Books that Shaped Me // Round Three

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Well, my little coffee beans, today’s post will be the final installment in my “Books that Shaped Me” mini-series. Over the past few weeks, I’ve shared with you eighteen of the books that helped form the person I am today (the links are here and here), and it’s been a lot of fun to reminisce and compile a list of the books I specifically need to reread this year. While there are so many I could include, enough to fill a bunch of other posts, I want to share only a few more with you. Perhaps as I near the end of my nostalgia tour, I will add a couple posts to this series, but I make no promises. 

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

I’ve mentioned this several times before, and I’ll probably mention it a bunch more over the years, but THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is one of the few books that kept me up past my self-imposed bedtime during high school. The story gripped me with its music and beauty. It hurt to watch Erik long for affection, and it hurt to see him sabotage his chances of receiving actual love. More than that, I was moved by the contrast between the beauty of his voice and his music and the ugliness of his face and his heart.

WINNIE-THE-POOH

Of all the books I was exposed to as a young person, Winnie-the-Pooh is my earliest, strongest memory. Right from the get-go, I was struck by Winnie-the-Pooh’s innocence and curiosity, Tigger’s energy, Piglet’s spunk, Owl’s wisdom, Rabbit’s crankiness, Christopher Robin’s imagination, Kanga’s motherliness, Roo’s adventurous spirit, and Eeyore’s struggle with clinical depression. Their adventures captured my mind in a way that many stories haven’t, and I think it’s high time I revisited this chapter of my life. 

PETER PAN

It strikes me as rather funny that I wasn’t intensely interested in reading PETER PAN, and the major reason I ended up buying it was because it’s a classic and I was on a classic reading kick. I’m even a little more confused with myself because I had already fallen in love with PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS, which is a Peter Pan retelling. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the thought of reading PETER PAN, I just hadn’t spent any time seeking it out. Regardless of my initial hesitation, I adore this book to Alpha Centauri and beyond. Somehow J.M. Barrie manages to capture the spirit and wonder of childhood while also including the cruelty and thoughtlessness of youth. His characters are simultaneously wise and naive, guilty and innocent, clever and foolish. But I think what struck me most was the idea that the fairies in PETER PAN represent childhood dreams and that the ticking crocodile represents the passage of time and the eventuality of growing up. 

1984

1984 scared me more than THE HUNGER GAMES and more than THE SHADOW CHILDREN. In George Orwell’s famous dystopia, we have a government that has long been under the grip of Socialism. People are helpless and mindless. No one outside of the inner governmental circles is afforded even a shred of privacy. With his all-seeing eye, Big Brother watches everyone, and he has such control that a revolution would be purely impossible. Worse, few would even think to rebel because the government controls all forms of thought—books, music, news articles, historical records, language, and expression. That’s what really got me—nothing frightens me quite so much as the suppression of free ideas and free speech. 

OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET

At the time when I read this, I had already been sucked into the Si-Fi universe, but OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET and it’s two sequels were something else entirely. I think the aspects that struck me most were the peaceful introspection and the way C.S. Lewis made thinking out of the box comfortable and enjoyable. Many Christians tiptoe around the concept of aliens because that tends to be seen as at war with the Christian worldview, so I really appreciate how Lewis makes it evident that, if they do indeed exist, it doesn’t mean Christians have to throw out the Bible. 

TILL WE HAVE FACES

Through a rich and beautiful retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, TILL WE HAVE FACES makes it evident that sometimes our issues with God aren’t what we think they are, and if we want to bring our accusations and our grievances to God, we first have to make sure we know what we’re talking about. 

LORNA DOONE

As with A WRINKLE IN TIME, I fell in love with the movie before I read the book. At that time, I had already been going through a prolonged phase where I felt as if I didn’t belong in this century, and LORNA DOONE tapped into my desire for life in the 1600s. I wanted to travel to Exmoor and experience everything for myself—the peaceful lifestyle, the misty moors, the threat of the Doones always looming over the land. Granted, the story was a little slow, but it was a beautiful slowness, and for a few years, I wasn’t willing to travel anywhere without a copy of LORNA DOONE on hand (which is why I have two copies). While I have since learned to be content with all the benefits this century affords (for the most part), I still get incredibly nostalgic about LORNA DOONE, and I will always love it for the needed escape it gave me. (I am also still waiting for the Doctor to come in his big blue box so I can at least visit the 1600s.) 

DRACULA

DRACULA showed me horror/paranormal at its classiest. But I find it oddly telling that I remember the mental patient and his strange habits more vividly than I do the vampires and the threat they present. Ever since I read it years ago, I have been fascinated with the old insane asylums of that period, as well as the antiquated understanding of mental illness during that time. I don’t know if DRACULA instilled that interest in me or if it just awoke a sleeping dragon, but either way, suffering minds fascinate me. 

THE KILLER ANGELS

Before reading THE KILLER ANGELS as part of my history course, I had never considered the Civil War in such a deep light. But this book opened my eyes to the poetry of war—the beauty in the midst of horror. More than that, it illustrates perfectly that war is not a matter of black and white morals—that the people on both sides are equally human and equally sympathetic, regardless of whether their views are entirely correct or not. 

CHILD OF THE DARK PROPHECY

Several years ago, my mom owned an ARC of this, and I convinced her that I needed it more than her because, yeah, I seriously love that book. While I had already been exposed to heavy doses of Fantasy before I sunk my teeth into this one, CHILD OF THE DARK PROPHECY opened my eyes to a whole new sort of Fantasy. I’m not sure how else to explain it, since I haven’t read it in forever, but compared with other Fantasy novels, CHILD OF THE DARK PROPHECY just has a different feel to it. Maybe it’s that it retells the Arthurian legend, and I was a big fan of King Arthur growing up. Or maybe it just feels safe, and I like books that make me feel safe. Either way, I think about it a lot (especially the mood of the story), and I need to reread it and its sequels. 

There are a ton more books I would love to share, but I also have other posts I want to get to, so I’ll just content myself with listing the honorable mentions: 

A PLEASURE TO BURN

JANE EYRE

BRAVE NEW WORLD

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH

THE LORD OF THE RINGS

THE ODYSSEY

THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE

THE TIME MACHINE

WAR AND PEACE

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Well, that’s it for today, my little coffee beans. What about you? Have you read any of these books? What are some of the books that helped shape you?