Five Books That Changed My Life?
Indie author Bryant Delafosse tagged me with one of those meme things. Well I think those meme things are evil and usually I don’t play. But, since I’m embarrassingly flattered to be tagged, and as I have been neglecting my bloggerly duties of late, I’m going to give this one a go.
The idea is to give a list of five books that have inspired me as a writer and then to recommend five bloggers “who refuse to live in the real world”. The first part is stupendously difficult – after all, it’s asking a lot of a book to change your life, and, if there were any that did, I probably read them between the ages of 6 and 10 and I’ve forgotten what they were. I can think of hundreds of writers I love to pieces, but that’s not quite the same thing, is it? The second part is dead easy. I just have to nominate anyone in the publishing world.
Oh well, let’s get that hard part out of the way.
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. It’s hard to think of a writer who has had more of an influence on the way I view writing than the late lamented Mr. B, and hard to think of a book that opened my eyes so much to what great writing could be than The Martian Chronicles. I read this one when I was very young and it blew me away. I was in a daze for weeks. The stark beauty of Mars, the heartbreaking pathos of its dying natives, the casual cruelty, hubris and stupidity of the human settlers, were all enough to make it an outstanding book, but what hit me right between the eyes back then was that Bradbury’s Mars wasn’t a real place at all and yet I knew it and all its people.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I read this when I was in my mid teens and it stands out for two reasons. Firstly, Aldous Huxley. I just loved the way he wrote. It was a style so clear, so accurate, so unpretentious, that I realised a writer could produce great literature without devolving into indecipherable “poetry”. Most people (including most publishers) seem to think that “beautiful writing” consists of overblown metaphor, steeped overnight in convoluted prose, and served on a bed of nonsensical profundity. In Huxley, I found a brilliant mind revealing its lovely thoughts in prose as fine and clear as morning sunlight. Secondly, although I’d read some excellent science fiction by then and all the best sci-fi grapples with difficult ideas, I was immensely impressed by the craft and delicacy with which Huxley laid it all bare for us.
Pincher Martin by William Golding. Another book from my teenage years. I’d like to paint a picture of myself at, say, 15. Cocksure, arrogant, pretty enough to attract the girls, stupid and selfish enough to be a huge disappointment to any who took the bait. I was always the smartest person in the room and I thought the future was mine for the taking. I supposed I might like to be a writer one day and everyone around me was impressed with my skill. Pincher Martin came into my life at just the right moment. I read it with a mounting sense of fear and finished it shaken to the core. To write a novel that good was so far beyond my abilities that even I could see it. There have been other pieces of writing since then that have had the same humbling – nay, crushing – effect (Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas springs to mind, Spies by Michael Frayn was the most recent) but Pincher Martin was the first.
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. I can’t remember when I became an Asimov fan. I suppose I had been reading the short stories since the year dot. The Foundation Trilogy was a wonder to me but it wasn’t until I found I, Robot that he satisfied me intellectually as well as tickling my sensawunda. It was the beginning of my love affair with artificial intelligence (which, in later life, influenced the choice of my research and career direction) and it was the first instance of a crush on a book character I can recall (Dr. Susan Calvin, of course!). I loved all of Azimov’s robot stories (especially The Caves of Steel). In my own fiction, I have a favourite robot character who owes a lot to this early influence.
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin. I came to this book relatively late in life when I already understood the topic thoroughly and had already read everything I could get my hands on by Richard Dawkins (an extremely good writer by the way), so I read it mostly out of curiosity to see what it was like. And what was it like? It was simply the best piece of science writing I have ever read (and I have read a lot). It was the most complete, coherent and exhaustive single piece of argumentation I have come across. Darwin’s intellect is magnificent, the breadth of his knowledge is astonishing, his devotion to evidence and experimentation is exemplary, and the clarity of expression he brings to the task of explaining this beautiful idea is amazing. Darwin is now my hero and this book is his greatest triumph – one of the greatest triumphs of our species.
So, no great surprises there then. Time for part two. I hereby nominate the following to continue the good work:
Emma Newman: http://www.enewman.co.uk/
Djibril al Ayad: http://djibrilalayad.blogspot.co.uk/
George Angus: http://www.tumblemoose.com/
Stephen Saus: http://stevensaus.com/
Carrie Cuinn: http://carriecuinn.com/
