Three years ago, today, I decided to start writing my first book. On that April Fool’s Day, I thought I was writing a collection essays, but it turned out to be a memoir. Since then, I’ve written—and re-written—something that I believe finally adds up to a manuscript. Getting it published will be an entirely different story.
However, on this anniversary that I hold dear, I find myself looking back and cataloging the books that have literally altered the course of my life. Starting with the first book that inspired me to write back beyond the margins, here are a few of the books, listed in the year I read them, that beckoned me to the page in the hopes of adding to the cultural conversation of books.
1994: The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
1995: Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel
Asking RWE why at 17
1996: Emerson’s Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson
1997: Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin
1998: My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
1999: Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
Starring Bill Bryson during Study Abroad
2000: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman
2001: In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
2002: Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides
2003: A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
2004: Journal, Annabel Clark and Lynn Redgrave
Commiserating with Jesus Land
2005: Jesus Land, Julia Scheeres
2006: On Writing, Stephen King
2007: Take the Cannoli, Sarah Vowell
2008: Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris
2009: The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick
2010: Boys of My Youth, Jo Ann Beard
2011: The Commitment, Dan Savage
2012: Virgin, Hanne Blank
Learning from the historian, Hanne Blank
2013: Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Mary McCarthy
2014: Don’t Cry, Mary Gaitskill. Or, Cut me Loose, Leah Vincent. I’m in the middle of reading both right now and couldn’t possibly decide.
What’s the best book you’ve read this year?
Amy Deneson 