Another great video, Olly! I recently wrote out a ten favourite novels list, and a lot of these are defo books that made me as a reader: 1. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 2. The Witches by Roald Dahl 3. The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor 4. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke 5. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie 6. This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith 7. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene 8. My Work Is Not Yet Done by Thomas Ligotti 9. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Campbell 10. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Hard to say really but if I had to pick 10 books they would be: 1-Jack Williamson-Legion of Space 2-H P Lovecraft-Call of Cthulhu/other stories 3-Clark Ashton Smith-stories (esp Zothique/hyperborea ones) 4-REH Conan (Red Nails was the first one I read!) 5-Michael Moorcock-Sailor on the seas of fate/weird of white wolf 6-Brian Lumley-Necroscope 7-Tony Wolf-picture books wiyh woodland creatures/dwarves, those were italian and I don’t think they were printed in English, not all of them anyway, they were great… 8-Stephen King-Salem’s lot 9-Dean Koontz-Midnight (first horror novel I ever read! Apart from goosebumps) 10-Robin Hobb-Farseer Trilogy (esp first and second novels). Thanks for all the awesome videos Olly!
I loved hearing about why and how these books came to make you, this is such a lovely idea. Thank you for making us all think and reflect about which books had the biggest impact on us. It was so hard to narrow it down to just 10 books. I tried to focus on the books I read that I think have made an impact on who I am as a person, how I perceive the world, that just had a profound impact on me. Sharing this feels really private, in a way. But I loved thinking about these. Not all of them were read as a child or teen, but all of them shaped me a lot. So the 10 books that made me the mess I am today: - Dracula (I first listened to it as a young child during a car ride and I completely fell in love with it and have re-read it many times) - Pride and Prejudice (one of my favourite books) - Krabat (beautiful and dark) - It (as the first King and horror book I read) - Pettson and Findus (my favourite childhood books) - The Song of Achilles (made me fall in love with its beautiful language) - A Little Life (my other favourite book, breaking my heart in the best way) - Inkheart (my love of reading and fantasy youth books combined) - H. P. (For obvious reason, I no longer support anything from this particular fandom.)
It's amazing how the books or movies that we were introduced to as kids can have such a huge impact on our lives isn't it. For me the books that had the biggest impact on me as a kid/teenager were: - Anne Of Green Gables - Little Women - Wuthering Heights - Tess Of The D'Ubervilles - Interview With The Vampire - Naomi's Room - Gerald's Game - White Oleander - Snow Falling On Cedars - Cold Mountain
When I was a kid I wanted to see The Exorcist, but I knew it was too scary. I found my cousin's copy of the book at my grandma's house, so I figured, "I can read that and stop if it gets too scary." So my grandma was horrified when she walked into the room and found six-year-old me reading The Exorcist. :) I re-read Star Wars, the novel, dozens of times as a kid. I'd seen it in the theaters and was obsessed with it, but there weren't videotapes around at the time. I also re-read the novel of Rocky a bunch of times. And Billy Jack. I read that one many times before the movie showed up on TV. The Billy Jack book wasn't a novel -- it was the screenplay, in a paperback. So by the time I saw the movie on TV, I knew all the lines. And that was when I first became aware they were cutting dialogue on TV... all the bad words were gone. I also read Lovecraft at an early age. My mom used to let me buy books that were too old for me, to get me reading, and the Ballantine paperbacks of Lovecraft's stuff (the "scary faces" ones in the 70's) looked too freakin' scary, I had to get 'em. My first King book was Carrie, the movie edition, but I read The Shining soon after that (with the old Signet mirror cover) and it was the greatest thing I'd ever read. Still high up on the list, also my favorite King book. Comics-wise I read a lot of everything, but mostly Spider-Man. I'm still obsessed with Spider-Man. There was a Joe Kubert Tarzan adaptation I was also especially fond of. And my first crush was on Wonder Woman... and not far after, Vampirella.
The Great Brain series, Of Mice and Men, The Odessa File, Flint (Louis L' Amour book), Grapes of Wrath, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Winter of Our Discontent, Trinity (Leon Uris), Battle Cry, All the Pretty Horses, The Road.
