UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
General Chat - anything Goes
>
Authors List your 3 Favourite Books and How They Influenced You!
date
newest »
newest »
The first has to be something by Jack Vance. But what?The Dragon Mastersblew my mind, it showed what SF could be, and how humanity could differ within it.
There are half a dozen other JV books it could be Tales of the Dying Earth: The Dying Earth/The Eyes of the Overworld/Cugel's Saga/Rhialto the Marvellous for example, because that plunged me into writing rpg scenarios
The second book has to be Hannibal:The enemy of Rome http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hannibal-Enem...
That gave me my deep love of Ancient history, the ancient world, and I carried round in my inside blazer pocket at school for years. It led me to Livy and Polybius which he quotes chunks of.
The final one will have to be Tony Bath, 'Setting up a wargames campaign' http://www.amazon.co.uk/Setting-Warga...
which drew me into a fascinating hobby, led me to make many great friends (Tony Bath himself is said to have said that the bride price for his daughters hand in marriage was six cows or her weight in SF and fantasy magazines) and started me down the road to writing for the hobby press, who seemed happy to pay me for what I wrote.
And there are so many others but these are the ones who have influenced me as opposed to books I have just enjoyed immensely ;-)
Wow guys! I'll have to have a think and come later to this post...
Maybe move this post to 'General Chat'? For maximum exposure... Just a suggestion.
Yeah I wasn't sure where to put it...authors and readers seemed appropriate but I'm happy for a mod to move it. I do think it's a pretty interesting topic so it'd be good to get as many people participating as possible.
Thanks Patti! :) Jim - Thanks for the reply. I do love books where they just open up a whole world and show you loads of possibilities.
Sara - If we made it the top 30 books would that help? :p
Robert wrote: "Thanks Patti! :) Jim - Thanks for the reply. I do love books where they just open up a whole world and show you loads of possibilities.
Sara - If we made it the top 30 books would that help? :p"
Hahaha! Maybe. But I can't leave a review and explanation of 30 books!
Sara wrote:Hahaha! Maybe. But I can't leave a review and explanation of 30 books! I believe in you :) lol
Don't think I could ever pick 3 books and narrow down their influence on me - lots of books over the years have made their mark even in small ways. Always been a bookworm.Sometimes it isn't the 'big' books that have the most influence, tho I still adore Thomas Hardy, and Mary Webb, Ellis Peters cos of their Shropshire settings. I read my first Agatha Christie when I was v poorly, aged 13, 'Murder on the Links' - and still feel a little of what I felt then about it. It really impressed me. Probably started me on my life of crime (writing...). But I was also given Pride & Prejudice to read at the same time, and that wowed me. Plus, at odd times over the years, lots of classics - 'Symphonie Pastorale' by Gide, and Stendhal's 'le Rouge et le Noir' . And another Ag. Christie, a few years later - 'Secret Adversary' - it had a bit of Faust thrown in, which was interesting.
Cool, thanks for the reply Karen! Do you think you would have written crime if it wasn't for Agatha Christie?
Robert wrote: "Cool, thanks for the reply Karen! Do you think you would have written crime if it wasn't for Agatha Christie?"She was/is a major influence - but after I posted, I remembered I'd also read all the Nancy Drew mysteries when I was 8 or 9, so they have to be culpable too.
I think there is something about women and crime fiction - wanting to 'make the world right' - and we are good at the small details cos we live with a lot of small details we have to clean up/pick up/put away/ and plan the minutiae of daily life. Oh, and cooking for everyone/tending them when they're sick. So much scope for a crime writer!
Okay, this is a tricky question but I'm going to do my best!!!Our Mutual Friend
Or any Dickens really, but this one is my favourite! Dickens has such a wonderful eye for detail, you can really picture the settings he writes about almost as though you're there. I love how he's able to draw you in to the world he is depicting.
Friday's Child and Cotillion
These two books introduced me to some VERY revolutionary ideas. Friday's Child: that the secondary characters could have as big a part in the story as the hero and heroine. Before reading this I always thought that the secondary characters, especially the male ones, where there to show how much better the Hero was than an ordinary man! This book showed my that they are also there to be humorous (Ferdy), a voice of reason and advisor (Gil), or impossibly hansom and heroic (George).
Cotillion showed me that a hero didn't have to be impossibly cool, incredibly clever, suave, or even tall, dark and hansom for the reader to love him!!! I'm not sure if it's POSSIBLE to get more revolutionary than that! It also opened my eyes to the fact that it was okay to encourage the reader to (*Shock*) laugh at the hero!
D.D. wrote: "Okay, this is a tricky question but I'm going to do my best!!!Our Mutual Friend
Or any Dickens really, but this one is my favourite! Dickens has such a wonderful eye for detail, you can really pi..."
Hard to pick a favourite Dickens' book. I love Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. But I agree, Our Mutual Friend is wonderful.
I prefer the pickwick papers to be honest
Bit too cheery for me, but loved Sam Weller
Karen wrote: "Bit too cheery for me, but loved Sam Weller"I cried buckets when reading Dombey and Son.
