what has been your life's influential literature?

[its Leslie]

We, being authors, are more inclined to be closer to literature than others in some cases. I am wondering, what have you read in your life, that has had a dramtic influence on you (because it will of course influence what you write or perhaps just how your write).

Most influential fiction would be possibly, going on most recent, Arthur C Clarke's book Light of Other Days. It shows some things, through fiction, that I think most would not normally think of at all.

I was also really impressed with Terry Goodkind's book Wizard's First Rule Which was for those that have not read it, "People are stupid". Incidentally, Second Rule is, Even good can do harm".

Carl Sagan's book Demon Haunted World will also likely anger most people, about as much as his book Billions and Billions. But then most people don't like to have some things pointed out to them.

So what have my fellow writer's read that really had an "effect" on them (and why).

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Authors

Jack Kerouac for teaching me that language can sing and that writing is music. I have him in my bones and I'll never get him out and I know I'll never be that good.
Isaac Bashevis Singer for teaching me that a story should be a story and showing better than anyone how the narrator can be invisible and still shed light.
Charles Portis for teaching me that you can just play with things and that's okay. Thomas Berger too.
Patrick O'Brian for constantly amazing me with how fucking good fiction can be.
The editors & writers of MAD when it began, where we all learned satire, whether we know it or not.
Flannery O'Connor for just knocking the shit out of me
Salinger for being so graceful and invisible.
Castenada for showing me what real magic is like when it enters our lives
Raymond Chandler for muscular grace
All the early slush Sci Fi guys for giving me something to read
Borges for flying
&c &c &c

 

[ronde]

Edgar Rice Borroughs if for no other reason than because the Tarzan series is a great read.

Mark Twain for effortless story-telling and writing style.

Alexandre Dumas

Contemporary authors include:

Sue Grafton - great detective series with really great characters. She does suspense well.

Whitley Strieber - "War Day" is a great tale and the plot strikes a little too close to human nature to be taken lightly.

Jean Auel - She writes supposition into reality and her characters are deep and well developed. Some of her fourth book seemed a bit wordy.

Michael and Kathleen Gear's "People of the ..." series. Great visuals and nice writing style.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction by authors of reputation, but "Bully for Brontosaurus" by Stephen Jay Gould was great.

 

[poohlive]

A good writer will be influenced, in some way or another, but every single piece of literature he can get his hands on. I mean everything, even idiotic drivel. In fact, that is probably the most most important stuff, seeing as everything you need to know how to not write, would be inside those pages.

E.B. White. I would have to say as a great influence. She knew that children were not stupid, and they deserve a story just as much as the rest of us. It should deal with real life, loss, the fate of others, and trying to break steretypes in a ever changing world (other great children's writers should be here as well, J.K. Rowling and such).

Stephen King. The most brilliant writer I have ever had the chance to take in. His works have redefined a genre that have given us so many great authors before. He has quite literally thrown himself into the ring with his own writing, demanded respect, and got it, to the amazement of everyone. Apart from all the gruesome, horroristic plots and themes, this man knows how to write a story, and write a good one at that.

Edgar Allen Poe, William Golding (lord of the flies) I love these people, not necessarily for their works, although they do have good published work, but simply because they have inspired so many others to do the same. Once you read Lord of the Flies, you feel it's necessary to take your work to a new level, create that monster that no one sees but everyone knows is there, and to make it scream to the audience, who are holding on for dear life.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

The first two I would cite is because of sheer volume...I've read over 20 works by each of the these two authors...
Mercedes Lackey and Nora Roberts
Writing in many voices with many themes


Mark Twain for showing me how witty writing can be

Maya Angelou for her poetic voice

 

[Quasimodem]

Classics [disregarding Shakespeare]


My three heros:
[ Quasimodo ] The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
Adventures of Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

All of Jane Austen
Most of Charles Dickens
A good deal of Edgar Allen Poe
And a little Jack London


Modern [Relatively]

Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad [Sci-Fi]
The Whole Ball of Wax by Shepherd Mead [Sci-Fi]
The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein [Sci-Fi]
Omnivore by Piers Anthony [Sci-Fi]
Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright [Alt History]

The Individual and the Crowd by Hendrik Ruitenbeek [Psyche]
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg by Joseph Chilton Pearce [Alt-Psyche]
Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard [Soc-Marketing]
The Gutenberg Galaxy by Marshall McLuhan [Soc-History]
The True Believer by Eric Hoffer [Psyche-Soc]

And the thundering herd that entertained and/or enlightened, without leaving footprints on my brainpan.

