I read this book and it changed my life @Liz Flaherty

Although I think we'd all like to change people's lives with the books we write, most of us are happy with changing an afternoon. I like nothing better than being told I've given a reader a good day. But I got to thinking...that's always an omen for a blog post, isn't it?


A book that changed my life was Little Women, because I knew when I read it that I wanted to write books when I grew up. Thinking about that made me wonder what titles had been life-changers for others, so I did the scientific thing--I took it to Facebook! Seventy-three individual responses later, here we are. I can't thank those respondents enough, and I'd love to use them all, but I can't. Here are a few un-scientific results.

  • Nancy Drew rocks!
  • Several of us thought we were Jo March--and here I thought it was just me.
  • Gene Stratton-Porter's influence is wide and varied. 
  • It is difficult to name just one. Some of the answers contained up to ten titles, and I understood that. We all know "just one book" is a joke no matter what the context.
  • Several of us loved Great Expectations, and not a one of us could explain why.
  • Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen...
  • Anne Shirley was everyone's kindred spirit--I'll bet L. M. Montgomery would be proud.
There were answers I loved, though, ones I want to share here, in no particular order.

Anna Bednarski: Jane Eyre. There was something about her that was different than any other literary heroine I've ever come across. She was the center of her story, and she never deluded herself about her circumstances nor accepted them as fate.

Ellen Morse Schwartz: Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther. I read it as a young girl and learned about death. I think because I read it so young it instilled a realistic view of death and how I deal with it.


Patty Lawrence Sanai: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee was the first book that impacted me and how I viewed things. Each time I read it I am impacted differently depending on my stage of life. When I first read it identified with the children but as I have aged the adult point of view is what keeps my interest.

Cheryl Reavis Maggie Davis's FAR SIDE OF HOME. Firstly (is that a word?), it was a Civil War mainstream historical, which I'd wanted to write ever since I was about 11 years old (i.e., THE PRISONER). And secondly, I thought Maggie's voice was something like mine--which made me think the impossible was possible and maybe I actually could get a book published. I first read it when I was in nursing school in the early 1960s, and then periodically thereafter to give myself hope. Later, when I was a published author, I happen to see in the newspaper where Maggie would be at a writers' conference in Raleigh, 2 1/2 hours away, and I made a special, impromptu trip to see her and get her to sign my well-worn-re-read copy of the book. I ran into her in a hallway and told her why I was pouncing on her. She was so gracious and didn't seem to mind that the book I wanted her to sign wasn't new. Sometime later, she told me that she had been feeling really low about her career that day and how much it lifted her spirits to know that I was carrying one of her books around with me like that and had made a special trip to come and see her.

Ann Friend: Imagine Heaven by John Burke. I read it after my granddaughter was killed and it helped me to have a better attitude toward physical death and the spirit. It was very healing for my heart and soul.

Kurt Schindler: Having just watched a documentary on him, I'm going to have to go with Armistad Maupin's Tales of the City books. There was a joy to reading them, and I really admired his simple style... However, my life philosophy is still based on the very first book I read: Go, Dog, Go. I'm forever trying to find the perfect hat to wear to a party in a tree. 

Lora Brothers Mathews: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The crushing poverty, the hope and loyalty, and the sensitive voice of Frannie. It cracked open my heart.

Linda Pearl: With a newborn baby in one hand and the book Will There Really Be a Morning, the bio of Frances Farmer, in the other, 46 years later, it still resonates.

Laura Stroud: My grandmother gave me the Anne of Green Gables set as a child. I would read them over and over. She said she gave them to me because I reminded her of Anne. Not the orphan part. The imaginative and mischievous parts. Being an only child, I had to be imaginative and find adventures to go on in the back yard. That sometimes led me to the mischievous parts. I still have the set of books! She also gave me my first book of Little Women. I now own many copies of this book. People over the years have given them to me as gifts because I would remind them of Jo.

Cathie Kahle: Trixie Belden series! They got me through my parents' divorce.
I was touched by some of the answers, as you can imagine. And I was thrilled, because not only were there 73 answers, there was discussion of books. Laughter. Thought. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who cried.

I work in a library, where I'm not nearly busy enough. More people come in to use the computers and borrow movies than to read. Even there, I get raised eyebrows and the occasional curled lip because I write romance. It is discouraging sometimes. It makes me sad.

