I’m curious to know if there’s a book that you all have read that, for better or for worse, left such a profound impact on you that you have not been able to replicate that feeling since finishing it.
For example: It’s impossible for me to describe how much of an impact Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami, left on me. I have since not been able to find or read a book that even touches how I felt after I’d finished it.
by DynamicBaie
13 Comments
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
No question.
First read it as a very early teen and it still is my favorite read of all time many decades later.
It also makes me scoff at all the derivative dribble since then and yes I put Harry Potter in that set.
The Life of Pi. Strange, dense book. Eerie, desperate, isolated. The movie doesn’t do it justice as per the usual.
The stranger, Albert Camus
The neverending story by Michael Ende
No Longer Human
greengage summer by Rumer Godden.
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Tender is the flesh. It genuinely got to me.
The Poisonwood Bible
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Totally agree. My first thought reading your question is 1Q84. I love the emotional/psychic realism Murakami captures within magical realism. Gorgeous.
Esperanza Rising —short tweens novel about a riches to rags story of Mexican immigrants to California (around 1930’s, I think). It’s truly a beautiful story and I feel it helps many students see themselves/their adults in literature.
It shows honor to the Mexican culture and to being a human no matter how much money one has or doesn’t have. As well, there is the universal theme of love between family members and of both children and adults learning to accept and be accepted in new environments.
I have heard that The Circuit is very good as well. I have read part of it but not all of it. I believe it is told from the point of view of the youngest son of immigrants. I believe they immigrate to California. They work on the farms, harvesting.
This is The Handmaid’s Tale for me. After I finished it I was left with this void that I still haven’t been able to fill.