 

[TheEarl]

Stephen King - On Writing. An absolute belter of a book and somehting that every author should read.

The Earl

 

[Guest]

I keep re-reading my favourite stories over and over. They all have a lot of humour. Every few years, I come across a "new" story which makes me want to read everything by that author. Right now:

HG Wells: complete short stories (his non-"SF" is less well-known and very funny)

Israel Zangwill: "The King of Schnorrers"

John Barth: "The Sot-Weed Factor": Very funny and lots of sex.

I liked Margaret Atwood's "The Edible Woman" , but it didn't make me laugh much.

Tolkein: LOTR: A great holiday from reality. Good guys and bad guys. No sex, no real relationships , just lots of action and scenery. I almost know the trilogy off by heart I've read it so many times.

I've never read Dickens, Hardy, Bronte or Shakespeare, and have no desire to. What can I say -- I was brought up with TV and comics.

 

[M.A.Thompson]

Sure, I love all the classic writers: Hawthorne, Bronte, Orwell, Rand; however, reading them today brings back awful memories of High School literature class.

Two writers that continue to move and inspire me today are Pat Conroy and John Irving.

While Irving has let me down a few times, when he is at his best (Owen Meany and Garp for example), no one is better.

Conroy has never faltered in my eyes. The Prince of Tides remains my all time favorite novel. He does more than let you read his words, he lets you see his sights, smell his smells, feel his emotions. When I read that book, I am Tom Wingo. The same goes for the rest of his works. Even the extravagant and sometimes meandering Beach Music is on my multiple reads list.

 

[TheEarl]

Best author I've read recently is Christopher Brookmyre. He's got a real sense of absurdity and his satire is ridculously good. Currently away from my private library atm and his books have kept me going as I've read them all 5 times at least in 3 months.

The Earl

 

[BigTexan]

For me it was Heinlein and Ray Bradbury who fueled my love for reading when I was very young.

"Halloween Tree" and "Something Wicked this way Comes" are two of the best books ever written.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" is also one of the few books I have read multiple times.

Beyond those two, Mary Shelly and Emily Bronte' are also two writers who had a distinct impression on me.

BigTexan

 

[amethyst42]

Sooo many people. Classic voices I love include Shakespeare, the Bronte's, Melville. More modern writers that continue to inspire me are Haruki Murkami. Even in translation his writing makes me shiver. Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children should be on everyone's reading list. Ray Bradbury I've found mentioned frequently on this thread, and with good reason, he's brilliant. I'm sure I'll think of a million others as soon as I hit send. Raymond Chandler, Pat Conroy, Patricia Cornwell... There's more, I know it.

 

[rosario]

Louis Ferdinand Celine............after a life time of reading when I finished Death on the Installment Plan I quit reading.......

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Insufferable A-hole

That's what I'll be, but Pooh, E.B. White was a man, not a woman, and was most famous for his beautiful and ellegant essays which appeared in the New Yorker magazine in the 30's and 40's. They're collected in "One Man's Meat" & "Third Tree From The Corner", which can be read over and over; well, well worth the investment.
He was actually one of the most grown-up adult authors I've ever read, which must explain why Charlotte's Web is such a great book.

---dr.M.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Insufferable A-hole

That's what I'll be, but Pooh, E.B. White was a man, not a woman, and was most famous for his beautiful and ellegant essays which appeared in the New Yorker magazine in the 30's and 40's. They're collected in "One Man's Meat" & "Third Tree From The Corner", which can be read over and over; well, well worth the investment.
He was actually one of the most grown-up adult authors I've ever read, which must explain why Charlotte's Web is such a great book.