But when I work in the children's department, and a kid checks in ten and checks out ten more and tells me what they're about, I'm not sad at all. 

And when I ask a question on Facebook and 73 people answer it with thought and consideration, I'm not sad then, either. LoRee Peery's response to the question was Pollyanna. The Glad Girl. That was me. It changed my afternoon.

If you missed it on Facebook, the question I asked was this: To use in a blog post, would you mind sharing the title of a book that made a lasting impression on you or changed your life in some way? It doesn't have to be a favorite. For instance, mine is LITTLE WOMEN, because reading it made me know I was going to write books when I grew up.

What was yours?

Comments

  1. Some of these books are still on my shelves, and you're so right: They DID have the power to change attitudes, and thereby changes lives! Thanks for the reminder, Liz!

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    1. I still have some of them, too--or have put them on my Kindle so the pages don't yellow! :-)

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  2. You know, I answered that with an author instead of a book, but I have to say that Gene Stratton-Porter's book The Harvester changed my life because it showed me what a real romantic hero is. David Langston wasn't rich or famous, but he was a kind and good man who loved with his whole being. I think he is the reason I chose a kind and good man to spend my life with and why I write beta heroes. Somehow, the alpha thing never resonated with me...and I think it's because of The Harvester.

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    1. Oh, I love that. And I feel the same way about Freckles. She wrote lovely men.

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  3. Such a wonderful post, Liz. Books were definitely life changers for me in many ways and at various times in my growing up years. When I read To Kill a Mockingbird, I learned that the world could be cruel. Little Women and the Little House on the Prairie series drew me and my imagination into the past. My husband had a saying for our daughters whenever they said they were bored. “If you like to read, you’ll never be bored”.

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    1. He's right, isn't he? I'll never be able to travel to all the places I want to go, but I've been there if for no other reason than all those early Harlequins I read. Thanks, Janice!

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  4. I was one of the many who named 'Anne'. I think it was the value placed on imagination and her love of words. I aspired to be her...right down to the freckles! Thank you for the opportunity to reconnect with a quiet turning point in my life, Liz.

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    1. Oh, thank you, Moira. It was good to open some memory envelopes, wasn't it?

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  5. BTW, the cover you chose reads 'Little Woman', singular. Is there a story behind that?

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    1. I didn't even notice it! I was hurrying and just grabbed a cover from Amazon. I think I'll change that! Thanks for the notice.

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  6. White Fang and Dracula inspire me to write so well the reader is transported (like I was). Not an easy task!

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    1. Sometimes when I read others' work, I am "transported" by envy. Moira's post from the 26th and your "lightening the house" were examples of that, and I had to slap my own hands so I could just enjoy instead of muttering because I can't write that well. :-)

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    2. I was a big fan of Call of the Wild and White Fang, too.

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  7. Lucky you, working in a library. But I'm afraid I'd see too many books I want to read and not enough time. Good post.

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    1. Thanks, Roz. I do enjoy being in the library. I don't read anywhere near as much as I used to, but it's still fun looking over everything on the "new books" shelf!

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  8. Nancy Drew does rock, or at least kept me entertained and delighted for hours and hours. When I was a tween, my mother was a volunteer who ran a story time every Saturday at the local library. That meant I got to go along, maybe run the film strip (remember those?) and check out a pile of books for the next week. There was a big section of horse books, especially racehorses, and I'm pretty sure I read every one of them. I still sigh with pleasure over card catalogs.

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    1. Oh, yes, to card catalogs--I wish we still used ours at the library! I loved the Hardy Boys, too. I wasn't much for horses, but do remember reading "Windy Foot" and "Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot" and some books about the ponies on Chincoteague Island that made me forever curious (and in adoration of) anything to do with the Eastern seaboard!

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    2. Misty of Chincoteague and Stormy, Misty's Foal. Author name was Margaret something. Thanks Google - Marguerite Henry. I believe I read everything she ever wrote...as well as every other book in the library with a horse on the cover or title.

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    3. Nancy Drew - thinking back, any time someone followed her, they were always missing one headlight. I thought if criminals were just a little more careful, they could get away with stuff.