Most Dickens makes me cry. I enjoyed a few in my younger days but they seem dreadfully pompous now.
Some of the books that have influenced me most I have forgotten because, quite frankly, they were rubbish. Yet they pushed me towards writing: I knew that I could do better. And this was long before digital publishing so the books in question were trad-pubbed.Of course, there have been very many good books, far more than the bad ones, but it is very difficult to narrow them down to only three. Off the top of my head:
1. The Lord of the Rings - for the sheer depth and richness of Tolkien's imagination.
2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - blew me away when I was nine; made me crouch at the back of my grandmother's old wardrobe, knocking at the plywood, willing it to become fir trees and snow...
3. Run For Your Life by David Line. Again, I was very young when I first read this, but I reread it many times during my teenage years and never tired of it. Made me breathless, even when I knew what was going to happen next.
Ignite wrote: "Most Dickens makes me cry. I enjoyed a few in my younger days but they seem dreadfully pompous now."That's probably why I still like Pickwick, it's more 'self aware' and the pomposity is often funny
I have a hatred of Dickens that is equalled only by my hatred of opera.
Tim wrote: "I have a hatred of Dickens that is equalled only by my hatred of opera."A so-called form of entertainment in which, when a man is killed, instead of dying, he sings. (At length!)
Ignite wrote: "Tim wrote: "I have a hatred of Dickens that is equalled only by my hatred of opera."A so-called form of entertainment in which, when a man is killed, instead of dying, he sings. (At length!)"
And where the waif of a girl starving in a garret weighs in at 250lb :-)
You need a damned good appetite to starve in a garret, Jim!
Sam wrote: "Some of the books that have influenced me most I have forgotten because, quite frankly, they were rubbish. Yet they pushed me towards writing: I knew that I could do better. And this was long befor..."Haha yeah, that's a good point.
I haven't read much Dickens. I only read A Christmas Carol when I was at school but I remember liking it. I'm planning to read Great Expectations soon. I've heard it's better to read it as if it were serialised, so you get the same experience as those who read it for the first time.
I have to confess to not being able to get on with Dickens. The only one I've ever managed to finish was 'A Christmas Carol' and I think that was an abridged version. I've got a third of the way through many others; the most recent attempt was on 'Bleak House' that I so wanted to enjoy (being from a legal background) but I gave up again out of sheer tedium. Not that I don't think he was a good writer, and his stories stand the test of time - it's just the pages and pages of description that turn me off. I don't need to read books where each page is action-filled, it's just that I appreciate something happening (anything at all, really) at least every five or six pages.
Ignite wrote: "You need a damned good appetite to starve in a garret, Jim!"And a good chest capacity if your singing is going to be heard at the back of a decent sized opera house.
... oh dear, I love opera as well. The more popular ones, anyway. Prob my Welsh roots, always a lot of singing going on. Drowns out the sound of the rain I suppose.
Ah, Karen, the rain, the rain. I went to college in England and seemed that every time I saw the 'Croeso i Cymru' sign when returning home, it started to rain.
I used to live in Wales, I can confirm that it rains there. ;-P
Well I can't contribute to this whole Welsh vibe thing going on because I've been all around the world, including New Zealand, Iceland, Argentina, but I've never been to Wales! Shameful I know but let's get back to books and the three that influenced me the most...1 - 'THE GIFT OF RAIN' by 'Tan Twan Eng'. This is the story of a mixed race English/Chinese teenage boy, Phillip, in pre-war Penang, Malaysia, who forms a friendship with a Japanese diplomat named 'Endo-san'. Whilst his English father and siblings are in England visiting his family ( he didn't want to go with them - he was the result of his father's second marriage to an ethnic Chinese woman ) he spends his time learning from Endo-san all about the Japanese martial arts and the internalised discipline that can be mustered to deal with any situation. As the story progresses, his family return from England, the war starts and Penang, like the rest of Malaysia, is occupied by a cruel and brutal Japanese army, Phillip's loyalties become blurred as he tries to bridge the gap between the occupying forces and the local population whilst also trying to save his own family from possible death. I won't say how it turns out but as a mixed race person myself, English/Indian, I found so many resonances in Phillip when he struggles for identity and feels caught between two worlds. It had a profound effect on me and is my favourite book of all time.
2- 'THE MERMAID'S SINGING' by Val McDermid.
Ah, now this is the one that got me writing. This is one of Val's more gruesome books with depictions of torture and violence but it's all within context and this was the first crime novel I'd read that made me understand the killer's perspective. I didn't obviously endorse what they did but I did understand how they got to that point. The plot is so original that if I'd written it I'd have taken off for the hills feeling sated that I'd done my bit for literature. Thank you, Val. You wrote a masterpiece and you got me writing!
3- 'THE LONG FIRM' by Jake Arnott.