Big Tex and other Bradbury fans: see if you can find (in the library)any stories by Chalres Beaumont. He was Bradbury's contemporary and wrote the same kind of poetic everyday-horror stuff but with more of a really chilling slant. Probably the best writer of horror I can think of.
BTW, I used to work near Bradbury's home town of Waukegan, IL and saw many of the sites he described in his home-town stories, such as the Ravine, which is now part of Ray Bradbury park.

---dr.M.

 

[Quasimodem]

Oh! We're going to talk about children's books?

Like Poohlive, perhaps, I don't know the sex, but was the E .B. White who wrote ‘Charlotte's Web' and ‘Stuart Little' the same E. B. White involved with William Strunk Jr.in 'The Elements of Style'?

In any case, I must not forget to mention Edith Nesbit and Walter R. Brooks.

I can't say, for certain, that they were ‘influential,' but they certainly sentenced me to a lifetime as a reader. Does that count

Oh, yeah, not to forget the pseudonymous Franklin W. Dixon.
You know, ‘The Hardy Boys!' Sorry.

 

[KillerMuffin]

"Elements of Style" by Strunk and White
Webster's Grammar Guide by the webster dictionary people

 

[Whispersecret]

Books that affected me as a writer, hmm? Right around the time I made the decision to really try writing again, I was reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. The scope of those novels and the originality of her romance inspired me. I also read Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale, another romance that just broke the boundaries for me with the depiction of the hero unable to communicate because of a stroke. At the time I looked at those books and said, "Now, that's what I want to write like."

And then I thought, "but I never will." Still, I try pretty hard.

Some other books that really motivated me have titles I can't remember, because they were just plain awful! It's funny how those really bad books can push me more than the good ones can. It's when I read a really bad romance that I say, "Well, fuck, if THIS can get published, then *I* certainly can."

Other writers, like John Irving and Stephen King, whose work I admire, don't affect me in the same way because I know I will never write in their genre. Their styles are so far removed from mine that it's pointless to try to emulate it. My voice is my own, hopefully.

 

[wildsweetone]

what has been your life's influential literature?

We, being authors, are more inclined to be closer to literature than others in some cases. I am wondering, what have you read in your life, that has had a dramtic influence on you (because it will of course influence what you write or perhaps just how your write).


So what have my fellow writer's read that really had an "effect" on them (and why).

I think Leslie wants to know what has influenced us on a personal level.

I have read many things over the years that have influenced my thoughts, opinions and my actions. I could reel off author after author, and book after book but I don't think that's what he wants. I have to say this is a very personal question and I'll answer as best as I am able in my bumbling way.


I'd begin with Enid Blyton and The Famous Five, and the way she opened my eyes up and gave me permission to indulge my imagination, whereas those people around me scorned the use of my imagination (some still do).

I could continue with John Gray who in the last couple of years helped give me a different perspective on my relationships with others through his book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and his second book Men and Women Together Forever, that informed me about men and caves lol. Such a simple idea that had such a huge effect on my understanding of how men act and why.

And, I could end with The Bible. Reading how Jesus was ridiculed by people because He believed one thing and they were too scared to go out on a limb with him. I learned so much from some verses in the Bible. While I won't quote chapter and verse from it, ever, I know within my very soul that I'll never be alone again. Knowing that, has totally changed my own outlook on life and my existence within life as I know it.

 

[Sabledrake]

My biggest influences have been primarily horror writers (or at least people generally considered horror writers thought some of them hotly deny the charge like it's a bad thing or something).

I started reading Stephen King when I was ten, and John Saul not long thereafter. Dean Koontz has an excellent command of language and description. Robert McCammon tells a great story. Poe and Lovecraft for the classics. Richard Laymon and Bentley Little for my new faves.

And then, weirdly, I turn around and write primarily fantasy when I hardly read any of that genre.

Sabledrake

 

[medjay]

Robert McCammon tells a great story.

