These are 10 books that profoundly
impacted my life. I list them pretty much in the order that I read them. Every
book I have ever read has impacted me, but this is a list of the ones that
probably had the BIGGEST impacts on my life.
1. The Clay Marble
by Minfong Ho was read to me by my
Mum when I was still quite young. It taught me empathy and made me realise that
the world is much bigger than just my little life.
2. The Lion the Witch
and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis helped me understand the concept of substitutional
sacrifice a little better.
3. A Complicated Kindness
by Miriam Toews helped
me survive my first and worst semester of public school back in grade nine. I don’t
know quite how to describe how it helped me I just know that it did.
4. Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I think I read this
the summer my Dad died, or maybe it was the year after, but I know it helped me
mourn.
5. Life of Pi
by Yann Martel. I still remember reading this in grade eleven. I was home alone
with the dog because mom had gone to work. We were sitting on the couch and I imagined
that the big lonely empty house was the ocean and my dog was the tiger. This
book helped me deal with a lot of the loneliness I felt when Mum started
working.
6. Velvet Elvis
by Rob Bell. I know he has a bad reputation for his book Love Wins, and it has been so long since I read Velvet Elvis, so I don’t even know what I would think about it now. All I can tell
you is that when I read this book, in grade eleven or twelve, I was on the
brink of disbelief and this book somehow convinced me to stick with my faith
small though it was.
7. A Wind in the Door
by Madeleine L'engle. I think I read this book the year after I graduated high school
and it helped me be comfortable with my adult love of children’s books and made
me realise the importance of the imagination even in the adult world.
8. The History of
Love by Nicole Krauss. This is one of those
books where I can’t explain why it affected me the way it did, all I know is
that I picked it up during the year after high school. At the time I had told
everyone that I would never go to university. When I put this book down I
thought to myself “That was beautiful. Literature is amazing. I want to spend
the next four years of my life discussing books with people.” I applied to
Trent a short time later, TRUE STORY.
9. 1 John
(in the Bible). In my first year of university I read the entire New Testament
and this is the only book in it that did not anger or confuse me but
encouraged, inspired, and interested me.
10. Paper Towns
by John Green helped me realise that more than stories and characters what I am
interested in writing is ideas imbedded in stories.
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