What are the most influential books in your life?
Post one a day. No comments necessary be damned.
This is what I put up on Facebook, with all of the various comments added in. It is published here as one post for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.
7 books in 7 days. Definitely no order here.
Dad brought this back from a trip to Canada and I devoured all of them up to around Path of Daggers. From there I struggled through until Brandon Sanderson took over.
But this one I love.
OK. I am not good at daily. I could post books by Pratchett and Gaiman and other well known loves, but I wanted to post some that are life changing or less known.
My English teacher gave me this in Year 11. Shay and I went to his room above the pub. I have loved Fowler ever since. Mr Kennedy was a dodgy teacher but he gave me some great books.
This is a series of four really thick books that my aunty Joan gave me. It is a phenomenal idea that seems to be getting closer to reality. And it came out decades before Ready Player One.
Last one for tonight, but I have eight more to go.. I don’t want to nominate people. If you like the idea, do it.
Thin He Was and Filthy Haired was a great autobiography of the wonderful Kryten. This one is Robert doing Pygmalion. It’s a great book, and I was intrigued by just how graphic the sex scenes were.
It led me into Ben Elton and other British TV comics who write books. It was well worth it.
See also: Ben Elton, Adrian Edmonson, Eric Idle’s Road to Mars, Hemingway’s Chair by Michael Palin and A Little Bit Marvellous by Dawn French.
Sure I am not the only person who will put this, but it was a world changer for me.
The Skidmore family gave it to me and I have devoured them ever since.
It’s very clever and very funny.
A couple more tomorrow but I will finish tonight with this one. Read it and be scared of the meat industry.
For me it was a great look at Japanese culture as well as an expose on meat companies but mostly it is a riveting read that I have loaned to dozens of people. At one stage I had three copies of it.
Oh my many dark and wonderful gods! This is an amazing book. Clive Barker’s mind is a terrible place. This was my first foray in horror outside of King, Straub and McCammon. It led to a deeper love of horror as well as all types of fantasy.
This book specifically is epic. It was of a scope I hadn’t seen before and I highly recommend finding a copy from before they split it up.
This guy wrote the Mars series of books (which are good) but this one details what might happen if the West was wiped out by plague and the world was colonised by the eastern/middle eastern countries.
It’s an eye opener and beautiful writing.
Ok, where am I up to?
I hate this cover, but I love this series of books.
I don’t know what made me pick up Westerfeld, but I loved this series. Set in a not-too-distant future, it was one of the early dystopias, and still one of the best. He is great at characters and I love his descriptions.
And then, he has a re-imagining of World War II with genetically altered creatures and steam punk robots.
And then he has a series of vampire novels based around parasites.
Go. Explore.
I keep recommending this series and getting a mixed response. I love them. I love the stories. I love the action and the humour. I don’t *love* the writing but the rest makes up for it in my eyes. I’m sharing Dead Beat because this is when most people start agreeing with me. This or Grave Peril. But I still have a soft spot for Fool Moon.
Finding Damo 