with my uncle, and emerged babbling incoherently about the wonderfulness of Branagh and Shakespeare and HENRY V. "That's not his best play, you know," said my uncle. "You should read HAMLET."

We had a complete Shakespeare at hom, so I took it upstairs that night. I stayed up till four in the morning reading HAMLET, because I just had to know what happened. So beautiful! So true! So identifiable to a angsty black-clad teen! As a direct result, I majored in theatre, went to grad school for playwriting, and wrote TV for a while.

10. RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, by Augusten Burroughs

A very dark comedy, the true story about how Burrough's insane confessional poet mother gave him away, at the age of fourteen, to her even crazier psychiatrist who had an asylum in the attic and an electroshock machine under the stairs.

I could identify. And it was so well-written. I looked up Burrough's email address and sat down to write him a fan letter. But while doing so, I became possessed and instead wrote a three-paragraph version of my own demented childhood, then mailed it. He replied the next day and said, "You're hilarious. Write this up as a book, exactly like this letter, only much longer."

So I did.

Ten Books that Changed My Life

Many cool people like truepenny, Kate Nepveu, yhlee, and others who can be found on my friends list are writing, not about the best books they ever read or even the ones they loved the most, but the ones that were most influential. Here's mine, in more-or-less chronological order.

1. BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL, by Robert McCloskey

Sal and her mother go blueberry picking, but little do they know that a mama bear and her cub are also on a hunt for blueberries. Sal and the cub get so distracted by the sweet juicy berries that they end up following the wrong mamas. I'm pretty sure this gentle picture book was the first book I ever read by myself.

2. The ST. CLARE'S series, by Enid Blyton

A frightfully British series about a wildly idealized boarding school for girls. This got me hooked on the dreadful yet strangely compelling Enid Blyton, and also on many other girls' boarding school series. This probably warped my development, but it did give me lots of insight into why J. K. Rowling is so popular-- it's the idealized boarding school element, which is like crack for ten-year-olds.

3. ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL, by James Herriot

That and its three sequels are true stories about life as a country veterinarian in Yorkshire. They're extremely funny and often poignant, yet not at all sappy and rarely sentimental. I read them and decided to become a veterinarian. I even worked for a vet for years. Eventually I figured out that I just wanted to tell stories like Herriot did-- it was his writing I liked, not his job. Later I studied his books to learn how to structure chapters as individual short stories with beginnings, middles, ends, and punchy final lines.

4 and 5. DRAGONSONG, by Anne McCaffrey; THE STARS ARE OURS! by Andre Norton

My introduction to genre in general and science fiction in particular. I write about this experience at some length here:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020708/twelve.shtml

6 and 7. THE OTHER GLASS TEAT, by Harlan Ellison; also many of his short story collections

This collection of gonzo essays on old TV shows I'd never even heard of before blew off the top of my head when I was twelve. Harlan Ellison tends to have that effect on people. He ranted, he used slang, he talked about intimate and emotional details of his personal life, he insulted bad TV and praised the good stuff, and he made himself the most vivid character in a book of essays that were supposed to be about television shows.

I wrote my name and number on the inside cover, along with a plea that if anyone found it, they should return it because it meant so much to me. I also devoured his books of short stories, whose introductions also talked about himself in scarily honest detail. I'd never read anything that real in my life, raw as a scraped knee.

Ellison taught me that it was possible to write about one's real self and the squirmy details of one's private life, publish it, and not get struck by lightning. The rest is history.

8. THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, by T. H. White

My father read this aloud to me when I was ten or so, but it wasn't influential till years later. The young King Arthur, a boy called Wart who's ignorant of his parentage, is transformed into a series of animals by Merlyn to teach him life lessons which will make him become a good king.

The most haunting episode is one where Wart becomes a hawk in the mews. The hawks have a military fellowship, and they set him a challenge: he must stand beside the mad and murderous hawk Colonel Cully while the other raptors ring the bells three times. He also becomes an ant in a totalitarian ant colony on Merlyn's table, which is preparing for war with another colony-- a pointed and very funny episode-- and a goose flying with a peaceful flock.

It's a madly strange book, like many classic British fantasies, as full of deliberate anachronisms and homages and lists of items as a fruitcake is full of less pleasant things.

You can read it as a kid and love it, but it was the first book I re-read as an adult and realized how much I'd missed earlier. The part that really blew my mind is when Wart is telling Merlyn how fun war must be. Merlyn tries to disillusion him, but Wart is adamant. Finally, Merlyn, White, notes in the narration, seems to change the subject, and asks Wart which he preferred, the ants or the wild geese. When I first read it, and many times afterward, I took that at face value. I must have been twenty before I realized that Merlyn hadn't changed the subject. That was my first encounter with the power of understatement and suggestion.

9. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

I saw Kenneth Branagh's HENRY V when I was sixteen, because my teacher offered extra credit for seeing it and a lost purse had made me miss whatever forgettable movie I'd meant to see. I had gone with my uncle, and emerged babbling incoherently about the wonderfulness of Branagh and Shakespeare and HENRY V. "That's not his best play, you know," said my uncle. "You should read HAMLET."

We had a complete Shakespeare at hom, so I took it upstairs that night. I stayed up till four in the morning reading HAMLET, because I just had to know what happened. So beautiful! So true! So identifiable to a angsty black-clad teen! As a direct result, I majored in theatre, went to grad school for playwriting, and wrote TV for a while.

10. RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, by Augusten Burroughs

A very dark comedy, the true story about how Burrough's insane confessional poet mother gave him away, at the age of fourteen, to her even crazier psychiatrist who had an asylum in the attic and an electroshock machine under the stairs.

I could identify. And it was so well-written. I looked up Burrough's email address and sat down to write him a fan letter. But while doing so, I became possessed and instead wrote a three-paragraph version of my own demented childhood, then mailed it. He replied the next day and said, "You're hilarious. Write this up as a book, exactly like this letter, only much longer."

So I did.