I recently discovered your channel, and I've been enjoying your content ever since. It's clear, that you're very passionate about subjects you make videos on, which makes them really enjoyable! It's a bit difficult for me to pick only 10 books, but off the top of my head: 1. A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley 2. Coraline by Neil Gaiman 3. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 4. technically not a book, but polish legends like King Popiel or Sleeping Knights influenced me a whole lot as a kid 5. The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft (my first lovecraft story) 6. Inferno by Dante Alighieri 7. Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories by Kelly Barnhill 8. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katerine Howe 9. Dożywocie by Marta Kisiel 10. Fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen
This is such a fascinating video, and something that really got my mind working. I don't know if I can pinpoint books so much sometimes as I can book series, but with that caveat, my list would be: - Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series: Really shaped my idea of humour as a force for social change, how doing the right thing can be difficult but is necessary, how understanding people and empathy is very important, and so much more. - Chester Himes' Harlem Detectives: Opened my eyes to the injustices of American society and the hardships of being black in that society. - The Resident Evil Books by SD Perry: A lot of my style came from here, and I got my love of pulp horror action fiction from this series. - The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway: Taught me how depth and meaning doesn't come from flowery words or over-complicated prose, but from characters and story and truth woven into the fiction itself. - Lee Child's Jack Reacher series: For being fun adventure tales that sort of became the next iteration of Men's Adventure and showed me that you can write popular fiction and still be respected as a writer.
Loved this! 10 books that made me(52 years old now) Bridge to Terabithia The Mystery Of Chimney Rock The Outsiders The Chrysalids Flowers In The Attic To Kill a Mockingbird A Separate Peace The Witching Hour Misery Pet Semetary I wish I read The Shining sooner!
One of my favorite series when I was a kid was the Adventures of Tintin. Six of the books were printed in the U.S. when I was ten. Did you ever read any of them?
Off the top of my head: Winnie-the-Pooh The Giving Tree The Dragonrider series The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy Some collection of the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay A complete works of Edgar Allen Poe A collection of ee cummings Little, Big Stranger in a Strange Land Letters to a Young Poet
Other books that might go on the list if I considered it more carefully: Something by Clive Barker (Great and Secret Show or Imajica) Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy
Some good choices Olly. Glad to see Alan Moore getting some love on here, though The Ballad of Halo Jones is one of the few of his works I haven't read. But I agree 2000AD needs some more love. Keep up the good work!
Although I didn’t discover Ransome until I was a parent, his books deeply shaped my son-so much so that he acquired a boat to live on for a year. Great topic!
Good day, from Texas. I think I commented on an earlier video about how I discovered Alan Moore. That same year Eagle Comics began publishing Judge Dredd in the U.S. and I ordered the first issues along with Warrior Magazine. It was my introduction to the great Brian Bolland. In time I got to Rogue Trooper, Nemesis, and other great 2000 A.D, comics. I saw an interview last year with Pat Mills where he talked about his horrific experience in Catholic schools where sexual assault was rampant. He said that experience was behind the origins of Nemesis.
I remember those Eagle comics - I had a bunch of them as they were a good way to catch up on some of the older Dredd stories. That makes a lot of sense about the origins of Nemesis
My list: Christine/The Stand-Stephen King, The Bourne Identity-Robert Ludlum, The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings-J RR Tolkien, Elric of Melnibone series-Michel Moorcock, The Tomorrow File-Lawrence Sanders, Conan books-Robert E Howard, Berserker series-Fred Saberhagen.
OK, from the ground up - 1. Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl (read to me when I was tiny) 2. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (made to read it in school) 3. Christine by Stephen King (first King) 4. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes (teenage mind blown) 5. London Fields by Martin Amis (pivotal) 6. Ripley Bogle by Robert McLiam Wilson (visceral) 7. Child of God by Cormac McCarthy (horrifying wow) 8. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (Uni and Freud) 9. The Red Riding Quadrilogy by David Peace (just can't separate them) 10. Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt (pretty much up to the present day)
It's nice to hear about the books that made you. In thinking about it, I'd have conflicting feelings about the books that made me. I changed my worldview significantly as an adult. Some of the books that made me as a young person represent views that hurt me.