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    4. Oh, yes, Misty and Stormy --loved them. And one about a firehorse, and Black Beauty of course although it wasn't my favorite, and the Black Stallion books ...

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  9. I love that list--as for authors in my childhood, LI Wilder was top of the list for me, but also Maud Hart Lovelace and her stories of girls in Minnesota. Does anyone remember an author with a last name du Jardin--maybe Rosamond was her first name. They were light teen romances, the kind you read way before you're dating age! And Nancy Drew drove her own car and was so smart. Loved reading through all the comments, too.

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    1. Oh, I LOVED Rosamund du Jardin. I think Image Cascade has re-released her books. I also read everything Betty Cavanna wrote, which was considerable! M. H. Lovelace--was that Betsy, Tacy, and Tib? I liked them, too. Elisabeth Hamilton Friermood and Janet Lambert were Hoosier authors whose books I enjoyed a lot.

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  10. My change my life book was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I didn't realize that prose and poetry could be combined in such a wondrous use of language to express emotion and still keep the story moving for a young reader. I quickly read everything by her that I could find, but A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet are still must reads for me at least once every other year. And I can't wait to see the movie!

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    1. Isn't that wonderful, when you first see what mere words can do? The pictures they can paint? I'm anxious to see the movie, too!

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  11. Love this discussion, Liz. I loved the Little House on the Prairie books as a kid, probably because even a hundred years after Laura Ingalls Wilder, I too, was a little girl on the prairies and could relate to her stories. But the books that changed my life were a succession of Harlequin romances that I read in the early 1990s. I was surprised by how good they were and by how much I liked them. I started to believe I could write one too. And becoming a writer has changed my life.

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    1. I did, too, Jana. Our teacher read Little House on the Prairie aloud to us in 3rd or 4th grade, and I can still remember how delighted I was when I found out IT WAS A SERIES! Harlequin has been a gift to many of us, haven't they?

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    2. I know what you mean about a series--I've wondered if the Wilder books and others stuck with so many of us, and solidified the idea that a series of related books are simply the best, and we've never lost that. I named my daughter Laura after Ingalls Wilder, simply because the books meant so much to me. And they mean a lot to Laura, too. There's no way to overstate the influence of books/stories on young people and the way they can change lives.

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  12. Liz, love this post! So much so, I think I'll ask my FB people the same question. :-) Not sure if I answered, (and my answer isn't what most people would say) but The Biography of Will Rogers had a strange impact on me. It is the first book I check out on my own library card. Prior to that I'd had to use my mother's.

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    1. What a nice memory. Will Rogers was a favorite of my parents, so I grew up hearing about him. I still admire him!

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  13. What an awesome post!!! Thank you for compiling all these wonderful responses, Liz. Amazing the joy books and reading brings to people. I think the book that changed my life was Carrie by Stephen King. Don't laugh, anyone! Back in the late 70's/early 80's, before I discovered romance, there wasn't the plethora of YA books there are now. Thank goodness, otherwise I'm not sure I would have ended up as a writer. Carrie ignited my imagination for all that is possible--and seemingly impossible.

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    1. I just read Stephen King's book On Writing. Enjoyable and eductional and motivational. And he talked about where the idea for Carrie came from.

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    2. Thanks, Anna, and Kim for joining the discussion. On Writing is just about my favorite writing book of all, and I think King's writing is inspired. That being said, horror just about makes me hide under the bed anyway, so if HE writes it... I can definitely see where he is a solid influence, though.

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    3. The only books of his I read were the ones at the Malt Stop where I had a job and sometimes the mall was really quiet, and I read almost anything in front of me. Couldn't read IT though.

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  14. Fabulous post, Liz! I love reading all the responses. And it's so tempting to name more than one. For me, it was Jane Eyre. I've read that book more than any other book I own.

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    1. Isn't it fun? I loved Jane Eyre (and the movies, too), but could never re-read it.

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  15. So many books were incrementally life changing. White Fang, The Diary of Anne Frank, Jane Eyre, The Golden Compass, The Little Prince, Bitten and Personal Demon by Kelley Armstrong. Those Armstrong books invaded my beliefs and changed me for the better. They brought up close to me that any good book, including a romance, can have a remarkable impact on anyone. Great post!

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    1. Thank you. I've loved the discussion. Books do change us in so many ways.

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