 | Beloved by Toni Morrison
Buy used from: $0.01 This is one of the most important pieces of American literature I've ever read. I can read it cover to cover, flip back to the beginning and start all over right away. I hate to leave these characters. By the end of the book, they are intricately connected to me, and to stop reading is to lose those connections. That's good writing!
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 | The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Buy new: $10.08 / Used from: $2.42 I love this book. There are no 2 ways about it. It's a period piece, but it's so much more. It's about daring to dream, and about being wary of the dreams that actually come true. Very sad and lovely, all at once.
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 | Walden Two by B. F. Skinner
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $5.80 This is social commentary that is refreshing and hopeful.
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 | One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Buy new: $10.76 / Used from: $3.94 This is a joy for the imagination and for the heart.
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 | What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories by Raymond Carver
Buy new: $10.08 / Used from: $1.50 These are timeless stories written in what I like to call a perfected Hemingway style. I truly enjoy this writing style--wish I were better at it.
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 | In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
Buy new: $6.95 / Used from: $0.93 Ah, yes. Papa Hemingway. The father of the modern short story. This is a great collection, in my opinion. The stories are poignant without being overly sentimental. The writer crafts with love, and that comes across on the page. We thank thee, Papa.
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 | The Stranger by Albert Camus
Buy new: $8.64 / Used from: $1.63 I first read this in high school, & probably because of my age, I was blown away by it. As a Southern Cajun girl, I didn't know anyone who thought this way, or, if they did, they sure didn't write it down! I loved how this challenged me to think a different way and to look at the world from a new perspective. And that still holds today when I re-read it.
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 | Love Medicine: A Novel (P.S.) by Louise Erdrich
Buy used from: $0.10 This is a novel, yes, but it is also a collection of well-put-together chapters that can stand alone as short stories. The form of this book has inspired me in my own writing. Erdrich's writing style is what I call "violent grace" and it's magnificent. Give it a read.
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 | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $1.21 This is a well-known book; seems kind of hackneyed to have it on a list of "most influential books"--BUT--it really is quite important. Like The Stranger (above), this book challenges convential thought structures. It demands imagination, compassion, and attention to that which does not ordinarily get attention. It's worth the read, and the re-read.
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 | Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan Poetry) by Yusef Komunyakaa
Buy new: $12.21 / Used from: $3.11 This is a collection of poems by Yusef Komunyakaa, who is from Louisiana, as it turns out. Maybe that's what originally drew me to read his poetry, but it turns out that he is an extraordinary poet.
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 | Heart of Darkness (Norton Critical Editions) by Joseph Conrad
Buy new: $10.77 / Used from: $6.58 This is one of those books that, while I was reading it, I could think of nothing else. I put it down and do something else (go to class, do homework, whatever other mundane activity existed at the time), but all the while the story never left me. It haunted me well after I finished the book & even sometimes now.
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 | The Bluest Eye (Vintage International) by Toni Morrison
Buy new: $10.08 / Used from: $3.73 I first read this book as an undergraduate for a class assignment. Like in Beloved, these characters I felt truly close to. Putting the book down was like losing a friend or 2. Plus, Toni Morrison is capable of capturing a part of American culture and the psyche of that culture in a way that so few others are able to do.
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 | The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays by Charles W. Chestnutt
Buy new: $20.99 / Used from: $8.57 There is so much about old Southern & especially New Orleans life for "free men of color" that we don't know about & don't learn in school. These stories are extraordinary for filling us in & are important for so many reasons, but they are often overlooked. Shameful, but true. This is a book that deserves reading.
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 | On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
Buy new: $4.99 / Used from: $0.51 This is one of the few non-fiction books that made its way into the list early on. There's so little that can be said about it that it doesn't say for itself. Liberty and justice for all! Read the book!
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 | Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Buy new: $15.61 / Used from: $6.00 I fell in love with the words of Edgar Allan Poe in the 7th grade, thanks to my English teacher, Ms. Brummett (wherever you are, Ms. Brummett, you're still my hero). The best thing on the planet is to close your eyes while someone with a soft, raspy voice reads "Annabel Lee" to you aloud. Give it a go!
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 | The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $6.99 Probably the single most influential writer to my own writing style. If you get a chance, read her essays as well.
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 | The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text by William Faulkner
Buy new: $9.23 / Used from: $2.14 Faulkner is very near and dear to my heart, like Hemingway, despite their wildly different styles. I am still crazy about this book, even 16 years after I first picked it up. It sticks long after putting it down, like all Faulkner does.
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 | Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $0.01 This is probably the 1st book I ever read with a critical eye, thanks to my older brother. He insisted I read it so we could "discuss" it (& act it out, of course). He was 6, I was 5; a lot of it was over my head at the time. I have re-read it a few times over the years, & it endures as a timeless, imaginative, and beautiful story that still makes me cry.
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 | Same Place, Same Things: Stories by Tim Gautreaux
Buy new: $11.70 / Used from: $0.01 This was written by my 1st college creative writing professor. That's not why it's on this list, but it's probably why I 1st read it. I love the way he writes, & I see a lot of myself in his style and in his stories. It's nice to have another coonass out there making a mark on the literary world. It's also nice that he's so good at it.
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 | To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 No must-read list would be complete without To Kill a Mockingbird. I was so influenced by this one that I actually became a lawyer who fights civil rights injustices - how 'bout that? Whether lawyer or not, though, this is a great piece of American literature which should never be overlooked.
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 | The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Buy new: $9.79 / Used from: $2.99 Comments to come later...
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 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Buy new: $9.99 / Used from: $0.01 Comments to come later...
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 | The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
Buy new: $8.24 / Used from: $2.50 Comments to come later...
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 | Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast by Mike Tidwell
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $3.24 Comments to come later...
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 | Great American Stories: Ten Unabridged Classics by Stephen Crane
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $19.76 Comments to come later...
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 | In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $0.98 Comments to come later...
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 | The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol by Nikolai Gogol
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $6.95 Comments to come later...
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 | Frankenstein (Enriched Classics) by Mary Shelley
Buy new: $4.95 / Used from: $0.75 Comments to come later...
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 | Bastard out of Carolina: (Plume Essential Edition) by Dorothy Allison
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $6.54 Comments to come later...
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 | Naked by David Sedaris
Buy new: $9.74 / Used from: $1.18 Comments to come later...
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