Also posting this at Bookish after also watching his video on this topic. I also read The Hardy Boys, but I got started reading books written for adults before "The Hardy Boys" by reading Sherlock Holmes. I have the excuse that I was too young and gullible to consider how wrong some of his conclusions were. There is an interesting book called, "Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong" by Pierre Bayard that does a good job of examining the mistakes Doyle made. After all, Doyle was very frustrated with Houdini for not admitting that Houdini had real magical powers. Bayard does state that fictional characters are real, so he may have more in common with Doyle than he intended. "Heart of Darkness" continues to be memorable. "The Stranger" (and the geographically related "The Day of the Jackal" - and the movie) is also memorable. Colonialism is a big part of all of these books. "Papillon", but only the first part, which ends with him leaving the island. Ray Bradbury stories, especially The Veldt from "The Illustrated Man" and "Fahrenheit 451". At the time, the age of Clarisse (17) did not seem young to me - I was younger than that. There is an audiobook version of "Fahrenheit 451" that is read by Bradbury that I recommend listening to. The first grown up audiobook I listened to was "The Hundred Secret Senses" read by Amy Tan. I figured having the author read it would result in the inflections being more informative and Amy tan did a great job. For great audiobook readers, Jefferson Mays narrates all 176+ hours of "The Expanse" books and novellas. I just finished binge listening and the books are good, but Jefferson Mays definitely makes the books more than what is on the page. Some people complain that he mispronounces "gimbal", but he pronounces it both ways - and both are correct. And thank you to my library for having this, because that would have been expensive. I didn't start reading much other science fiction (H.G. Welles, Edmund Rostand [there is sci-fi in "Cyrano de Bergerac], but not much else) until I was older. However, there was one other sci-fi book - "The Andromeda Strain". Usually I read the book before seeing the movie, but this was a movie that encouraged me to read the book. I am not a fan of horror, but I do like the way Edgar Allan Poe writes. "The Cask of Amontillado" was the most memorable to me, but he wrote so much in so many different genres, that there is something for almost everyone. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is another that has stayed with me, but this and Bradbury were both reading assignments for school. I usually did not like assigned reading - it kept me from reading what I wanted to read. I can't imagine reading "Naked Lunch" at 12. I didn't finish it as an adult, but I got about a third of the way through before I got distracted from it. .
i was really fascinated by this idea and spent several days thinking about what my list of would be, so i put a list together with the books listed in the order that i would have read them - from about age 10 through 20. 1) The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (still my favorite book, probably) 2) Different Seasons by Stephen King (my intro to horror and the only King book i finished at that time) 3) Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (i read this at the right age to find it funny) 4) Maus by Art Spiegelman (opened my world to non-superhero comics) 5) Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (I read this at the right age to find it hilarious) 6) Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins (recently reread and it is still great) 7) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson (I read this at the right age to love it) 8) The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (opened my world up to new possibilities in reading) 9) The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (my intro to 50's crime fiction) 10) Pimp by Iceberg Slim (my intro to black, urban crime literature)
Doctor Who novelisations for me, too - I managed to get every one of the Target edition as they came out, starting with David Whitaker's excellent "The Daleks" in 1973. Then Asimov's original Foundation trilogy, the Gormenghast books, T.H.White's "The Once and Future King" and finally, Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" books. I wouldn't be me without any of these.
I’ve been thinking about doing this sort of video. I won’t be limiting it to just things I’ve read, but any sort of story that has in some way, changed my life. Such an interesting way to get to know someone better. Very interesting. -T
I was very impressed by The Shining especially with the main character. It wasn't what I expected at all. Unknown Man Number 89 sounds very interesting and something I would read. 😊💙
My golden age was the 1970s when I discovered, at an inappropriate age, adult reading material (normally, surreptitiously from the bookshelves of family members) and the books I read then guided my subsequent reading. 1. Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan 2. Hell's Angels by Hunter S Thompson 3. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell 4. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 5. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 6. Lolita by Nabokov 7. The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley 8. The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris 9. Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith 10. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift Honorable mention: The Coed killer by Margaret Cheney 1976. Must be one of the earliest books about serial killers (Ed Kemper).
This was awesome, Olly. I loved hearing about your early reading influences. I think this is a great idea for a video, and one I think I will do too. So when did you discover Ed McBain? I kept waiting for him in the video!
Great video. And you can kind of see the construction of CriminOlly. I think many of the books that I read as a kid and remember more vividly than ones I read last week are lost to me in terms of title and author. I picked up Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp at a booksale recently and recognizing that cover was surreal.
Delinquents is actually set is Brisbane :) Though there certainly would've been quite a few scuzzy areas here in Sydney and down in Melbourne where it could equally have been situated too. Also grew up on 2000 AD and Doctor Who novelisations (many of which were how I first encountered those stories). Lovecraft was probably my most formative author.
