Books that Changed My Life (or something)

Here's a weird thing. None of my very favorite books are YA or Realistic. This is weird only because my first published book IS YA and realistic.

There are a lot of realistic YA books that I love. Speak, Fat Kid Rules the World, Looking For Alaska, Good Girls, Cracked Up To Be, and Skin Deep...three of those would make my top 25. Which would go something like this...

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

He, She, and It by Marge Piercy

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

Ender's Game/Shadow by Orson Scott Card

The Giver by Lois Lowery

The Talisman by Stephen King and

The Witching Hour and Lasher by Anne Rice

The Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey

The Dark Tower series, particularly Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye

The Stand and It by Stephen King

Looking for Alaska by John Green

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Night by Elie Wiesel

Skin Deep by E.M Crane

The Vampire Chronicles 1-3 by Anne Rice

Feed by M. T. Anderson

The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick

Dune by Frank Herbert the first one ONLY :)

Yes, I cheated by including series and stuff, but I find that acceptable because there are SO Many Books...

I'll write blog posts later this summer explaining some of these choices. Some of them are dependent on when I read them. Some of them are dependent on who I was when I read them. Many of them I read at pivotal points in my life in both childhood and adulthood. All of them resonated with me. Some of them horrified me. Some of them I've taught, so that gives me a different perspective because I practically memorize them.

Has anyone out there read all of these? My husband has not read 7 of them, but of those 7 I know he started at least 3 and couldn't get into them. But having someone who has read the majority of my favorite books is sort of important to me.