Books Can Change Your Life

I know this is a book review blog, but sometimes I need to deviate from just reviews. Sometimes, I need to say something else about books. I don't know if y'all come to read the reviews or the deviations, or both, but this is a deviation.

I'm a major nerd. In case you hadn't yet realized this, I really am. That said, books can change your life.

Any book. Not just the classics. As brilliant as Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Shelly (either Shelly), Dickinson, Bronte, Austen, Socrates, Ovid, and all the rest of those geniuses in the canon are, other authors can change your life too. Stephen King, Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Danielle Steele, James Frey, Judy Bloom, Dan Brown... they can change your life too.

King Lear changed my life. Made me realize that Shakespeare was meant to be acted, not read. Great Expectations was the novel that made me realize that I'm not all that into classics. I was in 7th or 8th grade when I read it. The Crucible was one of the first "classic" novels that I liked. I didn't read it until 11th grade (a rather good year for me, literature-wise). Come 12th, we were reading "modern classics from around the world," things like 1984, Things Fall Apart, The Little Prince, all of which I liked.

Stephen King's On Writing was the first book that made me realize that it was okay that I wasn't into deep literature. Any myriad of Nora Roberts books made me realize that I'm not always happy with the happy ending. Joshilyn Jackson's books taught me about love and sadness and how they can sometimes be so intermingled that it's hard to see the former for the latter. Judy Bloom's Summer Sisters taught me that not everything stays innocent. Dean Koontz taught me about love with Odd Thomas, and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game taught me about the dangers of government.

To Kill A Mockingbird taught me about injustice and separation. Charles Martin teaches about acceptance. Laurie Anderson taught me about the importance of speech, while Ellen Hopkins taught me the dangers of seduction.

I'm not saying I learn something, either about the world as a whole or myself in specific, every time I read something. Not even the second or third time I read something. Sometimes, I just learn that I really do like serial killer novels.

But once in a while, a book comes along that rocks my world. Makes me sit and think and stare into the distance until I figure out just what it is that sits with me.

Any books that did that for you? Feel free to leave a long list... I'm always looking for new things to read.

It could be anything. I like (some) classics, along with (some) modern stuff.

Oh, and I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that just because I don't love classic literature doesn't mean I was a bad English major. Some of us just aren't suited to long passages about slicing bread.