This is a hard one, I was s little late to reading as a whole. One of the first books I heard cover to cover was The Dead Zone but duo to my reading level I might have gone a fourth of the story. I completely missed how Johnny died until I saw the movie years later. That said Stephen King's The Shining would be one. It was the third or fourth King book I read and it was just before the mini series air originally. The thing that stuck out and still does is how much story there is such a simple story. I know to some it might be silly but when think about it, it is amazing. The story is about a family in a haunted hotel and you never ask why don't they just leave. It also a really sold scary story too. My second is another King book and that is The Stand. I spent the summer reading it and the stories and characters stuck with me long after I finished. I also met one of my closest friends because of the book. I was at a group camp out and he saw the book I was reading and we spent most of the night talking about it. Third would be Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I had seen the movie at least a dozen times before I read the book and it was the first book I read that was totally different than the movie adoption and it really opened my eyes. It also lead me to read all of his books I could get my hands on and wind up comparing science fiction novelists against him. Four would be From Here to Eternity which just surprised the he'll out of me. I knew it was famous old novel but it amazed me the topics it tackled give when it was published and it was such a good novel. My fifth is two but they naturally go together and they are George Orwell's1984 and Animal Farm. They helped formed a lot of my views latter in life and me questioning pretty much everything. Sixth would be from another writer that shaped my thinking Hunter S Thompson. I read Fear and Loathing on Las Vegas which lead me to read pretty much everything he wrote that I could find. Seventh would be the manga AKIRA which was the first manga series I read. What got me was there no good guys in the series. The two leads are skirt chasing Bike Gang leader and his best friend who hates how he is treated. It is dark and funny and just an amazing Epic science fiction story. Eight has to be The Survivalist it was my first test of trashy literature and I loved it. Nine is The Big Sleep. While it might have not been the first mystery I read it was one that stuck with me thanks to the style and the harsh cynical world it brings to life. It is a book with a strong voice that makes.you notice it. When I think noir I think of this book of low life gangster, women who are always trouble nd dirty cops. It is a book that comes with its own mood like no other book I have read before or since. And finally Ten would be Clive Barker's Cabal. The only horror writer I had read before him was King and this book exposed me to the less respectable horror. Cabal was not only strange with it is mix of monsters and a serial killer but it clearly felt style wise inspired by the gore filled horror movies of the 80s. It through for a surprise when I first read it.
Great to hear a shout out to 200AD. Jude Dread, Slaine, Rogue Trooper et al. Must be many possibilities of great films in there that have not been picked up. Did you ever try Viz? Best wishes.
I read a lot of those novelisations when I was a kid. I every so often, after a few new ones had been published, I would read the Doctor Who books again in the order that they were broadcast, as you say it was the only way to access the older (for me Hartnell and Troughton adventures). The same goes for Space 1999, Star Trek (including the photo novels series) and Star Wars.
Great video! I don’t know all 10 for me but The Stand is definitely there, Monster (Christopher Pike), and also The BFG. And Matilda!!! Also, look at you with a sponsor!