Jake had a similar effect on me to what Val did and I loved this book from the beginning. I really like it when authors mix real events with a fictional story and that's exactly what Jake Arnott did with this. It introduced me to the wonderful character of Harry who is a gangland boss in 1960's London and is also gay. He's constantly conflicted between wanting to be a tender lover to his boyfriend and having this penchant for maintaining his position through violence. Loosely based on the Kray twins it's evocative of that era but also fresh, exciting, and it shows gay characters as being a universe away from the camp neurotics we too often get in fiction. I once saw the actor Bob Hoskins reading it on a plane and thought he'd make a good Harry but in the TV adaptation he was played by Mark Strong who was brilliant. So deathly, so dangerous, yet so charming, handsome, and sexy. A wonderful achievement by Jake Arnott and I loved the follow-up's, 'He kills Coppers' and 'Truecrime' too.
Well that's me and my three favourites. Tell me what you think? David Menon
Like your choices, David. I quite enjoyed the Gift of Rain. Prob the Welsh blood in me - oh, sorry. Done that already.I suspect there may be a childhood book that sparked the writer in you though.
PS you did mention Argentina - there's a big Welsh community in Patagonia - went over there in the 1860s cos of the depression in the S Wales coal industry http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/si...
Karen wrote: "Like your choices, David. I quite enjoyed the Gift of Rain. Prob the Welsh blood in me - oh, sorry. Done that already.I suspect there may be a childhood book that sparked the writer in you though."
There probably was, Karen, but I can't think of what it was. Did you have a childhood book that sparked something in you?
Was always a bookworm, but I think my first serious attempt at a novel (The Girl on the Grey... managed about 5 pages, aged about 9 I think) would hve been sparked by Black Beauty and my love of horses, and all the books by Diana Pullein Thompson. Never was an Enid Blyton fan.
Karen wrote: "Was always a bookworm, but I think my first serious attempt at a novel (The Girl on the Grey... managed about 5 pages, aged about 9 I think) would hve been sparked by Black Beauty and my love of h..."I seem to remember 'The L shaped Room' as being one that stayed with me and I feel awful because I can't remember the author's name!
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
Black Beauty (other topics)Our Mutual Friend (other topics)
Friday's Child (other topics)
Cotillion (other topics)
The Dragon Masters (other topics)
More...
It's quite hard to narrow it down to three choices, so if people want to list more go ahead but three is the magic number so...
1. The Odyssey - I first read this when I was around 17 as part of a course in college. I was completely blown away. Given that it was a course I had to re-read it and analyse it a lot, I know often that can lead to a dislike of a book but in this case it only deepened my appreciation. Then, in uni, I did another similar module and basically I wouldn't have passed the exam if I hadn't known so much about The Odyssey.
I just love everything about this book, the structure, the characterisation, the social commentary, the tragedy, the humour, the humanity. It's just a great story. I don't think it's a coincidence that I began writing in the same year that I studied it. It struck such a chord with me that I always reference it in everything I write.
2. Watchmen - I'm a huge superhero fan, obsessed you might say, and I was tempted to put a Spider-Man comic in because he's my favourite but I think Watchmen edges out the other contenders. I have to admit that I saw the film first, but when I got the graphic novel I read the whole thing in one sitting (it took me about 4 hours). It's really textured and deep, and it was a total game-changer in the industry. I know Alan Moore wasn't the greatest fan of superheroes and he sought to deconstruct them completely, so I don't go that far whenever I write about superheroes because I want to celebrate them. But I love the structure of Watchmen and how it build a world that is so much like our own. Everything in each panel is there for a reason, it's such a rich work that you can pore over it for hours and always find something new.
3 The Last Train to Memphis/Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley - I did deliberate over this for a while because I actually only read them over the last couple of years so I can't say they've influenced my writing too much. Also, I know I'm cheating a bit by including two books but they chart Elvis' life from beginning to end. Elvis is probably the greatest influence on my life and these books strip away all the myths and the legends and present an account of a man who was thrust into greatness. The author, Peter Guralnick, did a masterful job of writing the book, making it a real narrative that I completely got lost in. He managed to give a great depth to Elvis' saga, fleshing out all the supporting characters, the Colonel, the Memphis Mafia, his parents, Priscilla etc and I was so sucked in that I was actually shocked when I got to the part where Elvis died (spoiler alert ! haha). And I think it's a great testament to the author that he could elicit that reaction from a story when you know most of the facts. He imbues those facts with great emotion and as you're reading it's like you're there observing all these things happening.
Honourable mentions:
The Hero by W. Somerset Maughm - I only read this at the start of the year but it was the first W. Somerset Maughm story I read and he quickly leaped to the top of my 'favourite writer list'. His prose flows beautifully and he summed up exactly how I feel about a lot of things.
Philip K. Dick short stories - I'd never really read short stories before I started collection the volumes of his. He really showed me what could be done in the short form.
Existentialism & Humanism/Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre - I studied Philosophy at uni and when I was introduced to Existentialism it was the first thing we studied where I thought, 'yes! That's it!'
Amazing Fantasy #15 - Introducing my favourite superhero Spider-Man. Stan Lee will always be a god for this.