10+ books you should read before you die…

Posted on 28 December, 2014

When I was 11, I lived in a small town called Tarcutta, population 300. There was a general store, a service station, a post office, a club, a pub, a hardware store and a craft hub. And that was pretty much it.

So, books were a big part of my life. Through them, I could escape to fantastic, magical worlds; solve mysteries; laugh and cry.

We didn’t have a library, so once a fortnight I would await the arrival of the semi trailer that housed the region’s Mobile Library…I could hardly wait to step inside and see the adventures that awaited me.

But the problem with a fortnightly service was that my voracious appetite for reading often meant I’d devoured all my books before I could borrow more. On one such occasion, I was flopping around the house, sighing dramatically about how bored I was, as only an 11 year old can, when my mother said “fine…read this” (NB: I am told I was a pretty mature kid).

What she handed me was one of the books that changed my life. It was Stephen King’s ‘Cujo‘ – a horror story about a rabid St Bernard – and I read the whole thing in eight hours’ straight.

I did nothing else that day.  I simply read and read and read and when I finished I knew I had found my genre…while my classmates were eating up the latest Sweet Dreams romance, I was convincing Mum to let me read Christine or Carrie.

It was King who taught me how powerful and emotive the written word could be and it was his work that influenced much of the writing of my high school and university days.

But before the master of contemporary horror, there was Enid Blyton. The Enchanted Wood series; The Secret Seven; and all the other amazing titles this prolific author produced.

I was captivated by the adventures of the magical folk of The Faraway Tree; I wanted to visit The Land of Take-What-You-Want and The Land of Goodies; I could almost taste the Toffee Shocks and Pop Biscuits. She wove a delightful other world, which I escaped to often…

My original hardbacks are sitting patiently on the shelf in Miss 6’s room, just waiting for her to discover the fabulous worlds within…and I can’t wait to see another generation transformed by  Blyton’s writings. To me, her Faraway Tree series is the Harry Potter of my generation…the wonder of the lands at the top of the tree only equalled by JK Rowling’s Hogwarts (which, I am delighted to report, my eldest daughter is obsessed with).

They all have the ability to transport readers from their everyday existence to the worlds they have created, through words alone. The summer holidays are a great chance to curl up with a good book (or three)…so if you’re looking for your next read, here are the HerCanberra Team’s nomination for ‘life changing’ books.

The books that changed our lives…

Heather Wallace

I’ve been a Jane Austen fan since I picked up Pride and Prejudice at 15. The humour, sly sarcasm and characters I wanted to be friends had me enchanted.

At 19 I opened the first page of Emma, expecting to find another delightful read, and almost immediately took the opinionated, meddlesome heroine into dislike. She bossed her widowed father and family around, decided she knew what was best for everyone and rode rough shod over all in her path. I put it back on the shelf and there it stayed, ignored during my regular visits to my Austen favourites.

But at 22 a strange thing happened. By now I was caring for a widowed parent and making decisions I had little life experience of. Usually I didn’t stop to ask anyone for an opinion, I just thought I knew best. Frustrated at my responsibilities one weekend I picked up Emma again, resolved to give it another go. And somehow, the words had been rewritten since I last looked at. Emma wasn’t obnoxious or meddlesome at all; she was someone who was just doing her best to help everyone. It wasn’t her fault they were too stubborn to realise how good her advice was.

I read it cover to cover in a day and a bit. And then went back and started reading again. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I loved it for the story, the characters and the humour, and yes I could see enough of myself in Emma to see what path I’d set myself on. I realised how I could alienate those closest to me if I wasn’t careful. So I started trying to be a bit softer with those around me and actually ask for help and advice.

I still read Emma regularly and I still love the eponymous heroine. A part of me would like to meet her, but we might not get on, I think we might try to give the other advice!

Sonia Bowditch

The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian sci-fi novel, set in a world ruled by a totalitarian theocracy, where women have been stripped of all rights and sorted into various functions: wives (who must wear blue), housekeepers (green), and handmaids (red).  The main character, Offred, is a handmaid.

In a society of widespread infertility, Offred’s job is to conceive a child for The Commander and his wife.  She does this via forced participation in abhorrent ménages à trois, during which the wife sits behind her, pinning her down, trying to exert some control over the situation.  Offred’s rights as an individual have been removed and, like all the handmaids, she is merely a piece of property in a materialistic world.

In past interviews, Atwood has likened The Handmaid’s Tale to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, both books serving as warnings against totalitarianism.

This book “changed my life” because it caused me to consider the control that governments can have over people and also that people can be forced into lives of abject horror.  For me, the appeal of this book lies in its relevance to humankind.  We all cherish our individuality and our freedom and can all too easily relate to the threat of having these rights removed.

Charly Leetham

I was given the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss by one of my friends and it changed the way I look at my business and what I was doing. The 4 Hour Work Week isn’t really about working four hours a week – it’s about setting up your business(es) so that you can work whereever you are, whenever you want and how to outsource tasks in a strategic manner to achieve success. This book was a paradigm shift in how I approached running my business and has helped me change my mindset about ‘having to do it all’. Well worth the read.

Ros Hull

My Place by Sally Morgan. I had only learnt of my own Indigenous heritage a short time before reading this book and was struggling with how I should feel about who I was. I did not want to offend anyone by identifying as Indigenous when I had not grown up in the culture but I could not ignore what I now knew. I also did not know how to confront my mother or grandmother (it was my uncle who told me) as we are from the deep north and our heritage had been stridently hidden and denied.

Reading Sally’s book was like taking a giant chill pill. Not only did it stop the anger that had started to rise against my mum and Grandma, it help me understand them and why they used words like ‘not allowed’ and ‘get caught’ all the time. It helped me accept my ‘Heinz 59 varieties’ Australian heritage and put me on the path to feeling proud of all my ancestors.

Catherine Russell

A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey. I was reading the book on buses through Australian country landscapes, while my parents were getting closer to separation. It helped me put adversity into context, made me feel Australian and helped plant the seedlings of resilience that have been important to managing life from that point on…

Michelle Brotohusodo

Enid Blyton books – the first books that I read on my own. They were the beginning of my love of the written word and the fantastical; and as my reading ability developed there was always a book to go right along with it. Starting with short story books like Binkle and Flip and Mr Pink-Whistle, I then got caught up in the Adventures of the Wishing Chair and the Magic Faraway Tree; learnt about farm life and the English countryside in the Cherry Tree and Willow Farm books; and whiled away my holidays reading about boarding school life at Malory Towers and St Clare’s. They showed me a time and place outside my own, and introduced me to realms of wonderful worlds, creatures and characters.

Kaylia Payne

The book that changed my life was The Messenger – a young adult novel written by international bestselling Australian author Markus Zusak (famous for his novel The Book Thief). Without wanting to give too much away, the plot centres around a self-proclaimed unexceptional man in his late teens who, after stopping a bank robbery, finds himself receiving mysterious cards in the mail. Each card leads to a person who needs his help- even if all he has to do is care. The novel is half funny, half sad, and completely unashamedly positive; it left me feeling like I truly could save the world one person at a time.

What are the books or authors that have had an impact on you? That have perhaps changed the way you looked at the world?