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15 Influential Books From Your Childhood/Adolescence

#1 User is offline   Ailesbury 

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Posted 15 November 2020 - 09:13 PM

(in no particular order)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip Dick
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Kingdoms of the Wall by Robert Silverberg
Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling
Amos Fortune by Elizabeth Yates
Mao II by Don DeLillo
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

This post has been edited by ailes: 15 November 2020 - 09:26 PM

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#2 User is offline   nacht 

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Posted 15 November 2020 - 10:00 PM

I kind of remember these as mind blowing :-)

Tintin Series
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Bourne Series
Dune
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#3 User is offline   Cyphon 

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Posted 15 November 2020 - 10:07 PM

You read much worthier things than I as a kid. My wife and I do a thing where we each read a book that resonated/was influential/formative on each other (that doesn't necessarily mean good) and I expect there would be quite an overlap with the books for this list. If recommend it as a process if anyone was intrigued

Anyway as for my own list;

Narnia books
Harry Potter
Redwall series by Brian Jacques
Discworld
Farseer trilogy
Foundation trilogy
Hyperion
Neuromancer
Wheel of time
Dune

This post has been edited by Cyphon: 15 November 2020 - 10:07 PM

Para todos todo, para nosotros nada.

MottI'd always pegged you as more of an Ublala
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#4 User is offline   Ailesbury 

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Posted 16 November 2020 - 01:31 AM

Some of them seem "much worthier" because I read them for school and not just for pleasure. Obviously, Stephen Crane was for school whereas the cyberpunk books were outside of school.
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#5 User is offline   Aptorian 

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Posted 16 November 2020 - 04:12 AM

When I was a kid I didn't read books. Books were boring things my teacher asked us to read, usually some socio-realistic depiction of life in Copenhagen or a historical fiction about some turd farmer in the 1800s

I read comic books instead. I read anything I could find at the Library. Lucky Luke, Asterix, Garfield, Calvin and Hobs, Tin Tin, Spirou & Fantasio, Footrot Flats, etc. All the weird stuff that came out of Europe in the 70s and 80s.

Later around age ten I started reading and collecting Marvel comics (Not DC, they suck). In the late 90s I'd managed to collect pretty much every Marvel Comic that had been published in Danish between the late 60s and 90s.

That created an interest in reading books because a lot of good comic stories reference older literature that was formative for their authors.

I remember in my teens reading all the Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy and other stuff I could find. Mixed with what ever was popular in pop culture. I remember reading things like American Psycho at the age of 17 and being completely freaked out by this disgusting but quite fascinating book. Anne Rice' Interview with a Vampire was awesome. I read Dan Simmons first two Hyperion books around 1999 I think and they were mind-blowing. There was some Danish stuff that doesn't matter in this context.

It was only when I was in my early 20s and read Lord of the Rings, that I became aware of the Fantasy And Sci-fi section in the library.

This post has been edited by Incredible Aptorian: 16 November 2020 - 04:19 AM

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#6 User is offline   Gwynn ap Nudd 

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Posted 16 November 2020 - 04:19 AM

A partial list with some notes.

Paddington Bear
Encyclopedia Brown - liked the "can you figure it out" aspect - with explanations separate - was disappointed some were based on knowledge only Americans would have.
Hardy Boys, lots and lots of Hardy Boys - Encyclopedia Brown and the Hardy Boys were probably what got me hooked on reading.
Asterix and Obelix, Tintin - Part of me thinks I would still enjoy these, should dig some up some day.
Some of the "Tom and Liz Austen" mysteries by Eric Wilson - meeting Eric was probably the longer term influence - first time I had met an author of a series I was reading.
The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White
Zelazny's Amber Chronicles - either this or the Sword in the Stone was my introduction to fantasy writing. Actually reread the series last year and still enjoyed it.
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Dragonlance Chronicles/Twins series/Legend of Huma/Icewind Dale trilogy (and assorted other not so good Dragonlance and FR stuff)
1984 by George Orwell
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
God Knows by Joseph Heller - highly recommend if you enjoyed Catch 22 (easily better than Closing Time)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky - introduction to Russian literature
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky - wish he had lived long enough to write the follow up novel
Calvin and Hobbes - because it's Calvin and Hobbes.
Live from Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal, by Gore Vidal in case that wasn't obvious
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#7 User is offline   Ailesbury 

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Posted 16 November 2020 - 09:51 PM

@Aptorian - I know what you are saying about American Psycho. I read that book in college and was blown away by it in a good and bad way. I told my friends, however, about that violent/disturbing book and they all hated it.

