10 Influential Books

10 Influential Books

This tag went around Facebook, then around the Youtube booktuber community, and I really liked it. And because my feminist post from last week is proving difficult for me to write when I am so stressed with school work, I figured that an easy post my make it easier for me to write something before the weekend. So here we go.

If you do not know this tag, then basically you choose ten books that influenced you greatly and you do not think much about them and you do not over explain. I am going to explain a little, as this is a blog post and so I feel like going into a little detail would be beneficial, but I will not verse lyrical about each one.

So *mario voice* Heeere we go!

Peter Pan and Wendy is the first book I became obsessive over. Like, obsessive. I had to have stitches on my jaw, from the time that I threw myself down the stairs aged about five, sure I could fly. My mother used to read it to me, but I used to turn on my bedside light and read on a little. I came down the stairs crying one night, when I got to the end. It still makes me cry (and there is definitely a small part of me that still believes, to be honest).
I actually had the edition depicted on the right, a beautiful hardback with elaborate illustrations by Robert Ingpen, and when I see how tattered it now is I feel like crying.

Mortal Engines comes next. I know that it is the first of a quartet, and I know that now there is a prequel series, but I only learnt this around two years ago. This remains my favourite book, and has been since I was around seven or eight, when I barely understood it as it was read to me. It is science fiction in the truest sense of the word - not dystopian - but also revolves around cities that hunt each other down and feed off the remains. It's incredibly character lead though, which makes it a nice entrance point into the genre, and it's heartbreaking until the end. It really got me into, not only recreational reading but reading a book over and over with a firm passion for it.

Unlike the first two, these three books were never my favourite, but were always and remain to be books that I relate to and really enjoy to read. Utterly Me, Clarice Bean, Clarice Bean Spells Trouble and Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now are some of the most relatable and lovable books I have ever read. They are very easy reading, and as a child I agreed with her moaning about her brother - but she has grown up with me and the older I get and the more I understand, the more she understands with me. What is incredibly exciting is that Clarice Bean is a massive fangirl over the Ruby Redfort novels, and the author Lauren Child began writing those as a series a while ago, and again these are lovely, feel-good novels.

I got into Harry Potter (or so I thought) later than my friends - turns out they had seen all of the films and were pretending they had read the books. I was adamant that I did not want to read them until Year Three or Four, when I buckled and gave in - and promptly stormed through them all in the space of about two or three weeks. They really made me believe in magic and they remain on of my favourite series, and I really did wait for my Hogwart letter, I really did believe in it all. It was a clever series and whilst now I understand and respect the political undertones, at the time it was just a fabulous adventure story about Harry and his friends Ron and Herajnfeaajdna. I say that because I never watched the films until long after I had read the books and I had no idea how Hermione was pronounced until I finally watched The Philosopher's Stone and had a small moment of realisation.

I never really loved the series to this book, but the first, Swallows and Amazons I loved. I felt included, because at the time I was a reasonably proficient sailor, and I understood all of the jargon they used, but I also really bought into the world of adventure that John, Susan, Titty and Roger sailed into. I also loved the way that, until Harry Potter, unlike Peter Pan, it was a world that existed, a world that I could just about touch. The stories weren't annoyingly written like I always found Enid Blyton, but had the same kind of edge - of "the good old days" that I didn't remember, somewhere around the Magician's Nephew and the Darling family. It's such as shame that I still have no idea what ginger beer or "grog" tastes like. And what the hell is pemmican?

Watchmen, like Alan Moore, was my first graphic novel. I had read comics before, Batman and Spiderman mostly, but this was different - as dark as Batman but more so. It really got me into the genre and convinced me that my comics could be every bit as literary as my copy of Anne of Green Gables. Yes, it freaked me out and Rorschach still gives me the heebie jeebies, but it is honestly the most well crafted novel of any kind that I think I have read, although it is definitely close. It inspired me to read more and is the reason that I discovered what I now consider to be one of my very favourite books, The Umbrella Academy, but is also opened a window into the world of manga which I had previously thought was only really chibi characters with oversized eyes.

Speaking of manga, here comes my first ever manga novel. It is slightly trashy, but is also a really good read. It does essentially centre around a love triangle and vampires (Twilight, anyone) but has a lot of angst and depression and anger and fighting which Twilight lacked. This book not only inspired me to move on and read more manga such as Death Note, but it also in a roundabout way got me into drawing comic book style characters, because for a while I dabbled in drawing manga before remembering the books such as Watchmen that I loved to read and draw from. They are very nicely done, and the filler gags are just light enough to keep the intensity throughout the book. The only problem is trying to find the next one in the series - they NEVER have it in Waterstones!

Around three years ago, I stopped reading nearly so avidly, and this is undoubtedly the book that brought me back. I loved the characters, the worlds, the other two books were beautiful also. Aside from Harry Potter, I didn't really think that the fantasy genre was for me - I hated The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - but this convinced me otherwise and really got me back into reading new books instead of the ones I already owned and could practically recite. I finished this and sat glum for days until I had the weekend to go and buy the next one in the series...and the next...(and the spin off books, a little later on). It is so beautiful and the characters are so believable. To be honest, I have a crush on pretty much the entire cast - with the exceptions of the evil people and old men and old women and...you get the idea.

If you think that anything you ever read is intense, then you are wrong compared to this. This Orwellian inspired book will gouge out your soul and rip it into tiny pieces and then make you eat those pieces. I finished this on holiday, and immediately had to read something mind numbingly without real trouble (Stop In the Name of Pants!, if you are interested) because it was just so much to fucking comprehend. I loved the Orwell novels 1984 and Animal Farm but this was just a new level of Big Brother. This book really did convince me to start heading down the road of darker books, books with deeper meaning, books that would really make me question things and lead me more into books written by journalists, such as The Pyschopath Test by Jon Ronson, which I now adore.

It was certainly not my first Young Adult novel (cough Twilight cough) but it did convince me that I was where I should be. I have to be honest, I had read The Fault in Our Stars and I had read Twilight and I had read the entire Princess Diaries series, but this book convinced me that I was in the right place. I had already read Battle Royale and I did end up drawing a lot of parallels, but the style was entirely different and it influenced me greatly, both in terms of writing and of books I would then go on to read - for example, Divergent (which I was meh about) and also Gone (also meh) but it is because of this book that I refuse to give up on this genre. There must be another, as good, right?