Due to the rousing success of " Your favorite books of Childhood." Thread, I thought it wise to start up this thread.
Here are a few of mine:Many were required reading.
The Outsiders -S.E. Hinton
Catcher in the Rye
Seperate Piece/Peace (It’s been awhile)
The Elfstone/Wishsong/Sword of Shannara Series.- Terry Brooks
Guiness Book of World Records
Ripley’s Believe it or Not
And the catagory that would have probably labled me as a future High School Assassin is:
Blood Letters and Bad Men - Jay Robert Nash ( A chronilogical history of robbers, rapists, theives, rustlers, gangsters from about 1800 - to mid 1970’s. I loved this book.
It was called How To Get a Teenage Boy and What To Do with Him When you Get Him by Ellen Goodman. She must’ve been embarrassed by it,its not listed anywhere. I loved it. p.s.I never found out!
Since I was a teen in the 1970s, I’ll be the first to mention the Big Three: Vonnegut, Hesse, and Brautigan.
I think kids are still reading the first two, but Richard Brautigan’s fallen out of favor.
And I’m not really surprised. I picked up my old copies of the novel IN WATERMELON SUGAR and the potry collection THE PILL VERSUS THE SPRINGHILL MINING DISASTER recently…looked through them, and wondered “My god, WHAT was I thinking?”
Should mention Kerouac, Burroughs, and Ginsberg, too.
Catcher in the Rye
The Stranger Beside Me (a boook about Ted Bundy)
Helter Skelter (about the Manson murders)
Go Rin No Sho (The book of five rings)
The Monkeywrench Gang
I also thoroughly enjoyed Paul Zindel (two titles come to mind : “My darling, my hamburger” and “Pardon me, you’re stepping on my eyeball”.) How can one resist?
Other faves :
Can you sue your parents for malpractice? (Paula Danziger)
Everything written by S.E. Hinton
Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! - M.E. Kerr
If it’s any comfort, I have one of those poetry books! I agree with most of the above (especially Uke, who may be the man of my dreams…) and have to add Asimov, Heinlein and Zelazny, along with many other science fiction authors. I also have (still) the poerty & lyrics of Lou Reed.
Hmm, Flora…Dickens, Austen…no Bronte? (Charlotte, or course) Jane Eyre and Villette laid the foundation for practically my entire vocabulary.
Also as a teenager I read just about everything by Evelyn Waugh…when they made the TV series of Brideshead, I was in heaven. To this day, I have never seen a more perfectly cast and acted adaptation.
Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni novels Agent of Change and Conflict of Honor, Steve Miller & Sharon Lee Thieves World and sequels by various people
The books of th True Game, Sheri S. Tepper
Sherlock Holmes novels
Fletch and Flynn novels by Gregory McDonald
The books of Isle by Nancy Springer
Anne McCaffrey, Robert Heinlein, Richard Asprin, Alan Dean Foster, Christopher Stasheff, John deChancie, Louis L’Amour, Douglas Adams
Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony Here Be Demons (I forget the author) Make Way for Dragons (ditto)
Terry Brooks Magic Kingdom novels The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley (most Robin Hood books, but this one was my favorite) The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown, also by Robin McKinley The Last of the Mohicans Pride and Prejudice And Then There Were None The Grapes of Wrath
That’s all I can think of right now. Did I mention I love the book threads?
I tended to read by author rather than title during those years. I’d find one I liked, then read everything they’d written. Off the top of my head:
Desmond Bagley
Alistair McLean
Barbara Michaels & Elizabeth Peters (the same person)
David Eddings
Anne McCaffery
Julie Smith
Hickman & Weis
Piers Anthony
J.R.R. Tolkien
Paul Zindel
Roald Dahl (the other nastier stuff)
S.E. Hinton
Barbara Hambley
~If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.~
Might be delving too far back into pre-teen years but Madeline L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” is a favorite.
By the way one of the funnest things you can do as an adult is to go back and re-read a favorite novel from your formative years. Try it, it’s a real treat!
