100 Books

[landingtree]

The meme that’s been going round! I went with ‘Books which influenced me most or made the strongest impressions’ rather than ‘favourites’; although those categories overlap a lot, there are plenty of books here I don’t like anymore. (The Orson Scott Card collection and the Dr Seuss are there because they are the two books I read as a child that gave me new behavior-modifying fears that lasted more than six months each). Series and writers mostly represented by single books.

Here’s the list. How many have you read?

Comments

[leaflemming]

71, it turns out. Fewer than I initially expected, more than I expected once I saw Eric Csabo!

[landingtree]

I'll be surprised if anyone beats this score!

The Eric Csapo is actually very readable. And fascinating! It's the book I started at the university library reading room, and then started to walk home, but turned around before I'd got to Kelburn thinking, "No, I need to know the next bit!" and spent the rest of the day finishing the book. (I have been thinking I should acquire it for ages to see if I still feel this way, only it is at academic press prices and I've never wanted it that much).

[sartorias]

I just got half (one book under); I didn't count the ones I read a few pages of and decided weren't for me, though I did count ones where I read most before bailing.

[landingtree]

I have been doing similar things - in fact there's a book on my own list that I didn't read all of (The Great War For New Zealand), it's just that the half I did read made an outsize impression.

[sartorias]

That makes sense. Books are seldom all or nothing!

[nnozomi]

The Thirteen Clocks and The Wonderful O! Tintin (the Moon duology is among my favorites!), Bartholomew and the Oobleck, The Hidden Land! <3

[landingtree]

I love all these books except Bartholomew and the Oobleck. I don't know why it terrified me so, but when I met it as a child and read the bit about 'a new kind of weather' I didn't just refuse to finish the book, I started refusing to enter bookstores and libraries in which the book might be encountered. My parents had to scout ahead. This lasted for years, and we have no real story about why.

I think the Moon duology is the first Tintin I read! Way back when my idea of comics was 'Asterix and Obelix,' so I initially conceptualised it as a weird Asterix book.

[kore]

Aww, poetry! And Middlemarch! Don't think I've seen those on anyone else's lists yet.

35 of 100 - 35%, heh.

[landingtree]

I'd read some poetry before those, but when my sister got keen on that particular Rilke book was the first time I really got got by some poetry. And a selection of Auden is what my dad gave me when I left home, because I'd just begun being enthusiastic about the family copy.

I think I have seen someone else have Middlemarch and I think it made me go 'Oh yes, got to add Middlemarch!' but I'm not sure who.

[skygiants]

I think that was me!

[cyphomandra]

46! Definitely some old faves there - Gobbolino & Carbonel& Calidor make a great witchy combo :D And The Player’s Boy is a fascinating pick - I like it but prefer the school/family ones, so would love to hear more of your thoughts!

[landingtree]

I am not sure Gobbolino and Carbonel have more of a real claim on me than other childhood books but I thought of them both at the same time, because, cats!

The Player's Boy is actually one I remember less well, and it is here on the strength of how strongly it registered at the time as one of the better ones - and specifically one of the better books about Shakespeare - but it's a dim memory and I've never yet had my own copy to check! Autumn Term and Peter's Room are much clearer in my mind. (At some point I'll reread all available Marlows).

[ambyr]

Only 25! But I think we've talked before about how a lot of your formative childhood books never made it here.

[landingtree]

We have, which in some cases is a shame, but I think the ocean is probably doing some good work filtering out The Karazan Quartet, a series I would not dare reread even though I still remember how to collect the venom of most of the macguffin snakes.

[skygiants]

Only 27, but many others that either currently are or ought to be on my list!