McCammon doesn't get mentioned very often but he is one of my favorites. I'm glad that he has come out of retirement (for at least one more book, that is).

When I think of influential books, I think of books that I have read more than once. On that list are:

Flowers for Algernon One of the few stories that caused an enormous and sincere emotional reaction from me.

The Stand King kind of bristles at the fact that a book he wrote in the seventies is still considered to be his greatest. But hey, millions of readers can't all be wrong.

The Talisman More King. But he's been discussed enough here.

Imajica Clive Barker's best work. Only he has the ability to so clearly and vividly describe things that would be otherwise impossible to imagine.

The Easy Rawlins Mysteries by Walter Mosley. Not really hard hitting by detective story guidelines but it towers over the rest by virtue of sheer character development.

Anything by Joe R. Lansdale. He's my favorite writer. Anyone familiar with his stuff will know why. Bare bones storytelling at it's best. And no one does dialogue better.

There's plenty more but I'm just going by what's on my bookshelf now. All the rest of my books are in my parents' basement. I think I'll go over there and haul some more over so my collection will look a little more presentable.

 

[karmadog]

The great Dr. Seuss was the most influential. He gave me a deep love for reading at a very early age and prepared me for...

Tolkien. I spent a decade looking for something like him and never found it. I still read his books and can be back in Hobbiton in an instant. Which prepared me for...

Malory. Le Morte d'Arthur was really big for me. The notion of chivalry hasn't quite died for me and his tales are probably the major reason. But he prepared me for...

Thoreau. Civil Disobediance changed my life. I read it in fifth grade at the urging of one of my hippy teachers. Every teacher after Mr. Morgan was the recipient of incessant questioning of status quo interpretations of everything. Which prepared me for...

Hunter S. Thompson. I first read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. This book gave me an appreciation of the absurd. If you haven't read it, there is a scene where HST is in the back of a limo with Nixon talking football. If only Elvis had been there too, history might have been very different.

More recently, Cormac McCarthy, Patrick O'Brien, Elmore Leonard, Jim Harrison, the novel Dalva is particularly good (do NOT judge him by movies like Revenge, Legends of the Fall, or Wolf), Charles Baxter, Ernest Hemingway (I only recently came to a full appreciation of his gifts as a short story writer), James Ellroy (as hard boiled as hard boiled can be), and many, many more. Oh, I have to mention Larry McMurtry, although he is uneven, there aren't many novels that are better than Lonesome Dove.

 

[TheEarl]

Flowers for Algernon One of the few stories that caused an enormous and sincere emotional reaction from me.

The Stand King kind of bristles at the fact that a book he wrote in the seventies is still considered to be his greatest. But hey, millions of readers can't all be wrong.

Good choices. Flowers for Algernon is one of the greatest books I've read just for the way the ending made you feel.

The Earl

 

[medjay]

I also read a lot of those "choose your own adventure" books when I was a pup. I don't think they make those anymore but I might be wrong. I don't spend a lot of time browsing the kids section anymore.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

There was an interview on the NPR station here in Dallas recently with a lady who has put together a book in which she asked this same type of question to 15 winners of the National Book Award. Listening to that show, I wasn't sure what my answer would be, and I'm still not. For what it's worth, I've been influenced more by writers than individual works of fiction. They include:

William Faulkner (like Abu ben Adam, his name leads all the rest)
Ernest Hemingway (his short stories and early novels are so good, it's scary)
Tennessee Williams (yeah, I know, he's ONLY a playwright)
John Steinbeck (chap 2 of "Grapes" (tortoise crossing the road) may be some of the best expositon ever written)
Thomas Wolfe (of course, having Max Perkins as editior helped)
Tom Wolfe (very good fiction & superb non-fiction)
Larry McMurtry (as karmadog said, he's uneven but even his bad stuff ain't bad)
Elmore Leonard (the king of dialogue)
--Most influential single book would probably be "Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane. IMHO, it's still the best "war novel" ever written and proof journalist can write good fiction. RF