What Literature Influenced You?

Wolf Spider wrote: Kohllapse wrote: The Bible Let me see... You have "One" as your avatar and the book that influenced you is the Bible... NEAL, get outta here this is a fan forum

  I am a FAN

nice to see someone named Bulgakov; "The Master and Margerita" is one of the greatest satires ever. "Dune" is overrated, in my opinion; when it comes to SF: give me Stanislaw Lem. I also love James Joyce, Lawrence Sterne and Jonathan Swift (Irish on my mother's side). and, since I am a woman, I also love the works of the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf

Quite a mix actually: from Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy) to Homers' Iliad.

Henry Kuttner (stories about Hogben's Family - I can't remember title)
Stainslaw Lem
Kurt Vonnegut
Franz Kafka
Strugacki bros
Bulkhakow Michail
Tibor Dery
William Wharton
Jules Verne
George Wells
Joseph Heller (paragraph 22)
Bhagavad Gita


enough for now

Edited by Throgh

^ Thanks for the tip, Jean

As for me... I can't think of any books that haven't influenced me to a certain degree (except the ones I was supposed to study from), but if I have to choose, I choose Samuel Beckett and Julian Barnes.  

GoldenSpiral wrote: TheProgtologist wrote: Wolf Spider wrote: Andrzej Sapkowski Frank Herbert Fiodor Dostojewski Michail Bulchakov Frank Herbert Dune is the greatest sci-fi book ever written,and the book that got me into sci-fi. I am currently reading Dune and it is awesome so far.  I just wish i had more time for recreational reading.  I am also a big fan of Arthur C. Clarke, Chuck Palahniuk, and Tolkien. I also must mention one of the craziest books I have ever read, House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski.  This book is an insane sort of sci-fi story that works on about 3 levels of concentric narrative, and becomes so convoluded at times that you literally have to turn the book upside down to read it.  Has anyone else read this book?

YES.That book reminds me of a bad acid trip I had when I was a teenager.

all sorts at different stages of my life - from wilbur smith adventures when I was 10 and things like King Solomon's Mines and Treasure Island to ray Bradubury in my later teens (what a beautiful writer) and Tolkien and Stephen King and after that just all sorts really from potboiling nonsense to the tougher stuff.

At the moment I'm loving Haruki Murakami - what a wonderful writer

though juts glancing at my nightstand seems I'm reading a lot of non-fiction travel history books at the moment - like Anthony Sattin's 'The Gates of Africa' (great read), Giles Milton's 'White Gold', 'The Travels of Marco Polo' and Lesley Adkins 'Empires of the Plains'. Weird how you go through these phases

Went for a quick diversion with the Harry Potter though and now ploughing through Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Norrell and Mr Strange thing - seems alright if a little studied and laboured.