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Cathrine McClure's avatar

I would say that each of these books has influenced me to want to be a writer. They have influenced my desire to write about the human experience in a fantastical setting. They all have depth and most contain humor, along with excellent craftsmanship.

Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh

Charlotte's Web - E. B. White

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

Tenth of December - George Saunders

Fun Home - Alison Bechdel

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena - Anthony Marra

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Ed Tankersley's avatar

Thanks for sharing your list, Cathrine, and for sharing what moves you about these books. There's a lot of fantasy and speculative fiction on there, but also some solid Great American Fiction. I'm excited to see where these influences guide you in your work. Happy new year!

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John Wise's avatar

While loath to ever recommend anything I read, I thought it might be interesting to note what I've loved:

Everything from Nietzsche

Les Chants de Maldoror - Lautréamont

Dialect of Enlightenment - Adorno / Horkheimer

No Sense of Place - Joshua Meyrowitz

The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe

The Decline of Western Civilization - Oswald Spengler

Democracy in America - Tocqueville

Cool Memories - Jean Baudrillard

Les Fleurs du Mal - Charles Baudelaire

The Western Lands - William Burroughs

Post Office - Charles Bukowski

Crowds and Power - Elias Canetti

Listen Little Man - Wilhelm Reich

One Dimensional Man - Herbert Marcuse

The Third Unconscious - Franco Berardi

The Social Conquest of Earth - E.O. Wilson

The Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch

Your Inner Fish - Neil Shubin

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Ed Tankersley's avatar

Your loathing to recommend is, I imagine, a variety of the conundrum I mentioned: The challenge of matching the book to the tastes and idiosyncrasies of the reader, of finding a reader worthy of the book. In flagrant violation of your intentions, I will take this list of books you've loved as a recommendation, albeit a daunting one that I can never hope to complete. In fact, with the exception of The Western Lands, I haven't read any of these. Curse you, Wise!

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