@Gwynn - My sister used to read the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes all the time. I have a friend who has been obsessed with the comic strip Peanuts since childhood. He collects all the hardcover books of the series and dresses up sometimes like Charlie Brown for Halloween. A couple of years ago I visited the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa California. I don't know if there is a Bill Watterson Museum out there somewhere?

@nacht - I did enjoy the Tintin movie that Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg made many years ago. Unfortunately, it was my only introduction to that character because I have never read any of the books in the series.

This post has been edited by ailes: 16 November 2020 - 10:03 PM

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#8 User is offline   nacht 

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Posted 17 November 2020 - 11:42 PM

There are some good books in this thread that I haven't read. Will check them out.
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#9 User is offline   Macros 

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Posted 18 November 2020 - 07:27 AM

Willard Price 'adventure' series, the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators.

When I was very young I devoured these voraciously, not sure I read them all but made a damn good effort at it.

Into secondary school and there was a much bigger library at the school and my blazer internal pocket was big enough to accommodate a decent sized paperback.
Into that went Raymond Feist.
I love Lord of the Rings, I've probably read it 15 times, there's no denying it was a massive book for me as an early teen but Feist hooked me into fantasy. Part of why I'm so disappointed by his last few Midkemia series is the love I still hold for the Riftwar trilogy and Empire Trilogy. I don't think any other single author made such and impact on the young me.
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#10 User is offline   Ailesbury 

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Posted 19 November 2020 - 10:40 PM

@Macros - I have met so many people who read the Hardy Boys when they were kids. My favorite book from early childhood was Where the Wild Things Are. I think I bought the book at a school book fair. I have never been good at reading books in a series, instead I read one book and move on to the next writer. I am trying to change this, however.

This post has been edited by ailes: 19 November 2020 - 11:14 PM

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#11 User is offline   Zeto Demerzel 

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Posted 20 November 2020 - 04:52 AM

Got The Magic Faraway Tree as a prize in school when I was seven and still haven't recovered. I'm, to this day, fixated on spec fiction.
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#12 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 20 November 2020 - 08:35 AM

Tricky ask because I jumped straight in at the deep end really.

I suppose ordered it would be something like:

The Belgariad & Mallorean (my first series)
Dune
A Blackbird In...
LOTR

Most of my influences as a writer come from video games though.
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#13 User is offline   Chance 

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Posted 20 November 2020 - 03:51 PM

I usually read whatever was around in my parents shelves thrillers and fact books for dad and science fiction and classics for mom, but I was pretty resistant to reading until mid teens really. Most influential would likely be.

Wind in the Willows.
The Never Ending Story.
Narnia.
Biggles adventure stories.
Jules Verne
Dumas
Tom Clancy
Jan Guillou's series about first crusade and thrillers about Hamilton.
Old science fiction like Heinlain, Clark, Asimov remember the Foundation Trilogy vividly still.
Shogun - Still a brilliant book.
Elric - Might have been around the WoT Eddings era but it was an eye opener for a bit less traditional fantasy and storytelling and if I remember right a random pick up from a used book store.

Then I was given WoT, found LotR and Eddings and started devouring everything fantasy in local libraries including a lot of what I today consider fairly poor fantasy.

This post has been edited by Chance: 20 November 2020 - 03:55 PM

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#14 User is offline   Abyss 

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Posted 20 November 2020 - 05:30 PM

Ah fun...
  • Call of the Wild - Jack London did some amazing books, but this... THIS....
  • The Hobbit - in contrast, i HATED LoTR and didn't read it thru til decades later the movies were announced
  • The Lion, the Witch n the wardrobe - as good as the series is, the first book remains glorious
  • The Black Cauldron - where Prydain goes seriously dark and never looks back
  • The Stars Are Ours - Andre Norton was the best
  • Greenwitch - because in this book Cooper drew together her two disparate storylines and characters and it felt like a JLA/JSA crossover
  • Conquerors in Darkness, Robert Silverberg - bcs pirates and merman vs aliens!
  • Dragonflight - starting a long long love for Pern
  • The Sleeping Dragon - Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series did 'portal fantasy/ people become their DnD characters' first and best, and i was WAY WAY WAAAAY too young to have been allowed to read that first book when i did, but DAMN
  • Magician's Gambit - ah, The Belgariad. Look, i know Eddings turned out to be a horrible person, but there's no denying that series, and specifically bk 3 where Garion levels up, had a massive impact on me.
  • Ender's Game - see above re Eddings, apply to Card.
  • Various Greek and Norse and Celtic mythology books i couldn't identify if my life depended on them.
  • Tom Swift, The City in the Stars - a cousin gave me a crate of the original first and second Tom Swift series hardbacks along w some Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, 3 Investigators, and others, but the Tom Swift stuff was my meth. Then series 3 came out, relocated Tom to space, gave him a robot sidekick and a bunch of aliens to deal with and little me's mind was BLOWN. I loved those books so SO much.
  • Wizard of Earthsea - i don't think little me even understood half of that book but it still stuck with me forever.
  • Comics. SO SO MANY GLORIOUS COMICS

