Sep 30, 2011 / Topic Ideas

What 5 books have influenced you the most?

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  2. Hum, that’s difficult, but if I have to choose five special destinations that marked my life, I’d go for Rome, London, Cardiff, Toronto and the Hawaiian islands.
    Regarding movies,I should say the following: Dead Poet’s society, Possession, Psychosis, The Illusionist
    As for the books, here’s a post I wrote a while ago about the books that have changed my life http://wp.me/p10iHd-21

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  4. in chronological order:
    1) Children’s Bible by Anne de Vries (translated into German) – as this was the first book I remember having read to me. My favourite story was that of the good shepherd. It introduced me to the Bible which became another influential book, but I will not repeat that one in this list. And it helped me learn to read. When my mom tried to simplify the vocabulary, I would follow the words as she read out loud, and apparently could recognize by age 4 that she was leaving out words that were not in the original text or replacing them with others with a similar meaning 🙂
    2) an anthology of children’s stories. they were from a library, so I never kept track of the title or editor. But loved them! They encouraged me to keep on reading.
    only 5? in that case, I better skip some
    3) The Chronicles of Narnia – all of them. Have read the series multiple times, once even in the middle of exam week during my university studies as they were such a welcome respite from all the stress. Would I have experienced less stress if I had used the reading time for studying and writing papers instead? I highly doubt it.
    4) The Lord of the Rings trilogy – long before the movies were made (which I loved!) Sheer joy!
    5) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (which remains one of my alltime favourite novels) which I first read in school and have read many times since since. A poignant message for all times.

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  5. Interestingly, I think the five books that have influenced me the most aren’t necessarily the five I liked the most. For example, I’m a great fan of Yeats’ poetry, but I don’t see much sign of Yeats’ influence in my own poetry.

    So – perhaps the list would go (in no particular order): Collected poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins; of Louis MacNeice; the first two books of Mervyn Peake’s Ghormenghast trilogy (taken as one); R.D. Laing’s “The Divided Self”; Iris Murdoch’s “The Bell”. But if the humorous fantasy novel I’m writing, maybe also Tom Holt’s “Snow White and the Seven Samurai”; and if I look not at my writing but my reaction to various situations, maybe Charles Perrow’s “Normal Accidents”.

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  6. Generation X by Douglas Coupland
    A part of the whole by Steve Toltz
    But I Survived by Tadeusz Sobolewicz
    Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind
    How to think like a bat by Peter Cave

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  10. 5 books that have influenced me the most? Hmm.

    1.) Nanny Diaries
    2.) Pocketbooks. haha
    3.) Hannah Montana
    4.) Values Educ.
    5.) Cinderella

    :DDD

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  11. Their Eyes Were Watching God (Z.N.Hurston)
    The Sun Also Rises (E.Hemingway)
    Deadeye Dick (K.Vonnegut)
    Immortality (M.Kundera)
    Children of the Moon (J.Ivanauskaitė)

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