It’s National Book Lovers Day—Let’s Celebrate!
Happy National Book Lovers Day!
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Happy National Book Lovers Day! Today I’m celebrating with this bonus blog post!
I didn’t know this day existed until a couple weeks ago, but this is my kind of holiday! To celebrate, I thought I’d share the top ten books that have shaped me as a reader and book lover. It was difficult to narrow it down to the top ten—there are so many books that have shaped me as a reader and a writer—but I did it. So, here (in chronological order) are the ten books that have had the biggest impact on me as a reader, writer, editor, and person.
#1: Ptolemy’s Gate, Jonathan Stroud
Ptolemy’s Gate is the final installment of Stroud’s Bartimaeus Sequence, and it absolutely shattered me. It might have caused my first full on book hangover—you can see why here. But it was worth it.
I can’t say too much without giving away spoilers, but this book ended the series with a bang and the feeling of reading the last couple pages has stuck with me two decades later.
#2: Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
If you think we just jumped forward in time by a decade, you’d be wrong. True story: I started reading Jane Eyre on the 1st day of fifth grade. Why? I wanted to impress my new fifth grade teacher with my amazing reading prowess. The best part, it worked. She held a one-one-one reading conference to assess my fluency & comprehension that I nailed. I finished the book a couple weeks later and loved it.
Now, I will admit that this story reveals a troubling need to prove myself (growing up as one of the only black students at a nearly all-white elementary school definitely took a toll). However, it also introduced me to one of my favorite authors of all time. Seven years later, I chose Villette as the topic for my culminating essay for the International Baccalaureate program.
I can’t say exactly why I loved Jane Eyre so much—it was a long time ago. But I think it’s because I saw a lot of myself in the main character—a bookish child who didn’t fit in with her family and couldn’t quite find a place for herself until much, much later. It gave me hope, and a reason to keep reading.
#3: Daughter of the Blood, Anne Bishop
This one belongs on the list of books that I was way too young for (6th or 7th grade) but loved anyway. (Thanks Mom & Dad for never censoring my reading). Anne Bishop writes a special kind of dark fantasy—one that brings you into a dark, twisty world but then introduces you to characters who fight back against the darkness. They might have dark sides of their own, but they are willing to do whatever it takes to protect people they love. I still turn to these books when I’m going through tough times. Again and again, opening one of Bishop’s books has felt a little bit like coming home and that’s a beautiful thing.
These taught me a lot about love, family, and pushing back against tyranny. I’ve read every single book Anne Bishop has ever published and her books now have a shelf of their own in my library.
#4: Kushiel’s Dart, Jacqueline Carey
This book is right next to Daughter of the Blood on the list of books I was way too young for when I started reading them. Kushiel’s Dart gets a place on this list because it was a fantasy world unlike any I’d encountered before. Gone was the male-centric, sword and sorcery style of fantasy that was most common in Barnes & Noble. Instead, I was exposed to a female protagonist who was strong and sexy and SMART all at the same time. I couldn’t get enough and just like Anne Bishop’s books; my Jacqueline Carey collection now takes up an entire shelf.
#5: The Odyssey, Homer
This one might seem odd, but stick with me.
Reading The Odyssey was a watershed moment in my life—it changed the trajectory of my entire life. Before tenth grade, English class was a lot of reading and responding to books emotionally. We talked about how they made us feel and then wrote about how they made us feel and then debated how they made us feel, etc. etc. That was fun, don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved English class. But 10th grade was different.
In tenth grade we started literary analysis and I fell in love. It was like the heavens had opened and a light shone down on me from above. I had found my niche—the thing in school that I was really, really good at.
Now a lot of that love probably came from my teacher at the time—she was and still is the best teacher I’ve ever had—but some of it was just the magic of going through Homer’s words and analyzing line by line what he was conveying. I felt like a detective combing through a crime scene with my magnifying glass and putting everything together to make meaning. It’s an amazing feeling. Without this experience, I’m not sure I would have become an English major or an English teacher or an editor.
#6: Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
Flash forward to senior year and I had my 10th grade English teacher again. Borges is weird and wonderful and delightful. His stories draw you in and turn you around and make you think deeper than you thought you could. I’m not sure I’ve read a better collection of short stories. Borges isn’t for the faint of heart, but I don’t think you’ll regret the experience.
#7: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
I used to listen to the How Writer’s Write podcast each week (it’s no longer running, but the backlist is still a great listen for aspiring authors) and every episode ends with the same five questions. One of those questions is “If you were reincarnated as a book, what would it be and why? In other words, what’s your spirit book?”
As soon as I heard that question for the first time, I knew my own answer—this is it.
It’s a strange little book that shouldn’t be as captivating and delightful as it is. It’s quirky, sad, a little bit hopeful, and above all, beautiful. The two point of view characters, a curmudgeonly landlady and a suicidal teen girl, seem like they belong to two disparate narratives, but the author brings their stories together masterfully. It’s a book that resonated with something deep in my soul and lingered with me long after I read it.
#8: The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is a master of the literary craft, and for me, that comes across most in The Enchantress of Florence. I was a literature major and then an English major, I love reading, and I love sentence by sentence analysis. But this was the first book that made me stop and reread a sentence (sometimes multiple times) simply because the wording was so breathtakingly beautiful.
I love genre fiction, it’s my specialty as a writer/editor and my preferred pleasure reading, but I still appreciate literary beauty for beauty’s sake. Rushdie manages to combine sentence level artistry with story that is engaging and mostly accessible.
#9: Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli
I’m closing out the list where we began, with YA. I came to this book as a reading teacher and fell head over heels in love. Even though it’s meant for younger readers, I think reading it as an adult with background knowledge about the Holocaust made the reading experience more poignant and heartbreaking. It’s a beautiful book that doesn’t sugar coat the horrors of history but still looks through the eyes of childhood innocence. Spinelli writes for a young audience but doesn’t talk down to them. I’ve read it at least three times in the past four years (I reread each time I teach a book) and each time I ugly cry at the and find something new to love.
There you have it—nine books that have left an imprint on my heart and molded some part of my life as a reader, writer, and person.
I hope you enjoy National Book Lover’s Day by sitting back with a hot (or maybe iced) beverage and enjoying one of your favorite books!
Have your own list of influential books? Drop me a line and let me know which books have impacted you most!
P.S. You may be wondering—Olivia is a fantasy writer and editor, shouldn’t a certain series about a certain boy wizard be on this list? And yes, it should. But trans lives matter today and every day. Period.
