Which writers made you you?

[Jim Kelly]

With the recent passing of Beverly Cleary (at 104), I've been thinking about all the writers that I read as a child and as a teen-ager and how I am very much a product of those writers.

As Tennyson's "Ulysses" says in his poem (which I had to memorize for high school English)--"I am a part of all that I have met; yet all experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move."

And I am a part of all those writers that I have met, metaphorically. I am they as you are they as you are me and we are all together.

For me, Beverly Cleary is one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Her many stories (of Henry and Ralph and Beezus and Ramona and others) are a touchstone for how I saw the world as a child and how I see it now. Her RIBSY was one of the best novels I can remember reading--told from the perspective of Henry Huggin's canine pal, the novel expanded my imagination.

There are many other writers I can think of that influenced my character and the direction of my life (and maybe I'll talk about them in future posts), but I'd like to know which writers made you you?

[charliehustle415]

For me it was Daniel Quinn and his book Ishmael

It basically upended my thinking and changed my career path and subsequently life.

After reading the book I pursued Philosophy and Environmental Ethics. I now am an ethics professor and love teaching students ethics and see their eyes light up as my mentor did with me.

It was a great introduction to bigger questions in an easily and quite entertaining package.

My life would be dramatically different if I didn't accidentally choosing an english class that fit my busy schedule.

[Jim Kelly]

We had a small library of books in our house. The best reading I remember was two volumes from THE CHILDREN'S HOUR book series, edited by Marjorie Barrows. These books with their distinctive red hard covers came out in the 1950s and there were sixteen volumes in all, but we only had two. Maybe my parents started buying these books for my older brother and sister and then stopped when they had no more cash. I know that we had volume one--which had "The 500 Hats of Bartholemew Cubbins" by Dr. Seuss--and I think the other was volume two (looking at the covers online, those are the two that are familiar to me).

I treasured those books and spent many hours as a kid reading them. For many years, I wondered whatever happened to them until one Christmas I was at the house of one of my sisters and saw she had volume one. Oh, I so coveted that book and yearned to steal it from her--maybe I could sneak it out of her house. But I didn't. I think another of my sisters has the other volume.

Something else my parents added to our family library were the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias. I remember us getting them, a few volumes at a time for many months, until finally we had the complete set. They proved very useful for my school work; however, I read them just as much for my own interest. Often, I would wonder about some random thing and fetch the volume that should have that information and then I'd be off following the cross references. I could spend hours reading about kings and queens, scientific theories, American presidents, great explorers, the meaning of certain obscure words, the Roman Empire. Whenever I was at my parents', I would often thumb through them again, because I so enjoyed the pursuit of knowledge.

When my parents passed away a few years ago, I did get the complete set. Granted the information in them is inaccurate and out of date--but I love to look at the world through the eye of those books from the 1960s.

[Scott Taylor]

HG Wells, Mark Twain, Robert Pirsig, JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis are the ones who immediately came to mind. I would add in Stan Lee, but his writing was really less about influence and more about entertainment.

Biggest influences, bookwise:

Wells - War of the Worlds (still my favorite book, I think)
Twain - Tom Sawyer
Pirsig - Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Tolkein - Hobbit and LOTR about equally
Lewis - Chronicles of Narnia, Great Divorce, Screwtape Letters

Honorable mention to Shakespeare for Merchant of Venice and Hamlet. And to Sartre for being Sartre.

Guess I would be remis not to add in that there are also a bunch of editors and minor writers who influenced me. The context is that I used to "read" the dictionary and various encyclopedias we had growing up as well. Then magazines like National Geographic, Popular Science, Field and Stream, Readers Digest and Outdoor Life. Just always enjoyed learning.

[Jim Kelly]

I remember one of my teachers reading THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE out loud to the class. Probably not my grade one teacher--not a very nice woman--who gave me nothing but X on my report cards for reading and spelling.