'Pickman's Model' is definitely a top ten Lovecraft story for me. And Lovecraft has definitely been a tremendous influence over the type of horror that I enjoy reading. 'Christine' was also my first King book, but the one that really pulled me in was 'It'. I read it when I was 16 and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Slept with a light on in my room for about three weeks after I finished it. I was a King junkie after that and up to his accident. His newer offerings haven't called to me even though I've bought a lot of them. I'll have to do a King TBR. I finished 'The Dark Tower' series but I did not care for the self-insertion angle at all or the ending. There was a lot of angry-reading. 'Ulysses' by James Joyce made me realize that I am not into alternative styles of presenting story information (this excludes comics and manga). The books that have come out over the last ten, twenty years where the format is emails or texts or in those veins have been non-starters for me...even if the premise of the book is interesting. 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams. Such an iconic book. Didn't realize it would shape my sense of humor toward the dry, satirical, and absurd. Devoured this book and the rest in the series like I was going to expire if I didn't. I use to purchase every copy of HHGTTG I'd find at thrift stores. I don't have them anymore outside of my original copy that I got in 1982. Gotta share the wealth. The Time-Life books by Carl Sagan about our solar system planets. Another devoured series. I use to check these out of my school library when I was in 4th grade all the time. To this day I remain an astronomy, cosmology, and physics devotee. Even though learning the formulas for certain calculations in college nearly killed me. Also, Saturn is the shiznit. And that's all I can think of off the top of my head during my lunch break =)
That's a great list, for an intriguing topic. I think I will try and get a copy of The Delinquents; on the other hand, I'm never gonna be much of a Burroughs fan. Some books that made me: The Stand, by Stephen King (original version). My first by the author, read it around 1980, when I was 12. Read huge chunks of it at the library. Really my first dip into Horror that would end up mattering...but the bigger deal was being 12 years old, deciding to read a 1000-page novel, and loving it. Longer books were no longer intimidating, or to be avoided - the right ones would be some of the best reads ever. Bear, by Marian Engel. I read this too young, but I was suddenly into novels with bears. Richard Adams and John Irving ended up being DNFs...but then I bought this cosy-looking novel by someone named Marian Engel. It is NOT cosy! This was the strangest sex-centered novel I had ever read. I mean, I had done some Men's Adventure, and Guy N. Smith crab novels, so I knew how trashy fiction was portraying the male fantasy version of sex and the woman's body. But Bear by Marian Engel is not that. It is a book that repels many people who try to read it - and I had my troubles with it at a too-young age - but I learned that sex in a book could link to psychological themes, or ideas of healing and growth, or even the Gothic idea of going too far and then snapping back to normality. And to be quite frank, youngster me learned that when you start buying on a whim in the grown-ups' section, or the Literature section, things can get very strange very quickly. Books could go anywhere, and could be gross in ways that might shock. Amazing Spider-Man #147-150 (actually, it was several years before I owned and read #148): the start of my comic-book/superhero reading. So, in comes an appreciation for sequential art, comics that went beyond just the fights by running mysteries and whodunits, cliffhanger endings designed to cause perpetual purchasing (but some are better than others), and what comics could do that, for the longest time, movies looked unconvincing doing. Until movies caught up. Orbitsville, by Bob Shaw, and Quick Service, by P. G. Wodehouse. Sort of a one-two punch, in 1984, when I was 16 years old. Sure, I had read a lot of SF by that age - Jack Williamson, Perry Rhodan adventures - but I hadn't read the book that awed me, a book that gave me a clearly-definable, unmistakable Sense of Wonder. Now, a re-read of Orbitsville decades later showed me that the Sense of Awe is more likely to be caused in a 16 year old than a 54 year old...but at that time way back when, I was ready for a book that was not just about adventure and action, or even world-building; I was ready to have my brain expanded. That's what Orbitsville did for me. As for Wodehouse - that was mainly about finding my favourite writer, and learning how the English language works, from the typewriter of the Master.
Love to see The Belgariad series make an appearance. Read it in H.S. in 1990 and loved it. It pops up every now and then on BookTube. Really fun series. What can be said about The Shining that already hasn't been said. My favorite book.
Here's the list of books I'd like to share and I am aware that I am the boring one in the classroom: 1. "The Trial" by Kafka 2. "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe 3. Basically all short stories by Maupassant 4. "Hell's Scroll" by Akutagawa 5. "Kitchen" by Banana Yoshimoto 6. "Re-Life" - a manga that literally changed my life 7. The Bible - yes, I'm an atheist, but it provided me with many life lessons and an interesting perspective on life and the history of humanity. I highly recommend it. 8. The Brothers Karamazov - Maybe the greatest novel ever written.
Great topic. The Giver, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Flowers for Algernon, Flowers in the Attic, THE AMERICAN GIRL BOOKS OMG WAS OBSSESSED, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Maniac Magee, Goosebumps of course. There are probably some great ones I'm leaving out. Very 90s kid. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
I also cut my reading teeth on novelisations of Dr Who and Star Wars. In fact, I remember having to read the Empire Strike Back novel (as I'd missed it at the cinema) so I could see Return of the Jedi.
That was really interesting. As a little girl, I read the Bobbsey Twins, Charlotte's Web, then Heidi two of the series, The comic books of Wonder Women as well as Betty and Veronica, then Ellery Queen followed by Agatha Christie, Then Judy Blume's Are you there God, it's me Margaret, then The Great Gatsby. I think that is pretty accurate, it is just my old memory, I didn't write down the books I read and it doesn't include the Disney books I read that were novelizations of movies like the Boatniks.
