A Book Survey

[omorka]

Stolen from scarfman, originally from anaka:

If you tend toward books (and if you don't at least somewhat, the odds of you being an LJ devotee to whatever degree are pretty slim), then it's a good bet that you've got a number of books that really resonated with you, often to the extent of informing your development as a person and your view of the world. These are not always classics of literature. Often they are, viewed objectively, really deeply awful books. That's not the point. The point is that they were the right (or wrong, nothing says they had to have a positive influence) thing for you to read at the right time, and they stayed with you in a meaningful way.

The number of these varies, but most people if queried can come up with three of them. One or more of them were likely encountered between the ages of 11 and 13, and may have been the first "grown up" book you read. Beyond that, I can't think of any set pattern, and even those may just be a coincidental cluster of data points. Nonetheless, I'm newly fascinated by this question and I wish to ask it here.

Help me out then, my friends. Name your top three core texts. If you wish to include age when encountered, positive or negative influence, general summary of the text, or type of influence it exerted on you, that would be likewise awesome. I wanna know about YOU! And books! Humor me. :)

Unfortunately, there are at least three books that are easily candidates for this list that I cannot give, because I no longer remember their titles. I could tell you where they were in the county library young readers' section (or, in one case, my parents' bookshelf), and I could describe what their library covers looked like, but authors and titles have long been swallowed by time. So, of the ones not so lost:

1) A Wind In The Door, and by extension the rest of the Murray Children cycle, by Madeline L'Engle. These are books that reassure smart kids that their difference isn't a detriment; that the universe is vast and yet accessible and comrehensible, if taken in small chunks; and that humans can - no, must - be trusted with their own destinies. There are also some wonderful themes on music, on identity and naming, and on remembrance. It's probably somewhat ironic that such Christian (if not exactly orthodox) books are part of what set me on my current spiritual path, but there we are.

2) Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, Milliam McKinely, and Me, Elizabeth. by E.L. Konigsburg. It sounds dumb when I say it, but - this is probably the most formative book regarding female friendships in my entire life, much less my childhood. It also was one of my "okay, so I'm a witch; what does that mean?" figuring-out books.

3) Spiral Dance, by Starhawk. Some of the Dianic/separatist bits of the political rhetoric have not aged well, but as a textbook for feminist Pagan values and practice, you can't much go wrong with the original. Finding this in college, along with Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon, was a revelation.

Honorable mention: the Bible, the Principia Discordia, The Ethical Slut, Blessed Bi Spirit, the fourteen original Oz books by L. Frank Baum, the GURPS 3rd edition revised Basic handbook, and the Eneuma Elish.

Comments

[geki-burakku.livejournal.com]

I recall reading "The Spiral Dance" about 12 years ago now and while I found much in it that was fascinating, the bits you mentioned did not sit well with me at all. The reason being that men are made to feel stupid and clueless and useless enough in modern American culture as it is, and I did not need something like this to rub it in and make those feelings worse. I was and still am under the impression that the Pagan cause was to strive for equality for all, something I have no problem with, and while I am aware that the Dianic/separatist circles are not the norm, it still bothered me to read those parts. As a friend of mine stated once, "The difference between a feminist and a feminazi is that a feminist says 'I don't depend on men,' and a feminazi says 'I don't need men.'" I do believe and understand that there is a difference between those two mindsets and no, I do not lump the two together, which is unfair to women in general, and I mean no disrespect to you by saying these things. I don't down that book at all otherwise.