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This one's of my own devising - an alphabetical list of books that have influenced me, for good or for ill. This isn't a list of recommendations, or of particularly noteworthy or important books, but books that I read before 1983 (the year I graduated high school). If possible, I'll link back to Amazon so you can find the publication data if you're interested.
Beginning with the letter "A":
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone.
About the book: Irving Stone practically invented the idea of a "biographical novel" - a story about a real person that weaved the events of that person's life into a compelling, but highly fictionalized story. I first read this when I was in seventh grade. The book had been my dad's - one of his all time favorites (he wasn't a reader, like my mom or my sisters or my grandmother, but this book was his) - and although I was only 13 at the time, he encouraged me to read it. There are several somewhat graphic sex scenes in the story, but I think my dad either forgot about them or thought the educational value of the story was more important.
There's an interesting story as to why I picked up this book when I was 13. In seventh grade, I had a truly horrible English teacher, Mr. Fontaine, who had asked the class to write out a list of books they read that marking period. I had 45 or so books and he called me a liar in front of the class. I told my mother who told the vice principal who talked to the school librarian who told Mr. Fontaine that yes, I had read AT LEAST 45 books that marking period, because we'd talked about them (I used to hang in the library before classes and after lunch) and he's had to make a formal apology to me in front of the whole class. So I started carrying the biggest and most outrageous books I could find to my English class and be visibly reading whenever I saw him (of course, this marked me as an utter nerd, but I didn't give two fucks about that).
Why is it important to me? I fell in love with the Renaissance because of this book. So much so that I concentrated on Renaissance history in college, majored in History with a concentration in Medieval and Early Modern History and double minored in English and Renaissance Studies, and got a master's degree in Renaissance Social History.
It doesn't hurt that it's an excellent story and beautifully detailed, particularly the creative scenes describing how Michelangelo created his greatest works. There is, of course, some things that might be deemed problematic now - Michelangelo's reaction to being called a homosexual is straight (ha!) out of 1950s morality.
This book has been "featured" in several White Collar stories. Peter reads it to the unconscious Neal in Even the Stars Are Not Safe In Heaven (the book had originally belonged to Peter's dad), and it's the book that Neal's reading in The Eternal Optimism of Two Men Stuck in a Single Hotel Room With Only One Bed.
And as for Mr. Fontaine? Well, that asshole got a not-so-starring role as "Jerkface Fontaine" in Part One of Testing Silence, a Wonder(ful) Years story about Peter and Neal in the years before college.
Beginning with the letter "A":
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone.
About the book: Irving Stone practically invented the idea of a "biographical novel" - a story about a real person that weaved the events of that person's life into a compelling, but highly fictionalized story. I first read this when I was in seventh grade. The book had been my dad's - one of his all time favorites (he wasn't a reader, like my mom or my sisters or my grandmother, but this book was his) - and although I was only 13 at the time, he encouraged me to read it. There are several somewhat graphic sex scenes in the story, but I think my dad either forgot about them or thought the educational value of the story was more important.
There's an interesting story as to why I picked up this book when I was 13. In seventh grade, I had a truly horrible English teacher, Mr. Fontaine, who had asked the class to write out a list of books they read that marking period. I had 45 or so books and he called me a liar in front of the class. I told my mother who told the vice principal who talked to the school librarian who told Mr. Fontaine that yes, I had read AT LEAST 45 books that marking period, because we'd talked about them (I used to hang in the library before classes and after lunch) and he's had to make a formal apology to me in front of the whole class. So I started carrying the biggest and most outrageous books I could find to my English class and be visibly reading whenever I saw him (of course, this marked me as an utter nerd, but I didn't give two fucks about that).
Why is it important to me? I fell in love with the Renaissance because of this book. So much so that I concentrated on Renaissance history in college, majored in History with a concentration in Medieval and Early Modern History and double minored in English and Renaissance Studies, and got a master's degree in Renaissance Social History.
It doesn't hurt that it's an excellent story and beautifully detailed, particularly the creative scenes describing how Michelangelo created his greatest works. There is, of course, some things that might be deemed problematic now - Michelangelo's reaction to being called a homosexual is straight (ha!) out of 1950s morality.
This book has been "featured" in several White Collar stories. Peter reads it to the unconscious Neal in Even the Stars Are Not Safe In Heaven (the book had originally belonged to Peter's dad), and it's the book that Neal's reading in The Eternal Optimism of Two Men Stuck in a Single Hotel Room With Only One Bed.
And as for Mr. Fontaine? Well, that asshole got a not-so-starring role as "Jerkface Fontaine" in Part One of Testing Silence, a Wonder(ful) Years story about Peter and Neal in the years before college.
