Book meme

[catscradle]

I really am doing actual work today, honest. Took me most of the morning to think of these. . .

Ten Formative Books meme I found in stakebait and mommybird's LJs. I liked that it was broken down further into child, adolescent and adult, and so I shall too.

Childhood:

Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sednak
Millicent the Monster, by Mary Lystad
The Five Chinese Brothers, by Claire Huchet Bishop
The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.H.M.
The Lorax, by Dr. Suess
A Wrinkle in Time
Little House on the Prairie books
The Big Book of Volcanos
All the Astronomy text books I could get my hands on. . .


Adolescents:

Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis
The Dark Night of the Soul, by St. John of the Cross
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
Watership Down, by Richard Adams
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
1984, by George Orwell
A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
the Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald


Adult:

Franny & Zooey, by J. D. Salinger
Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
No Exit (play), by Jean Paul Sartre
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Marie Remarque
Journey to the End of the Night, by Louis-Ferdidnand Céline
Schrödinger Cat Trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson
The Illuminati Trilogy, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
Against Method (non-fiction), by Paul Feyerabend
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (non-fiction), by Thomas Kuhn

Comments

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

So did you want to be an astronomer when you were a kid? Or just really really into it? I remember for about two years I really wanted to be an architect.

I would love to come up with a list like this for myself, would take some time though. I know there would be a lot of non-fiction books on mine because for a whole period that's just about all I read, at least for stuff not assigned for school.

Still, 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 were three of my favorite books in high school. I guess it was really good preparation for reality.

[catscradle.livejournal.com]

Lemme tell you, I STILL want to be an astronomer. Well, actually I"m in to Quantum now. I sucked at math. I understand the science, I just don't speak the math language =P I still read whatever I can find on the subject. I think that's why I got so into philosophy. It covered the field in a way I could actively participate.

I don't think this list begins to cover the books I was influenced by. These were just the 10 that stuck out in my mind today.

Amen on 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. Never thought those would be so real in my own time, but there you go. Never know when those classics will come in handy!

Now I need to pick up suntan lotion. I'm spending a week being self indulgent and not caring about the real world and it's problems. Woohoo! BEACH!