Three Books That Changed My Life

 Three Books That Changed My Life

I’ve seen a great deal of posts and memes asking about what books have changed people’s lives and the way a person reads. Every individual will, of course, answer that question differently and choosing just a few is so incredibly hard as, like it or hate it, everything we read affects us somehow. But I was challenged by a friend a while ago to come up with some and so, here they are: ;p

Dragons, Giants and Witches (Usborne Story Books)

If there was an author, I don’t know it, I’m afraid it doesn’t say, but I know it was an Usborne book because so many of my childhood books were. My mother ran Usborne book parties and bought for me from her stock and I’m so glad she did as they were wonderful things. Books of stories, of mythology, of history, of science, of knowledge – I picked up so many of my basic interests in life from those quirkily illustrated pages. But the story book Dragons, Giants and Witches (alongside, Princes, Wizards and Gnomes) were the books that first got me interested in magical stories and creatures and stories that were out of this world. There were many, I know, but these ones hold a special place as I still have them, sitting on a shelf a few yards away. :)

Alanna: The First Adventure (Tamora Pierce)

There were only two fantasy novels in the entire of my middle school library. It wasn’t a big library, admittedly, just a converted classroom really, that we were allowed to periodically raid for “Quiet Reading Time” books. Most of the contents were fairly standard fare, I remember there were battered old 1930s novels about things like the children’s crusade and loads of Choose Your Own Adventure – but just two that could be called proper fantasy. I forget the name of the second, sadly, only that the heroine was called Aerin Sol (I wonder if the creators of Farscape ever read it? ;p). But the other was Alanna. I really loved that book, I must have borrowed it dozens of times. It was my first exposure to a properly constructed fantasy world. It was years before I found out there were more books in the series - remember, these were the Ancient Times, before the internet, and my town only occasionally had a book shop (they rarely lasted long) – a random discovery in the bigger town library (now sadly much smaller), if I recall correctly, led me to books two and four (no library ever has a whole fantasy series, I think the world would come to an end if it did!). I knew I wanted more of this kind of thing. And then…

The Elfstones of Shannara (Terry Brooks)

I found this. As I recall, it was on one of the library turning racks, just staring at me as I walked in. It was my first proper, epic fantasy novel and that was it – I was hooked. I got my mitts on the rest of the existing Shannara novels – just seven back then rather than the dozens he’s written since - during the brief existence of a decent local bookshop that took orders (I believe it may have been called Volume One – I still have one of their bookmarks and many books I obtained in their brief but valued appearance in the town centre!) and devoured them. It was this that roused me into creating my first fantasy story – called, imaginatively “Quest” – which was, I openly admit, a youthfully innocent but blatant rip off of the Shannara style – I think I even stole some of my favourite names from it to use. But I soon found my own imagination and created my own epic fantasy world in which I set a large number of high fantasy adventures, some written and never to see the light of day, some written and acceptable but unfinished and many, many others that never made it out of my notebooks. But I was off and running.

These books, of course, aren’t and can’t be alone but I suppose in terms of individual volumes, they are the key. My introduction to the magnificent Discworld novels of Sir Terry Pratchett will always hold a special place and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series has to get an honourable mention for leading me to venture more seriously into the realms of fanfiction. Some may scoff but I learned a hell of a lot about my own writing and storytelling techniques (plus developed a fondness for cliff hangers!) in creating those fanfics. They lead to me joining a number of online writing communities where I played and experimented with my style in the challenge pieces I sometimes share on this blog and realised how much I didn’t want to write things that took themselves seriously. And it was those communities that led me to my publishers. So – can’t complain. ;p