I started writing this yesterday (Sunday) morning, and here I am Monday just getting back to it. I worked a short shift today, a volunteer shift for the holiday that nets me some overtime pay.
The past couple of weeks have been a wee bit stressful. Our local water utility came by to warn us that we’d used a lot of water this month. A lot of water, too much to be normal. We knew we’d acquired a leak in our sprinkler system and the spousal unit had already clamped it off, but the numbers this guy quoted took our breath away. We were braced for an ungodly water bill, $1000 or more. Given that our budget won’t stretch to cover that kind of an “Uh-oh” right now, things got mighty tense. The bill came in just a few days ago, and it was only $200. Still high, but not at heart-attack level, thank God. The combination of OT I worked last week and the holiday pay for working tomorrow will cover it with room to spare. Not that we don’t have other bills to suck up the overage, but I’ll take what I can get.
We made some major scores this weekend during our yard-sale run, and G has already sold one item that nearly paid back everything we spent on the whole day. That’s how we fund the weekly excursions: we buy a combination of things we want and things to be cleaned, refinished, refurbished and re-sold. He bought a doggy door insert for arcadia doors (which are standard for most homes in this part of the world) and paid $10 for it. It was filthy but after cleaning it up he re-sold it for $35 and probably could have sold it for more. He had eighteen people who said they wanted it at that price. That paid for the doggy door, the set of chairs we got, and another $5 of other odds and ends.
We spent $50 total on this weekend’s foray, which is more than we normally spend but we got some amazing deals along the way, things we also don’t normally buy. Part of that was our $20 matching pair of chairs, which I love. I took my Little Green Machine to them on principle, and G’s going to paint the feet black since all of our living room furniture is dark wood. We were blown away to get them for that price.
Okay, now on to the actual intent of this entry. I swiped the idea from Hil, who borrowed it from a Facebook meme. The idea is to identify ten books which had a big impact on me. Reading is a huge part of my life. Maybe it’s time for me to cite the reasons why some of these carried so much influence. Please note I didn’t go only with the books I liked, but with those that influenced me.
My list, in no particular order.
- The Little Lame Prince
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
This kids’ book, written in 1875, speaks to the sense of isolation in all of us. The main character was an outcast in a very literal sense. He was physically disabled, possibly due to a careless nurse who dropped him when he was an infant. He was royalty but locked away in a tower because he was unsightly and in his society’s view, useless. While his physical needs were met, he was granted no human interaction except for the solitary nurse assigned to care for him. The story uses a magical cloak – basically a magic carpet – to convey him into the world that left him behind, a fact that took place at night when the nurse was away for short periods. He was an invisible observer to the world that treated him like yesterday’s garbage. That perspective allowed him to see that life wasn’t so wonderful for those on the outside, either. When he ultimately was released from the tower (despite his disability, he was the king’s only heir, and the royal hierarchy had to remain intact when the regent died) he used his knowledge to rule wisely. Pretty deep stuff for a children’s book. - Black Hearts in Battersea
Joan Aikin
Another kid’s book. I loved the secrets embedded into this little Victorian confection. Joan Aikin never wrote down to her readers; this was my 5th-grade favorite and I think I’d enjoy it just as much if I re-read it today. Intrigue, family secrets, scandal, and set in England. I think this might be what made me an Anglophile back when. - Encounter Near Venus
Leonard Wibberly
I discovered this sweet little book when I was barely old enough to read, right out of first grade. It’s kind of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe lite. Thanks to Mr. Wibberly’s work, I became addicted to the fantasy and sci-fi genres right out of the gate. - The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle
This sucker’s about the size of an unabridged dictionary (944 pages per Amazon) and took me two weeks to read from cover to cover. It’s also kind of a cheat here because it’s not technically one book, but a collection. It includes all four of the novels and all fifty-six short stories Doyle wrote in the Holmes series. Oh, and I read it when I was twelve years old, before Benedict Cumberbatch was even a twinkle in his parents’ eyes. - Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them
Dr. Susan Forward
The previous books significantly affected my tastes. This one may literally have saved my life. I knew my marriage to my first husband was toxic, but had bought into the lie that everything was my fault. This narrative put a lot of things into perspective and helped me to recover a lot of the self esteem that had been surgically removed through the years. My first husband held guns to my head and knives to my throat for fun. I doubt I would have survived for much longer had I not found the strength to leave him. - The Bourne Identity
Robert Ludlum
I don’t recall exactly when I read this book, but I thought it was spellbinding. (Unfortunately I was less impressed by the movies.) It was the first time I’d picked up a book where I didn’t skim through the boring parts. There were no boring parts. I was glued to the page from start to finish. It drew me both as a reader and especially as a writer. It was one of the things that prompted me to try writing again. I think I can safely say that without this, I wouldn’t have ever written my first book, and doubtful I would even have conceived the second. - The Bible
various
Regardless of my current views on religion as a whole, this book impacts most people in the western world, myself included. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household, so its influence was unavoidable. I’ve stepped back as an adult and reminded myself that whatever the origins of its combined manuscripts, a group of men edited and decided what was and wasn’t kept as canon in the book that dictates the lives of so many people. When you’re talking about a book imbued with so much power, to discard what you don’t like is criminal. - Roget’s Thesaurus
Listen, honey, for a writer (or just someone with delusions of authorship) this is the Holy Grail. I don’t even type in the word thesaurus all the way nowadays for my browser to recognize thesaurus.com, but I also have a couple of paperback versions in the event that the Internet went south for any reason. It’s right up there with eating and sleeping. - Stranger In A Strange Land
Robert Heinlein
This sci-fi heavyweight won a Hugo Award, the genre’s equivalent of an Oscar, and was later also given a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. Considering the era, it was hugely controversial. It took on religion in the middle of the 20th century, challenging arbitrary rules and daring anyone to argue with its revised views on morality. I read it years ago and found it troubling, though. For me, it was a morality play that missed the mark because its themes relied on misogyny. Heinlein was one of the first authors to write science fiction for the masses, churning out a prolific body of work. Some of his themes were thoughtful, others outrageous. Together with Isaac Asimov, he wrote the fictional accounts that rewrote many real rules for the future. To this day, Stranger In A Strange Land works as a hair shirt on my psyche. Maybe that’s the point. - Night Mare
Piers Anthony
Kind of an oddball story behind this one. I asked for a book called Nightmare, an autobiography by the famous porn star Linda Lovelace. My then-husband brought this home instead. Waaaaay different. I’m grateful for his mistake, because this was my first introduction to Piers Anthony as an author. This is one of his protracted Xanth series, which is probably the single biggest collection of puns known to mankind. One of his book titles, for example, is Centaur Isle. Yup, it’s like that. Whimsical, occasionally thought-provoking, this one’s a just-because-it’s-fun entry. The puns have grown old, but I still grab any Xanth books I see, on principle.
There you go, all ten books for your perusal. Hil pointed out that you can tell a lot about a person by their choice of books. It probably says I’m borderline schizophrenic from this mix!