10 Books That Have Stayed With Me

Yesterday I was asked, by a friend on Facebook, to list 10 books that really moved me. My first thought was, 'Only 10?' But the idea was not to overthink it, just to come up with a list of books that really made an impact. Don't think too long about it. So I did. Here is my list:

• The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Jody and Flag - do you remember? It was the first book that made me sob uncontrollably.

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I've read it at least a dozen times. Each time it's better. Harper Lee only wrote this one book, but wow. Just wow.

• The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie, starring Whoopi Goldberg, was mesmerizing. The book, inspirational.

• The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. Published in 2009, this is the most recent book of the ten. I read it just last year, and was moved beyond words. Lamb taught me, as a writer, about the delicate balance between hope and despair.

• The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. Published in 1977, I read this book in 1978, while a student abroad in Switzerland. It's possible that every one of my classmates read the book as well, since none of us had much money, so books were passed around and shared.

• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. A young writer in Paris? Well, of course it resounded with me! Paris in the 20s, beauty and innocence, and Hemingway's style.

• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. If I needed a dose of reality after the previous book, Orwell provided it. I read this one while in Europe, too, and even though I was there decades later, in totally different circumstances, Orwell's novel of poverty and society stayed with me.

• A Room with a View by E.M. Forster. Another instance where I saw the movie before reading the book. The movie remains one of my favorites, and the book, in Forster's gentle writing, is lovely. I wanted to be Lucy Honeychurch!

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Required reading in high school and again in college. Decadence, excess, hypocrisy, all wrapped together in Fitzgerald's beautiful writing.

• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I don't think I read this book until I was in my 20s. A gripping narrative about a quadruple murder in Kansas in 1959 still sends shivers down my spine.

What about you? What book or books have really stayed with you? Inspired you? Given you nightmares? ;-)