Jan. 2nd, 2015

aldersprig: (BookGlasses)
The Meme

Today's prompt is Books that shaped my life.

This isn't a meme prompt, but Denise Drespling
posted a blog post in early December that made me start thinking.


A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle - the whole series, really. I can't pinpoint an exact change-in-thought from these books, but I can still remember the plots of all the stories, and reading them over and over again.

Ogre, Ogre, by Piers Anthony - okay, Piers Anthony and the whole Xanth series have flaws, nice big gaping holes, but this is the first "grown up" book I can remember reading - Mom left it sitting on the couch - and it got me started on a lifetime of reading genre fiction.

What's more, that was the first time I started writing stories-in-my-head about another author's worlds - fanfic!

To Sail Beyond the Sunset and Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein - parents, don't let your tweens read these books.
I spent a lot of time with a ridiculously screwed up view of what women should be (hypercompetent beautiful 6' tall geniuses who are dynamite in the sack and never screw up socially), and I went into high school with a mentality on sexuality and sex that was atypical and problematic for socialization. That being said, there's a lot of really interesting stuff in these books (colonization, history, parenting, relationships).

The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach - a book that changed my mindset on love and relationships for a while, among other things. Also, taught me that you have to pay attention to paying taxes.

The Oversoul Seven Trilogy: The Education of Oversoul Seven, The Further Education of Oversoul Seven, Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time by Jane Roberts. *cough* Well, in addition to really shaping a lot of my thought on reincarnation in my teens, this book set started me thinking about aging and childhood.

Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear - I want to be her when I grow up. I want to write as awesomely as she when I get there, and I want to make writing a cast that is diverse in all ways look as effortless as she does.

There are more, I know there are. But this is a tidy short list.

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