Not just one. - Bible - Hasek: Svejk - Terry Pratchett: Discworld series - Mihail Bulgakov: Master and Margharita - Blackmore: Meme Machine - Westlake: Dortmunder series - Väinö Linna: Tuntematon sotilas - Kalle Päätalo: several books - Roald Dahl: My Uncle Oswald - Christiane F.: Zoo Station - George Orwell: several - David Pawson: Unlock the Bible - Douglas Adams: All the 5 books of his 4 book trilogy - Half of all the books I have read about writing - Steinbeck: Pearl - Hunter S Thompson: F&L in Las Vegas - Sun Tzu: Art of War - Scott Adams: Several - Richard Feynman: several - Tom Sharpe: Several - William Golding: Lord of the flies - Enid Blyton: Several - Astrid Lindgren: Several - Tove Janson: Several - Alistair McLean: Several - Armas j. Pulla: Several - Marton Taiga: Several - P.G. Vodehouse: Several - Uderzo, Coscinny, Tabary - Eiji Yoshikava: Musashi - Asimov: Several - Orson Scott Card: Enders Game - Elias Lönnrot: Kalevala - Linna: Seitsemän veljestä - Robert Arthur: Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators -series - Peter O'Donell: Modesty Blaise - Shere Hite: The Hite Report - Emmanuelle Arsan: several - Charles Bukowski: several - Carlos Castaneda: Several - Mika Waltari: The Egyptian - Erkki-Mikael: Several - James Herriot: Several - Edgar Rice Burroughs: Several - Shusaku Endo: Several - David Lodge: Several - Tom Sharpe: Several - Carl Hiaasen: Several - Ray Bradbury: Several - Edgar Allan Poe: Several - Stanislav Lem: Several - Jules Verne: Several - Vonnegut: Several - Matti Pulkkinen: several - Charles M. Schulz: several - Gerald Durrel: several - Joy Adamson: several - Gunter Wallraf: Pohjalla (Ganz Unten) - Edgar Wallace: Sandi series - Giovanni Guareschi: Don Camillo -series - Olli: Several - Kari Suomalainen: several - Rex Stout: Several - C.S.Forester: Hornblover series - Sabbag: Snowblind - Cristiane F: Zoo Station - and some more
Rumer Godden's The Doll's House. Yes, it's a children's book. But...ah, here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/09/tottie-story-dolls-house "...But what it is about is loyalty, betrayal, courage, vanity and folly... So you see, it's not about dolls at all - it's as neat a portrait of humanity as you could ever wish...." She left out heroic sacrifice. It contains the first heroic death I ever read, and I'm not sure if I've ever read or seen a better one in any fictional work. The ability to put so much into what looks like such a tiny story, a story that a child can read comfortably, and then, when they have a deeper understanding as an adult, can cry over--I want to be able to do that. (And I love her nonstandard dialogue.)
It teaches you military-political thinking. You can generalise most of it's wisdom to many other areas - like writing. In writing you can use what you have learned in... - Organising your workflow - Managering your career - Plot development - Character development - Inspiration - As an understanding tool in your research - historical, military, political, economical, philosphical... - and so on. I think this book is a must. And it might be wise to buy it and read it several times because it is very layered. Big part of it is between layers. That part is hard to find and understand before you have learned and understood the layers. EDIT: Many people seem to think that Sun Tzu teaches to the direection of more aggressive thinking and attitudes. It is not so. Art of War teaches you to think to two direction instead of "normal" one in several areas. And it teaches to think any one topic through many other topics & many topics through selected one. If you practice those two skills and generalise these meta level skills to any possible area, it makes your thinking more intelligent (without rising your IQ) because you use wider category of meta tools in your thinking. And you use them more. After few years you might watch previous you and think: "How is it possible that this previous me was intellectually so lazy and slow?"
Christine, by Stephen King. Definitely had that all-american vibe, filled with youth and cars and passion and sports. That is a really infinite world to help sustain book ideas until the end of time.
