All of the Lonesome Dove series- I think they’d have to amputate them like a limb to keep me from musing constantly on Gus, Call and gang. Or Bigfoot Wallace from Dead Man’s Walk.
*The Stand * by Stephen King
Melissa by Taylor Caldwell- first grownup book I read.
The Godfather by Mario Puzo- although the movie is equally absorbable.
English Passengers -glad to see even books I’ve read recently can still become ingrained.
The Bible- particularly Genesis, the Gospels & Revelation
Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
Taylor Caldwell’s Dear and Glorious Physician
Stoker’s Dracula
Shelley’s Frankenstein
Lewis’ Narnia & The Great Divorce
Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins
King’s The Stand
Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth & its counterbalance David Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance
Erich Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods & its counterbalance Brad Steiger’s Mysteries of Time & Space
Gary Allen’s None Dare Call It Conspiracy
The Outsiders by SE Hinton - the book that got me writing and the biggest influence on my work even now (I write teen fiction).
Lord of the Rings - the idea of a fellowship and doing the right thing even when it’s hard or scary (geek alert: I have the tengwar for nine tattooed on my wrist because of this sentiment :rolleyes: ).
Antonia Forest’s Kingscote books - the best-written school stories I’ve ever read, and which have given me a lot of words/phrases I use in my daily vocabulary even if people look at me like I’m nuts.
To a slightly lesser extent, The Grapes of Wrath, especially Tom Joad’s speech about ‘every time you see a guy fighting for something to eat, I’ll be there’.
The Stand, partly because it’s a great book and partly for the same sentiments as LOTR - how would you react and which side would you be on if society broke down or you were faced with a challenge that might end in your death?
*1984 *- sparked off what will probably be a lifelong interestin reading - and writing - dystopian fiction.
And Gone With the Wind, because it’s brilliant, and if I ever have a daughter I’ll be naming the poor unfortunate Scarlett (or Eowyn, hee hee).
The Eye of the World, of the Wheel of Time series. The rest of it not so much, but that first book is burned into my head.
Good Omens.
Redwall.
The Dark Tower series, which sort of surprises me because I only just read it in the past year. Still, it immediately resonated wonderfully with me.
Yeesh, those just define my life. Geekus majorus.
Lets see there are several both fiction, and non fiction.
Shogun: James Clavell
The Caine Mutiny: Herman Wouk
Rocket Boys: Homer Hickam
The Body: S King
Langoliers: S King
Carrying the Fire: Michael Collins
A Fall of Moondust: Arthur Clarke
Mutiny on the Bounty: Nordoff & Hall
Demon Haunted World: Carl Sagan
Faith Healers: James Randi
Icerigger:): Alan Dean Foster
Nor Crystal Tears: Alan Dean Foster
Brave New World: A Huxley
The Time Machine: HG Wells
Gone with the Wind and the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I’m currently rereading Outlander, and it never fails to delight. I’ve made my daughter promise she’s going to read it after she’s done with Breaking Dawn.
The Milagro Beanfield War, by John Nichols: one of the funniest and most poignant books ever.
White Nile and to a lesser extent, Blue Nile, both by Alan Moorehead. Two of the most readable books about British exploration of the Nile River.
Cradle of The Storms, and Mush, You Malemutes by Bernard Hubbard, S.J.: Two extremely well-written books about his exploration of southwest Alaska, Katmai, etc.
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry: one of the literary masterpieces of our time.
Shogun, by James Clavell: another modern masterpiece.
Mila 18, by Leon Uris: a powerful novel of the Warsaw Ghetto
Lord of The Rings & The Hobbit, by Tolkien: It almost seems like a cliche to mention these books, but they were mesmerizing and complex, and displayed true brilliance by the author in creating this world.
Pratchett’s books (definitely including Good Omens), LoTR, HitchHiker’s Guide.
I need to add the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a serious oversight. Maybe I think of them less as books and more of a complete media presentation.
Lord of the Barnyard might be my favorite book ever. I was disappointed in Skirt and the Fiddle, not because it was bad, but because LotB was such freakin’ genius. I haven’t read *Kornwolf * yet.
Almost everything I’ve ever read is kicking around in here somewhere, but another book that really stuck with me, that I haven’t seen mentioned (although I may have missed it) is House of Leaves. I *love * that book. The Navidsons are as real in my mind as my own friends and family.
The Lord of the Rings
Earth Abides
The Naked Sun
The Foundation novels
Franny and Zooey
Raise Hight the Roofbeams Carpenters
The Bell Jar
The Catcher in the Rye
'Til We Have Faces
The World According to Garp
The Hotel New Hamshire
The Anne of Green Gables Books
Let’s see…
Children’s (or quasi-children’s) fiction: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe, The Silver Chair, A Ring of Endless Light, & A Wrinkle in Time.
Adult fiction: Beach Music, The Secret History, Time Enough for Love, The Lovely Bones.
Non-fiction: Demon-Haunted World, The Power of Myth.
The *Harry Potter *series (I’ve had all seven books–or as many of them as were published at the time–in continuous rotation in my car for the last couple of years. I just can’t get enough of them).
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
*Watchmen *(the graphic novel)
Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Egypt Game
Stephen King’s It
Jay Williams’ The Hero from Otherwhere (one of my favorite children’s books)
The Three Investigators series
The Trixie Belden series
The Manitou by Graham Masterton
Little Fuzzy and its sequels by H. Beam Piper
Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews and its immediate sequels (guilty pleasure, but hey…never got into any of those past the FitA series)
The Sherlock Holmes stories
House of Zeor and its sequels, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl
A lot of the books that are part of my life, I discovered at a very young age. In fact, out of all those I listed here, all of them except Harry Potter were discovered during or prior to college, and most of them when I was a teenager.
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit
Danny the Champion of the World and James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander
Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould
Assembling California by John McPhee
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
winterhawk11 - I loved The Hero from Otherwhere when I was a kid! I don’t think that I have thought of that book in 20 years. Didn’t Williams also write the Danny Dunn books?
Yep, along with Raymond Abrashkin. That’s how I found out about THFO in the first place–I was a big Danny Dunn fan as a kid, though haven’t reread them in many many years.
The Narnia Chronicles
Princess Bride (yes, it was a book first)
Transmetropolitan
I don’t have them memorized, but Heinlein’s future is definitely part of my mental makeup - his open-mindedness is a big part of me.
Heinlein - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, Glory Road, *Starship Troopers * (actually almost all of RAH’s work!)
Dorothy L Sayers - Murder Must Advertise, Gaudy Night
James Clavell - Shogun
Niven & Pournelle - The Mote in God’s Eye
Not one in particular but the whole series of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfeal books and Lindsey Davis’ Falco stories.
There must be lots more but these are the ones that sprang to mind immediately.
In ascending order of entrenchitude:
I’m pretty sure my DNA is made up of these ingredients:
Lord of the Flies
The Dark Tower up to Book 3 (the rest of the series was closure and Book 4 was a good tale on its own, but no more than that)
Watership Down
Of Mice and Men
War of the Worlds
The Time Machine
and, of course, LOTR.