@@CriminOllyBlog Me too, I met her when I was really young I was in elementary school in NJ where she lived, she came to our school with boxes of Margaret and talked to us as we waited to buy the book. She is a very nice lady. Ask your sister if she read Forever?
I know you're going to find this bizarre, but I myself love books like you, and am of similar age, I too loved dinosaurs as a child, but unlike you it never left me, and I became quite a scholar on the subject. I read 2000ad as a child with relish as a 14 year old for years, and still have all my progs safe. I love Lovecraft, and buy all editions of his books, because they always make beautiful editions of his stories , and finally Stephen King...I collected all his books , the UK and US equivalents, it's a very expensive pursuit, but they look stunning on shelves. See so you're not on your own young man😂. Keep up the excellent uploads.
That series by David Eddings was my jam and my introduction to reading outside of school. Heres my ten Where the wild things are, must have taken it out of the library 20 times! Pawn of Prophecy, the Belgariad series had amazing characters, Relg, Mandorallen etc Lord of the flies, in English class at school, i remember class falling silent at Piggy’s fate. Macbeth, also at school, after initial resistance realising its a great story (Romeo and Juliet too). Red Dragon, after having seen The Silence of the lambs movie, i had to read this. The Godfather, as well as the Sicilian, Omerta and the last Don, loved discussing book vs movie with my dad. Child 44, first novel for a while after a spell of sports autobiographies and a truly great thriller. Kafka on the shore, a recommendation from my brother, the perfect holiday book to drift away to. The troop, owes a lot to Lord of the flies and feels like a full circle after a long time away from reading. Tender is the flesh, the last book iread which made me feel ‘everyone needs to read this’
I got very heavy into fantasy as a kid through david eddings. I remember pretending I was sick and read three books in one day because I just could'nt stop. Heartbreaking to hear what kind of people he and his wife turned out to be..
Rupert the bear annuals, rhyming couplets read by my Dad, 'A Traveller in Time' probably my first historical fiction, Little Grey Rabbit is my spirit animal. 😂 'Jane Eyre' abridged children's edition in '83 to get ahead of the TV series. These days I read the full version. "Pride and Prejudice' -straight after JE, far too young to get the nuance, loved it all the same. 'The Colour of Magic' read the first 3 discworld novels when I should have been studying. "Tender is the Night' a set text, my enjoyment not dimmed by studying it. 'Birdsong' just because 'Memoirs of a Geisha' more controversial now (whose story?) but I found myself willing her to succeed, despite the occupation. 'Heart of Darkness' I love the tone and for its time, clear eyed. 'The Emigrants' I have issues with the cannibalising of real people's history but the dreamlike quality is brilliant and it makes me sob.
10 books…that’s a hard one because I’ve been reading since I was quite young. Green Eggs and Ham would probably end up on a list. XD (It had a major impact on me)
Oh, so we’re adding the CriminOLLY lore. The Criminolore, if you please 😂
😂😂
@@CriminOllyBlogcriminollygy
@@CriminOllyBlogcriminollygy
Another great video, Olly! I recently wrote out a ten favourite novels list, and a lot of these are defo books that made me as a reader:
1. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
2. The Witches by Roald Dahl
3. The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor
4. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
5. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
6. This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith
7. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
8. My Work Is Not Yet Done by Thomas Ligotti
9. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Campbell
10. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Nice list - I've read 7 of these, should probably try and complete the set!
Hard to say really but if I had to pick 10 books they would be:
1-Jack Williamson-Legion of Space
2-H P Lovecraft-Call of Cthulhu/other stories
3-Clark Ashton Smith-stories (esp Zothique/hyperborea ones)
4-REH Conan (Red Nails was the first one I read!)
5-Michael Moorcock-Sailor on the seas of fate/weird of white wolf
6-Brian Lumley-Necroscope
7-Tony Wolf-picture books wiyh woodland creatures/dwarves, those were italian and I don’t think they were printed in English, not all of them anyway, they were great…
8-Stephen King-Salem’s lot
9-Dean Koontz-Midnight (first horror novel I ever read! Apart from goosebumps)
10-Robin Hobb-Farseer Trilogy (esp first and second novels).
Thanks for all the awesome videos Olly!
Thank you! Great list. Moorcock is someone who almost made mine.
This was great Olly. Cool idea for a video.
Thanks Brian!