I had an interest in science and read lots of books on science, as well as science fiction, from my elementary school library. There are three science fiction writers who influenced me the most. The first I read was H.G. Welles and I read almost every science fiction book he wrote. Then Ray Bradbury--again our library had a lot of his books and I bought others they didn't have--so I think I read everything of his. And finally in secondary school, in my last year, I started to read Kurt Vonnegut--some short stories and BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS--his writing style made a big impression on me and I went on to buy every book of his; however, I loaned many of those books to a friend and never got them back.

[babyblob]

For it it is John jakes. his Kent Family Chronicles and The North and South Series really made me fall in love with history. Civil War history more then anything. I remember getting all three of the North and South series books from the prison Library and tore through them in four days!

[Zauriel]

Mark Twain
Alan Moore
Neil Gaiman
Stan Lee

[Jim Kelly]

When I was about thirteen years old, I walked with my sister to the public library (which was a bit of a hike for us, but something we liked to do in the summer) and there I found a book on comic books. Our family had an old couch that we kept on the back verandah of the house and it had a certain musty odour from being exposed to the elements, but I got to like that smell. So I would sit out there on summer afternoons and read. I remember reading the whole of JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL in one sitting out there on the verandah (the first and only time I read a whole book in one sitting).

The book I had from the library was ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME, published by Ace Books (1970). Once I opened the book, I couldn't put it down until I was called into the house for supper. To me this book is a novel. It may have many authors and it might be told from many diverse perspectives, but in some ways it conforms to the 19th century concept of the novel--from what I learned about that in school. The classic novel was always about an entire society and not just one character and that's what ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME is. And it works on many levels. At one level are the lives of comic book characters; at another are the lives of the publishers, editors, writers and artists who put out those comic books; and at still another level are the lives of the book's authors, looking back on when they were children and young adults and the world of that time. I consider it one of the greatest novels ever written. And it ranks way up there as one of the best works I've ever read.

As an authoritative book on comics, it's not that reliable. The writers are using their own limited research and experience to go by. The book is actually a compilation of essays--with additions and improvements--from the old fanzine XERO. However, it's not for its facts that I value the book so much--what I enjoy are all those perspectives and memories from different people that have a passion for comic books. It's a Rashomon on that comic book "golden age" from before I was ever born.

It took me only a couple of days to read the whole pocketsize book, but I so loved it that I wanted to have my own copy and at the back of the book was an order form where you could send away for more Ace Books. Since it was a library book, I couldn't cut out that page, but I copied out the information by hand onto a card and I taped onto the card, in coin, the amount of money needed to buy ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME ($1.50 + 15¢ handling) and mailed that card to the post office box at Times Square Station, New York, N.Y., U.S.A. In a few weeks, in a mailer, I got my own copy from the good people at Ace Books.

For the record here are the names of the people who wrote the introduction and eleven chapters of ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME: Dick Lupoff, Don Thompson, Ted White, Richard Ellington, Bill Blackbeard, Tom Fagan, Jim Harmon, Chris Steinbrunner, Roy Thomas, Ron Goulart, Harlan Ellison.

[green_garnish]

There were only two writers really that meet the criteria.

One was C. S. Forrester author of the Hornblower series. It was the first time I realized what good writing looked like in the modern era.

The other, embarrassingly, was C.S. Lewis. Became a rabid fan of Mere Christianity, A Grief Observed, and The Screwtape Letters, and influenced my thoughts abs beliefs and actions for nearly 10 years before I understood the childishness of it all.

Otherwise, Kenneth Robeson and John Romita were the two writers I probably read on the most continual basis (though at the time I thought I was reading Stan Lee).

[Hellion]

In lieu of having a life during my childhood and adolescence, I read books. J.K. Rowling and Philip Pullman first sparked my interest in reading as a kid. As I grew a bit older, Tolkien and Michael Crichton became my preferred meals. The later half of my high school years was given over to all manner of British and Irish classics. If I had to pick things that resonated with me the most during that phase, I'd have to go with King Lear and pretty much everything Oscar Wilde ever wrote. In my early college years, I discovered the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro and GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire.

Nowadays I'm too busy and too unfocused and only get around to reading a fraction of what I did in my youth, which is sad, but I still manage to find the odd gem every now and then. I think the book I've loved the most in my third decade of life is Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry.