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It’s no secret community loves books :books: share your top three

“I cannot remember the books I 've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me .” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

So in the spirit of Ralph there👆, which 3 books have made you? Or just blew your mind? Fiction and non-fiction allowed, no self promotion please.

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This has a college-essay type feel to it…and each has a different relationship w/ books.

Books I have liked

Absalom, Absalom - William Faulkner
Humbolt’s Gift - Saul Bellow
You Can’t Go Home Again - Thomas Wolfe

Reading and liking A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

Bossy Pants - Tina Fey (funny)

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Doesn’t have to be, I liked your format. :blush:

These are the books that I think about a lot even though it’s been years.

A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer (convinced me to become a foster parent)

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn (if I explain it, it will ruin the book)

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv (Sounds hokey, I know, but really it’s about climate change and teaching future generations how to love the land)

I reread The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway at least every couple of years. I just really dig the rhythm of that book. (My interest in that novel is a mystery even to me)

My favorite book however is Emma by Jane Austen

Shoutout to the Overstory by Richard Powers because I can’t stop thinking about it.

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That’s… wait. Top three… is that favorite three or most influential three?

or should I write a book report on every book I’ve read that I think is enjoyable/important to me y/n

If your going to be snarky at the very least don’t be boring. :yawning_face:

I had to think about this.

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffen. Read it as a freshman in college towards the end of the 60’s.

The Womens Room by Marilyn French. Read this as brain relief when I went back to finish college in 1980.

Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner, PHD. Read when I was separated from my husband around the 14 year mark. Basically, I needed to give myself permission to be angry. And we did manage to stay married for 41 years. (Mainly because we were both too stubborn to say I quit.) :yum:

But the books that bend my mind are time travel stories. One of the first I read was Time and Again by Jack Finney.

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There is no solid way I can answer this one. I hate things that require me to give “my favorite” or “top three” or what not. I usually have a certain galaxy of favorites that shift about depending on my moods.

Highly influential for me have been atlases, almanacs, and encyclopedias. I know that sounds odd, but I look at them as windows to the past, especially older ones; they show how times have changed, what beliefs we once held, the way we saw the world, and see it. They show our values on things both scientific and cultural. I have a general love of reference books and dictionaries of things like birds, gemstones, myths, etc.

A highly influential book for me personally is Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them by Dr. David Anderegg; it examines the long-held American disdain for intellectualism, rooted in a rebellion against European ideas, how that has progressed through the years, and why we need our thinkers and scientists and dreamers.

And I’d say Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye really stands out as well, as a valuable insight into stepping into the shoes of others and seeing the world from their perspective.

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No snark! I have no idea how to choose three. And which three. And for what purpose. And how much should I write because I could pour paragraphs into this. On a lot of books. For absolute real.

If I had been as enthusiastic about writing book reports when I was in high school as I am now my 20’s would have looked very different.

Sorry, I only just realized how nasty that post may have come off. I am, if anything, a little too enthusiastic about this.

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I always remind people that text has no voice; it can be all too easy to read what we want to into it, depending on so many factors. It’s why I tend to err on the side of caution and giving folks the benefit of the doubt until I’m sure.

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