100 Book Challenge Meme

[delphi]

Throwing my list in for the 100 Books Challenge meme:

Delphi's Formative Reading

As some other folks have noted on theirs, this isn't a rec list or endorsement of any of the authors or content, just a look back at books that shaped me personally or creatively—ones that made me think about myself or the world in different ways, ones that made me realize the possibilities of writing, and ones I just glommed onto. There's one or two there that I only read about ten years back, but for the most part these are books from my childhood, teens, and twenties. I limited authors to one book, going with the first one of theirs that made a deep impression.

If you give it a go, let me know how many you've read!

(I started by just trying to think of a hundred books I re-read in my youth, without factoring in any importance, but once the list came together, I looked it over and was like: Yeah...that tracks.)

Comments

[bleodswean]

I know I've been formed by books. Your list is intriguing. I've read only 34, but I am older than you and not familiar with many of the younger titles. And The Wasp Factory!!! I was a twenty-year-old mohican standing in Heathrow airport in a book stall and picked that one up and read it transcontinentaly! Different person when I got off the plane. I also picked up Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School that early morning and after I read that I decided I needed to relocate my life to London.

[delphi]

"Only 34," you say - that's way more overlap than I've had with anyone, as far as I know! And oh man, yes, The Wasp Factory was a game-changer. I think I was maybe fourteen when I found that one at the secondhand bookshop near my school. Already a budding little goth-punk with the start of a facial metal collection, but so ready to find something grottier than the slick or stylized dark fiction I'd glommed onto before.