Ten Books that Affected You
 

One of the new games going around Facebook is listing ten books that affected you (no particular order). Don't have to be deep, just ten books that meant something to you for one reason or another. Thought it could be fun here. I'll put up my FB list:

Black Beauty- Anna Sewell
The Last Unicorn- Peter S Beagle
Perfume- Patrick Suskind
D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths- Ingri D'aulaire
The New Jim Crow- Michelle Alexander
Little Women- Louisa May Alcott
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams
When Abortion Was a Crime- Leslie J Reagan
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry- Mildred D Taylor
The House of Mirth- Edith Wharton

Of course, there are oodles more, but honorable mentions to Dean Koontz's Phantoms, which is not a good book, but scared the bejesus out of my 12-year-old self, and Gone With the Wind, which has not affected my worldview or anything, but which I think I read about 50 times between ages 19-35.

Well I can name one that I know affected me...

Fifty Shades of Grey :D

Heh.

I still remember the first romance novels I ever read (given to me by my grandmother when I was 11 or 12): "This Cherished Dream" and "Domina."

Probably more telling than a Rorschach Test ;)

Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi
For the Love of Mike - Mike Royko
Jaws
The Exorcist - William Blatley
Dracula - Bram Stoker
All The President's Men - Bernstein and Woodward
The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer
Full Moon -The Rock n Roll Life of Keith Moon - Dougal Butler
The Hot House - Life Inside Leavenworth Prison - Pete Earley
The Enforcer - The Tony Spilotro Story - William Roemer

Honorable Mention - Beyer on Speed - Andrew Beyer

Those above and..

The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth - my all time fav book
The Odessa File - "
The Dogs of War - "

The Hunt for Red October -Tom Clancy
Patriot Games - "
Clear and Present Danger - "

Movies were made on all three Clancy books and were very good imo..

As you can see i am big fan of political thrillers..

Have you picked up Command Authority yet? I just bought it on my Nook yesterday and looking forward to it. I tried reading Against All Enemies last week, but put it away after a 100 pages or so. I just couldn't get into it without the usual cast of characters.
The next book on my list is The Bully Pulpit.

No but i'll look into it...haven't read any new books bout 3-4 years since my last eye surgery..review of this one sounds good...last book i read was The Da Vinci Code which i loved..read half of Angels & Demons but never finished..
btw, how was your weather up there...just some cold rain down south here.

We got a tiny bit of ice 2 weekends ago, but nothing like the 2nd ice age they were calling for. Just cold rain this past weekend.

Very good list! I do think "Jaws" and "The Exorcist" are two of the few books where the movie ended up being better. Come to think of it, I just reread "Dracula" last Christmas.

I read "Helter Skelter" in 9th grade, I think. Very readable- made me a sucker for true crime books (or true-ish, I guess).

Read Catch 22 again and it didn't stand up to my HS remembrances.

Speaking of HS books, The Good Earth may deserve another try, when I'm in hospice. ;)

Do you think kids read less or more these days because of the development of the internet Del? I'm voting for less because nothing is read cover to cover...

Books That Changed My Life....

1) Tale of Two Cities
2) World According to Garp...
3) Cats Cradle and all the KV similar works
4) Cried The Beloved Country
5) Animal Farm
6) Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas
7) Les Miserables
8) Even Cowgirls Get The Blues......Thumbs Up!!
9) One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
10) Deadzone

harold and the purple crayon
where the wild things are
green eggs and ham
horton hatches an egg
the little engine that could
mike mulligan and his steamshovel
the little red hen
misty of chincoteague
justin morgan had a horse
king of the wind

Darkness at Noon (Koestler)
The Painted Bird (Kosinski)
The Jungle (Sinclair)
The Rise of David Levinsky (Cahan)
Things Fall Apart (Achebe)
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Richler)
The Tin Drum (Grass)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarche)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
Invisible Man (Ellison)

Short Story: The Secret Sharer (Conrad)

Outside of the Harry Potter series I would have to agree with you as far as books go. They do however seem to read their phones constantly.

First of all, I love The Dead Zone. First Stephen King I read that made me cry.

Second, I think kids are reading today, just we're more out of the loop on what they read. Unless it's a big thing, like the Harry Potter novels were. My nieces are voracious readers; they spend holiday visits with the family curled up with their Nooks. I just don't know what they're reading, although their mom keeps a pretty close eye on them, so I suspect it's parent-approved material. As opposed to when I grew up, and my grandparents' attic contained every pulp bestseller from about 1935 to 1975, or so it seemed, and the less the grownups saw us, the happier they were. I think I got most of my sex education from Jacqueline Susann.

i think some are still reading. my kids are all big readers.

as for my list...i hope no one thought i was making a joke. instilling the love of reading early into a child pretty much guarantees a life long love. kids who read have a better vocabulary, reading actually grows brain cells.

i doubt i'd have the book collection i have now, were it not for books on my list.

i could have listed war and peace, eugene onegin, to kill a mockingbird, the pickwick papers, huck finn, etc...but i'd have never bought and read those were it not for experiencing the joy of reading harolds adventures with his crayon. i still like to watch modern marvels, and i love to see how machines are built, how they work-thank to mike mulligan for that. green eggs and ham-perfect example of not knocking something til you tried it. justin morgan--success can come from the humblest beginnings....and what lesson is better learned than 'i think i can'?

I thought your list was great. Some of my best memories of childhood are my dad reading me Horton Hatches an Egg: "I meant what I said and I said what I meant. And an elephant's faithful one hundred percent!". And I still have my copy of Misty of Chincoteague from when I was a child. I read most everything Marguerite Henry wrote and have a photo somewhere of me standing next to Stormy, who was still alive when I visited the island.

i was lucky enough to see stormy a couple times. hell, i even bought 'misty's twilight' however many years ago, about one of her grand or great granddaughters. i still have misty, stormy, sea star, king of the wind...and maybe brighty on my bookshelf at home.
love the story of sham and agba! hell, i wanted to get into adventures like that. it's why i'm jealous of my oldest sons job, he's working on barge boats up and down the mississippi! i wanted to be huck finn, or alec ramsey, or pippi longstocking (she lived with no adults, just her, her horse and a monkey-what a life!!), and part of me still does. :D

:tro:

Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch..Great book and loved the movie, watched it at least 5 times over the years..one of the best courtroom scenes ever...movie was Robert Duvall's film debut.