This is a great video topic Olly! A very interesting selection of books.
Cheers Cliff
I loved hearing about why and how these books came to make you, this is such a lovely idea. Thank you for making us all think and reflect about which books had the biggest impact on us.
It was so hard to narrow it down to just 10 books. I tried to focus on the books I read that I think have made an impact on who I am as a person, how I perceive the world, that just had a profound impact on me. Sharing this feels really private, in a way. But I loved thinking about these. Not all of them were read as a child or teen, but all of them shaped me a lot.
So the 10 books that made me the mess I am today:
- Dracula (I first listened to it as a young child during a car ride and I completely fell in love with it and have re-read it many times)
- Pride and Prejudice (one of my favourite books)
- Krabat (beautiful and dark)
- It (as the first King and horror book I read)
- Pettson and Findus (my favourite childhood books)
- The Song of Achilles (made me fall in love with its beautiful language)
- A Little Life (my other favourite book, breaking my heart in the best way)
- Inkheart (my love of reading and fantasy youth books combined)
- H. P. (For obvious reason, I no longer support anything from this particular fandom.)
That's a great list, glad you enjoyed coming up with it!
It's amazing how the books or movies that we were introduced to as kids can have such a huge impact on our lives isn't it. For me the books that had the biggest impact on me as a kid/teenager were:
- Anne Of Green Gables
- Little Women
- Wuthering Heights
- Tess Of The D'Ubervilles
- Interview With The Vampire
- Naomi's Room
- Gerald's Game
- White Oleander
- Snow Falling On Cedars
- Cold Mountain
You've reminded me I still need to read Naomi's Room!
@@CriminOllyBlog -Hope you enjoy it when you do get round to reading it. Naomi's Room was the book that started my love of reading horror.
Thank you for sharing these books and memories ❤
Glad you enjoyed it!
When I was a kid I wanted to see The Exorcist, but I knew it was too scary. I found my cousin's copy of the book at my grandma's house, so I figured, "I can read that and stop if it gets too scary." So my grandma was horrified when she walked into the room and found six-year-old me reading The Exorcist. :)
I re-read Star Wars, the novel, dozens of times as a kid. I'd seen it in the theaters and was obsessed with it, but there weren't videotapes around at the time. I also re-read the novel of Rocky a bunch of times. And Billy Jack. I read that one many times before the movie showed up on TV. The Billy Jack book wasn't a novel -- it was the screenplay, in a paperback. So by the time I saw the movie on TV, I knew all the lines. And that was when I first became aware they were cutting dialogue on TV... all the bad words were gone.
I also read Lovecraft at an early age. My mom used to let me buy books that were too old for me, to get me reading, and the Ballantine paperbacks of Lovecraft's stuff (the "scary faces" ones in the 70's) looked too freakin' scary, I had to get 'em.
My first King book was Carrie, the movie edition, but I read The Shining soon after that (with the old Signet mirror cover) and it was the greatest thing I'd ever read. Still high up on the list, also my favorite King book.
Comics-wise I read a lot of everything, but mostly Spider-Man. I'm still obsessed with Spider-Man. There was a Joe Kubert Tarzan adaptation I was also especially fond of. And my first crush was on Wonder Woman... and not far after, Vampirella.
I read the Star Wars novel multiple times too for exactly the same reason.
The Great Brain series, Of Mice and Men, The Odessa File, Flint (Louis L' Amour book), Grapes of Wrath, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Winter of Our Discontent, Trinity (Leon Uris), Battle Cry, All the Pretty Horses, The Road.
Nice mix!
I recently discovered your channel, and I've been enjoying your content ever since. It's clear, that you're very passionate about subjects you make videos on, which makes them really enjoyable! It's a bit difficult for me to pick only 10 books, but off the top of my head:
1. A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley
2. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
3. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
4. technically not a book, but polish legends like King Popiel or Sleeping Knights influenced me a whole lot as a kid
5. The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft (my first lovecraft story)
6. Inferno by Dante Alighieri
7. Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories by Kelly Barnhill
8. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katerine Howe
9. Dożywocie by Marta Kisiel
10. Fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen
So glad you're enjoying the channel. That's an unteresting and varied list
This is such a fascinating video, and something that really got my mind working. I don't know if I can pinpoint books so much sometimes as I can book series, but with that caveat, my list would be:
- Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series: Really shaped my idea of humour as a force for social change, how doing the right thing can be difficult but is necessary, how understanding people and empathy is very important, and so much more.