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#15 User is offline   Salt-Man Z 

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Posted 20 November 2020 - 11:58 PM

Let's see what I can remember from my school days...

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (K-5th grade)
Hardy Boys
The Rats of NIMH books (only the first two existed back then)
Star Trek Pocket Books (Double, Double and Doctor's Orders were my favorites at the time)
Han Solo: At Star's End (there wasn't a EU yet, but I remember checking this book out from the school library a lot)
The Hobbit & LOTR

MIDDLE SCHOOL (6-8th grade)
Michael Crichton
Watership Down and Shardik (still my favorite book) by Richard Adams
Star Wars (the EU is finally born with the Thrawn trilogy)

HIGH SCHOOL (9-12th grade)
John Grisham
The 6 Dune books (no one ever wrote more)
Ender's Game and sequels
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#16 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 21 November 2020 - 11:02 AM

Discworld (it's how I eventually met my wife)
Dune
Oorlogswinter (winter in wartime)
Koning van Katoren (how to become king; probably the start of my love for fantasy)
Foundation trilogy
Lord of the flies
Oorlog zonder vrienden (war without friends)
Treasure island
The neverending story
1984
Hyperion
De aanslag (the assault)
Kruistocht in spijkerbroek (crusade in jeans)
'De Kameleon' series (the Chameleon)

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 21 November 2020 - 11:03 AM

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#17 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 21 November 2020 - 11:35 AM

Actually a big theme in a lot of dutch youth and young adult books is world war 2 and the occupation. It is like a national trauma.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 21 November 2020 - 11:36 AM

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#18 User is offline   nacht 

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Posted 21 November 2020 - 11:22 PM

View Postailes, on 16 November 2020 - 09:51 PM, said:

@Aptorian - I know what you are saying about American Psycho. I read that book in college and was blown away by it in a good and bad way. I told my friends, however, about that violent/disturbing book and they all hated it.

@Gwynn - My sister used to read the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes all the time. I have a friend who has been obsessed with the comic strip Peanuts since childhood. He collects all the hardcover books of the series and dresses up sometimes like Charlie Brown for Halloween. A couple of years ago I visited the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa California. I don't know if there is a Bill Watterson Museum out there somewhere?

@nacht - I did enjoy the Tintin movie that Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg made many years ago. Unfortunately, it was my only introduction to that character because I have never read any of the books in the series.


Not particularly relevant to this thread but the Tintin movie was such a disappointment.
Part of the fun of Tintin books is the pacing. The movie completely destroyed that.




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#19 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 23 November 2020 - 08:56 AM

View PostGorefest, on 21 November 2020 - 11:35 AM, said:

Actually a big theme in a lot of dutch youth and young adult books is world war 2 and the occupation. It is like a national trauma.


As traumatic as spelling the surname of Grzegorz is for the Germans?

facetiousness aside I can see why. Was a messed up time.



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#20 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 23 November 2020 - 01:43 PM

Yep. It is very striking when you compare it to UK (or US) literature. Almost all Dutch 'acclaimed' youth and adult lit deals with the occupation.

Where e.g. UK lit is much broader and, when it comes to WW2, often has the 'plucky English underdogs fighting the German machine' angle, the Dutch stuff is all very self-demeaning and critical. It is all about collaboration (the ties between Germany and the Netherlands have always been very close, after WW1 we even gave emperor Wilhelm asylum and if Germany hadn't invaded us we probably would have ended up on the other side of the conflict), hiding Jews, neighbours betraying each other, secret resistance, etc. It wasn't until the late nineties that Dutch authors started to break a bit with the theme.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 23 November 2020 - 01:44 PM

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