Twenty Books that Have Stayed With Me

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

One prompt for a list that I’ve seen is as follows:

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

A List of 20 Books

At present, I don’t have access to most of my personal library. So I can’t take photos of each of these books. Plus, why waste the digital bandwidth on images when words can do just as well (and don’t require that I write alternative text for the images).

So cramming 20 days into one post, here’s my list:

• all about love by bell hooks
• The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson
• The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
• Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Gilgamesh Retold by Jenny Lewis
• How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin
• The Lord of the Rings by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull
• M Train by Patti Smith
• The Odyssey by Emily Wilson
• On Writing by Stephen King
• The Origins of Creativity by Edward O. Wilson
• Ragnarok by Antonia Bryant
• Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
• The Living Mountain by Nan Shephard
• Tragedy, The Greeks, and Us by Simon Critchley
• Upstream by Mary Oliver
• Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit

What’s Nipping on the Heels of the 20

I’m reading The Life of Poetry, and it has all the markings of entering the list. But what would I remove from this arbitrarily sized list?

Perhaps The Broken Sword, but the fey of that story haunt me as if from the “uncanny valley.”

Maybe Upstream, which rests amidst a blurry landscape of reading much of Oliver, Dillard, and Solnit. Walking through the woods, the poetry of loss and life, echoes deep within the hidden waters of my heart.

I can’t ever push Gilgamesh Retold off of this list, as I hold dear the correspondence I had with the author; and her lifelong love of the story, evident in presenting different chapters in different verse forms. But also, how can one discard our world’s oldest written story? That surely must be worth a spot or two.

And how can one settle on any singular book from Patti Smith; I feel the ache of time and loss in all she writes. So M Train shall remain.

The Dark Fantastic set me thinking more about representation in stories. And having recently finished Man on the Inside, I’m shaking my head at Michael Schur’s story choice for two prominent Black characters: Flo and Calbert. One that must die so Charles could invoke poetry. The other so Charles could be forgiven.

Ragnarok is a curious add. One that’s hard to tell if its fiction or not, but recounting of a girl reflecting on the London Blitz while also reading of Norse Mythology. And an entwinement of science, myth, and end-times.

My Epigraphs testifies that Tragedy, The Greeks, and Us induces thinking and reflection. That book remains one of my most “annotated in the margins” book.

And how can one set aside Wanderlust? I love walking and learning about the history of going for a stroll (and how it is often denied to women) has me ever thinking. Plus that ticker text that runs at the bottom of each page…I need to read that.

And never shall Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead leave this list. I wrote of it in “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk; but in summary: I had learned of the book while opening a book store. And while traveling through Poland, I searched the airport bookshop and found a copy written in English. I meditate often on this story.

The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings sit entwined. I could be a very happy hobbit but reading the annotations provided by Hammond and Scull helps even further appreciate the attention to detail of Tolkien’s work.

How to Take Smart Notes was one that I read as I dove further into Emacs 📖 and Org-Roam 📖 . It helped me think even more about writing and thinking. I’m not an adopter of the slip-box, but appreciate Ahrens’s explaining some of the foundations.

I cannot have a list without Ursula K Le Guin, perhaps The Left Hand of Darkness sits as a proxy for her corpus. I suppose No Time to Spare could slide in as well. Le Guin is an author I wish I would’ve come to earlier, but am thankful I found her. Her anthropological approach helps melt away concepts of the other; laying bare “humanity.”

Dune, to think how much David Lynch’s vision projects into my reading and re-reading of this cautionary tale of seeking a Messiah. In the telling, we know there’s a sweeping empire but the narrator (an in-world narrator, hinted at by the in-world epigraphs) must be mindful of his patronage; not letting the lens slip to far past the focal characters. No this one stays, something to wrestle with, a book with no good people; all fascist feudalists.

Since high school, I’ve loved The The Odyssey and Emily Wilson’s translation brings a more accessible verse. One in a lower register. Giving easier access to a foundational story.

I haven’t read much Stephen King, but his On Writing reminds me that there is a deep well that I might one day plumb. His advice, to remove adverbs, rattles around in my beloved thoughts and memories of high school English.

The Origins of Creativity raised my understanding of pre-historic memory—that is pre-written memory—and the stories we tell that reinforce our collective identity. And perhaps helps me rationalize having old stories on this list.

I can think of no better field guide that bridges to an ancient and vibrant past, The Living Mountain sings. The joy of not seeking conquest of mountains peak but living amongst the mountains. Learning their tales and nuances. I also marvel at how this book almost didn’t see publication.

Siddhartha, a book I read in high school helped me take comfort in the thought of growing old; of finding solace in the river flow, as both metaphor and always relevant advice.

Knowing I needed to read bell hooks, I grabbed all about love by bell hooks; which gave language, perspective, and nourishment to something deep within me. Which I can draw forth as a talisman akin to the Phial of Galadriel.