What 5 Books Would You Tell a Younger You to Read?

1. How Not to Write a Novel
2. Good Omens
3. Literally anything Discworld
4. Asimov's short story collections
5. Something by Christopher Moore

Maybe if I'd known all these great books and writers then, I wouldn't have gone through my six-year reading/writing drought.

So many great books out there . . . this is hard.

So.

1. My first would still be Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon. An oldie that doesn't go stale, IMHO.
2. Veronica Roth's Divergent series.
3. The short stories of Ray Bradbury.
4. Another oldie, fresher today than ever: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
5. Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.

Jeeez, this is hard. I can't think of anything I regret not reading sooner. I've read pretty consistently, widely, and constantly since I was about six.

Some favorite books I had read between the age brackets our fearless leader is suggesting:

1) The Neverending Story (read at 13)
2) The Picture of Dorian Gray (15)
3) Interview With the Vampire (19)
4) Neverwhere (19)
5) All the Harry Potters (started at 14)

Dang. Hard to do. In some ways I was the same, in other ways I was different - far less likely to venture beyond fantasy, for one thing. Dunno that recs from older me would've been heeded or enjoyed. Though I do wish some of today's MG books had been available when I was MG... given how much I enjoyed Tailchaser's Song, I expect I would've been a hardcore Warriors fan.

1. Watership Down, by Richard Adams. Didn't realize how much Tad Williams leaned on this story for TC until I read it.
2. Terry Pratchett. Should've started on him much earlier than I have.
3. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. I've always enjoyed the movie, and it would've made a good intro to Bradbury to read the book.
4. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, by Douglas Adams. I remember watching the BBC series on PBS, but for some reason I never read the book until much later.
5. A general "just try some of the stuff beyond straight-up Fantasy" - I was very, very much a one-track reader.

I can't believe I forgot THGTTG! I read the whole blame thing at least once a year.

Ari Meermans said:

I can't believe I forgot THGTTG! I read the whole blame thing at least once a year.

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I didn't forget it, but I cannot for the life of me remember when I first read it. Otherwise I would've put it on there too.

It was published well after I was a young adult, but since we're in a Flexible Flyer Time Machine with a Heart of Gold drive, I'd definitely recommend it to my younger self . . . or at least tell her to be on the look-out for it.

I was always very much a reader as a child and read anything and everything. However, for some reason I never read the popular, current books or the old classics soon enough; I was often sitting in a corner reading a story from an unknown author that I had picked up at a thrift shop. (You can find some real story gems at thrift shops, btw.)

1. Harry Potter. I'm just now starting on the books and they are excellent, but wish I'd read them earlier, because all my friends talked about them as kids and I had no clue who this Harry fellow was.
2. Hunger Games Series. Just finished reading these, too, after getting tired of everyone talking about them and me being in the dark.
3. Edgar Allan Poe, any of his. I was required to read The Raven for school, but I didn't read the rest of his stuff till much later, and still probably haven't read all that I need to from him.

I can't particularly think of any more at the moment, those are the big ones.

Yep, Edgar Allan Poe's a good choice. When I was a kidlet, Annabel Lee was my favorite.

This is HARD.

- Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connell, because she knows her broken people
- A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, because it's the perfect example of engaging space opera
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker, because this is how you tell a story
- The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan, because mothers and daughters
- Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, because it's beautiful and melancholy and creepy

To all those gorgeous books I have left off this list: I AM SORRY I STILL LOVE YOU REALLY

1. Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood.

2. Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle

3 Travis McGee series – John D McDonald

4. Death Comes For the Archbishop – Willa Cather

5. The Lord Of The Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I didn't hear about 1) the Narnia books until I was an adult. That's 7 books right there.
I was supposed to have read 2) Othello and didn't. (Read it for the book challenge in AW Bookclub this year.)
Having a hard time thinking of anything available at the time that I've since read that I wished I'd read then.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

See? Every one of you has listed books I wish I'd listed. It really IS hard coming up with only five.


'course, yanno, you could list moar, iffen ya wanted. just sayin'

Actually, my mind goes blank and I have trouble coming up with five! I picked what I would have liked based on my interests at the time, what would have framed my world view, or what would have made me a better writer starting earlier.

1. Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
2. Gospel of Luke + Acts of the Apostles with the relevant sections of Asimov's Guide to the Bible
3. Snow - Orhan Pamuk
4. The Double Helix - James Watson
5. Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolf

gah! Dorothy Dunnett! King Hereafter. So many wonderful books.


Chris, I have some kind of mental block about Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities; every time someone mentions The Bonfire of the Vanities, my mind goes immediately to Savonarola. (As you get older, your "filing system" together with its indices goes wonky.)

Swordpoint
Wizard of Earthsea
Discworld

I know that's three, but I really could have just filled the list of five with Discworld books.

Initially I put in Foundation, but Discworld is the thing I wish I'd found sooner, far more so than anything else.

1. Martin Eden, Jack London
2. Absalom! Absalom! William Faulkner
3. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
4. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
5. The Stand, Stephen King

JJ Litke said:

Swordpoint
Wizard of Earthsea
Discworld

I know that's three, but I really could have just filled the list of five with Discworld books.

Initially I put in Foundation, but Discworld is the thing I wish I'd found sooner, far more so than anything else.

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Same re: Discworld. I could've just put "READ PRATCHETT, DUMMY" five times and younger me would've gotten plenty of good out of it.

1. All the Harry Potter books
2. Salem's Lot
3. On Writing - Stephen King
4. The Exorcist
5. Goosebumps

I would put down Jurassic Park, but I'd already read it by the age range listed for this 'homework'.

1) Perdido Street Station
2) The Curse of Chalion
3) One for the Morning Glory
4) Earthsea
5) Assassin's Apprentice

Maggie Maxwell said:

Same re: Discworld. I could've just put "READ PRATCHETT, DUMMY" five times and younger me would've gotten plenty of good out of it.

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QFT