31 | August | 2013 | El Space–The Blog of L. Marie

This post has to do triple duty. First, I need to announce the winner of the Brotherhood ARC. Let me do that right now. Ahem. The winner of Brotherhood by Anne Westrick is

Stephanie Stamm!!!!!

Congrats, Stephanie! Please email your snail mail address to lmarie7b(at)gmail(dot)com ASAP. Thank you to all who commented.

Second, I have to announce that the blog has won several awards, many given by the perfectly splendid Patty of Petite Magique and the marvelous Melissa Janda. I’ve been remiss in acknowledging them, and will have to acknowledge them again in a less crowded post at some point. Now, on with the hundredth! (Um, that would be the third point of this post, for those of you who are counting.)

When I started this blog, I had no idea that I would make it to my tenth post, let alone the one hundredth. Yet here I am! Woo!!! So, I thought I’d list 100 books that influenced me as a writer over the years. I won’t hold it against you if you don’t make it through the list. But I wanted to do something to commemorate this occasion. I don’t have room to list why these books inspired me. I wrote the list off the top of my head, so please don’t assume that I like some books better than others simply because they’re earlier in the list. Please Note: Just because you don’t find a book on the list, that doesn’t mean (a) I haven’t read it or (b) I didn’t like it. I can only list 100 books. If I listed all of the books I’ve loved over the years including books I read recently, well, that would take several posts. 🙂 That’s why for some series, I listed only one or two books (maybe three to five in some cases). I wanted to save room for some of the books that influenced me when I was a kid. Note also, the Bible is an influence also, but in a broader sense. 🙂

1. Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
2. The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
3. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
4. A Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
5. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
6. The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald
7. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
8. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
9. The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye
10. Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley
11. The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
12. Sabriel by Garth Nix
13. The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
14. The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
15. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
16. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
17. Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
18. Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
19. Beowulf—the Seamus Heaney translation (RIP, Seamus!)
20. Castle Waiting by Linda Medley
21. The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
24. The Last Dragon by Jane Yolen
25. Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zusak
26. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
27. Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede
28. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
29. So B. It by Sarah Weeks
30. Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
31. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler.
32. The Widow’s Broom by Chris Van Allsburg
33. The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente
34. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
35. Animal Poems by Valerie Worth
36. Bone (the complete graphic novel set) by Jeff Smith
37. Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein
38. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
39. Pirate vs. Pirate by Mary Quattlebaum
40. Tyrell by Coe Booth
41. Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
42. The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
43. Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett
44. Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
45. The Grand Plan to Fix Everything by Uma Krishnaswami
46. Medieval Costume and Fashion by Herbert Norris
47. Writing Fiction by Burroway, Janet, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, and Ned Stuckey-French
48. Skellig by David Almond
49. Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories
50. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
51. Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage
52. Beating Heart by A. M. Jenkins
53. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
54. The Fold by An Na
55. The Valley of Song by Elizabeth Goudge
56. Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Partridge
57. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
58. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
59. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
60. Persuasion by Jane Austen
61. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
62. The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
63. Heart’s Blood by Juliet Marillier
64. Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
65. Bellwether by Connie Willis
66. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
67. Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
68. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
69. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
70. The Odyssey by Homer
71. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
72. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
73. The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
74. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
75. Teen Idol by Meg Cabot
76. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
77. As You Like It by William Shakespeare
78. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
79. The Pink Fairy Book edited by Andrew Lang
80. Matilda by Roald Dahl
81. The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley
82. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
83. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
84. Fortune and Fate by Sharon Shinn
85. Magician: Apprentice by Raymond Feist
86. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
87. Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen
88. Heist Society by Ally Carter
89. Taliesin by Stephen Lawhead
90. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
91. A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley
92. The Giver by Lois Lowry
93. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
94. Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson
95. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
96. Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard
97. The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
98. Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
99. Green Eggs and Ham by Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
100. 1001 Arabian Nights