OK, here's one that most people wouldn't include in their list: How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive by John Muir. It was a revelation to me because it was a technical manual that was not only informative but witty, analytical, and acutely aware of the human condition. It described repair procedures, but went beyond them to give you an idea of how ordinary human beings respond to the challenges of the procedure, and how to restore not only your VW but your perspective on life in general. The book was important enough to merit a complete chapter in my own book On The Bus. I only regret having moved to New Mexico a couple of years too late to have met the man himself.
You are welcome. And it is a book you need to read several times. It is layered. You can't see or find all the layers in one reading. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1771.Sun_Tzu
Nearly every fiction book or anthology I have ever read, including those that inspired me with what NOT to do. My first writings that I can remember were short "picture books" (fan fic) based on television shows I liked, such as Ripcord and Sea Hunt. I think I was around 5 tears old. As an only child living in the sticks with no nearby neighbors close to my age, imagination was my best friend.
Hitchhiker's Guide Christopher Moore's Grim Reaper book (forgot the title) Not a book, but the writings of Simon Pegg, Monty Python, and A Bit of Fry and Laurie
No one book influenced me. I suppose Banks' The Wasp Factory to a certain extent, but it was when I realised books didn't have to have complex and clever plots full of twists and turns. They could just be about an eventful period of a character's life.
For me, Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner started it all. I think we read it in my fourth grade English class? That little book about a boy who had to win a dog sledding race to save his grandfather's farm is what sparked my interest in reading; I fell in love with that story. My teacher was well aware of this and even rigged the raffle (I'm 99.9% sure) at the end of the semester so that I'd win a copy of the book, which I still own today. After that, the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz is what made me actually start writing. It was a series of books about a young spy named Alex Rider traveling around the world, collecting intel, getting into shootouts and escaping the bad guys. All of my early stories were painfully derivative; I was clearly emulating Horowitz in both writing style and subject matter. But it got me writing!
The Thomas Covenant books Stephen Donaldson and Jack Vance's Dying Earth, Lyonesse and Planet of Adventure novels.
The Kilo-Five Trilogy by Karen Traviss out of the Halo novel series. I think the are books nine through eleven in the series, but they are probably some of best in the series, even better than the Forrunner trilogy in the series by Greg Bear. I'm a huge fan of the Halo universe, to the point of some ridiculousness, but these were my favorite. Out of the trilogy, probably The Thursday War was my favorite. I know it started as game series, but the novels are good enough and influential enough that they are now shaping the storylines of the game series. Caused me to really look at Science Fiction writing very seriously.
Shame on me, but I forgot the title. -.- I guess it was called "Wolfsaga" but I'm not quite sure... I haven't read it in a while as it was lost during the last time I moved but this is what it was about: It was about a wolf pack that is confronted with humans drawing in and another, somehwat bigger wolfpack closing in on them. It's entirely written from the wolves' point of view end told their story of how they were taken over by the bigger pack, threatened by humans and finally made an escape. I'd describe it as easy reading (of course, it's for children) but it made me write my first story.
I've prefer the reading of Clausewitz than Sun Tzu. More modern perhaps, but it's a better key to understand the world I think. Indeed, in meta-level Sun Tzu help in personal development, but Clausewitz give a strong advantage in the understanding of the global game. It’s making you more aware of the global playing. It's like suddendly discover the reason behind each move in a chess game. So I guess, both are indispensable to be read in order to measure the world. My two cent
Charles Bukowski - Post Office Steven King - Misery F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road Brian Moore- The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne
I only ever found out in retrospect. I never consciously planned my influences. So it's more of a question of what works explain my style of writing. To that, I would say: Dracula by Bram Stoker "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco "The Statement of Randolph Carter" by H.P. Lovecraft The Sherlock Holmes Collected Works by Arthur Conan Doyle All books by Agatha Christie Most books by Rex Stout The Shadow radio program. The Final Fantasy series Shakespeare's works, mostly the Historical plays, specifically Henry V Dune by Frank Herbert and... The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. -SIN
