There’s a Facebook meme going around where you get tagged by friends to list 20 books that have stuck with you over the years. I thought that subject fit equally well on my website where I sometimes talk about books and authors who have influenced me.
It’s not precisely a list of favorites. As I understand it, the point is to call up the titles that come to mind the quickest. They’re books that made the strongest impression on you in some way.
I read about 20 books each year, and I’ve been doing that for oh, about 35 years. So this task wasn’t easy. Also, my forty-something brain isn’t as sharp as it used to be. I broke the rules a bit because I didn’t want to focus entirely on books I read recently just because those are the freshest ones in my head.
In the end, I chose books that represent different periods of my life as a reader, and I focused on the ones that still recall vivid scenes, characters and/or imagery. They’re books that I feel like I know like the back of my hand, and some of them I read 30, 20 or 15 years ago.
In alphabetical order by title:
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
City of Night, John Rechy
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger
The Front Runner, Patricia Nell Warren
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Harry Potter Series, J.K. Rowling
The Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
Mordred: Bastard Son, Douglas Clegg
Mysterious Skin, Scott Heim
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
The Persian Boy, Mary Renault
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
Saul’s Book, Paul T. Rogers
The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
The Wicked Years series, Gregory Maguire
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Yeah, I gave three slots to J.D. Salinger. Go sue me. 🙂
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