- Chester Himes' Harlem Detectives: Opened my eyes to the injustices of American society and the hardships of being black in that society.
- The Resident Evil Books by SD Perry: A lot of my style came from here, and I got my love of pulp horror action fiction from this series.
- The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway: Taught me how depth and meaning doesn't come from flowery words or over-complicated prose, but from characters and story and truth woven into the fiction itself.
- Lee Child's Jack Reacher series: For being fun adventure tales that sort of became the next iteration of Men's Adventure and showed me that you can write popular fiction and still be respected as a writer.
Really interesting list - I've not read those RE books but maybe I should
Loved this!
10 books that made me(52 years old now)
Bridge to Terabithia
The Mystery Of Chimney Rock
The Outsiders
The Chrysalids
Flowers In The Attic
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Separate Peace
The Witching Hour
Misery
Pet Semetary
I wish I read The Shining sooner!
Some great ones here!
One of my favorite series when I was a kid was the Adventures of Tintin. Six of the books were printed in the U.S. when I was ten. Did you ever read any of them?
Oh definitely! I read a load of them
Off the top of my head:
Winnie-the-Pooh
The Giving Tree
The Dragonrider series
The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy
Some collection of the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay
A complete works of Edgar Allen Poe
A collection of ee cummings
Little, Big
Stranger in a Strange Land
Letters to a Young Poet
Other books that might go on the list if I considered it more carefully:
Something by Clive Barker (Great and Secret Show or Imajica)
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy
Nice list - Little, Big keeps getting recommended to me
Some good choices Olly. Glad to see Alan Moore getting some love on here, though The Ballad of Halo Jones is one of the few of his works I haven't read. But I agree 2000AD needs some more love.
Keep up the good work!
That and DR and Quinch (if you haven't read that from the same era) are bith great
Good topic. Catcher in the Rye. Persuasion. Bridge to the Sun. To kill a mockingbird. Heart is a lonely hunter.
a much classier list than mine!
Although I didn’t discover Ransome until I was a parent, his books deeply shaped my son-so much so that he acquired a boat to live on for a year. Great topic!
Thanks Hannah - Ransome didn't influence me quite as much as your son by the sound of it
greaat video, I've gotta do this list
Good day, from Texas. I think I commented on an earlier video about how I discovered Alan Moore. That same year Eagle Comics began publishing Judge Dredd in the U.S. and I ordered the first issues along with Warrior Magazine. It was my introduction to the great Brian Bolland. In time I got to Rogue Trooper, Nemesis, and other great 2000 A.D, comics. I saw an interview last year with Pat Mills where he talked about his horrific experience in Catholic schools where sexual assault was rampant. He said that experience was behind the origins of Nemesis.
I remember those Eagle comics - I had a bunch of them as they were a good way to catch up on some of the older Dredd stories. That makes a lot of sense about the origins of Nemesis
Props for adding 2000AD.
The galaxy’s greatest comic!
In the early 90s I’d order book subscriptions from a comic book shop and get Eagle Comics-Judge Dredd etc. Great stuff.
My list: Christine/The Stand-Stephen King, The Bourne Identity-Robert Ludlum, The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings-J RR Tolkien, Elric of Melnibone series-Michel Moorcock, The Tomorrow File-Lawrence Sanders, Conan books-Robert E Howard, Berserker series-Fred Saberhagen.
Some great ones here!
OK, from the ground up -
1. Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl (read to me when I was tiny)
2. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (made to read it in school)
3. Christine by Stephen King (first King)
4. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes (teenage mind blown)
5. London Fields by Martin Amis (pivotal)
6. Ripley Bogle by Robert McLiam Wilson (visceral)
7. Child of God by Cormac McCarthy (horrifying wow)
8. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (Uni and Freud)
9. The Red Riding Quadrilogy by David Peace (just can't separate them)
10. Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt (pretty much up to the present day)
That's a nicely varied list
It's nice to hear about the books that made you. In thinking about it, I'd have conflicting feelings about the books that made me. I changed my worldview significantly as an adult. Some of the books that made me as a young person represent views that hurt me.
That can be a difficult thing to work through, but I don't think it makes the books less important to you
Also posting this at Bookish after also watching his video on this topic.
I also read The Hardy Boys, but I got started reading books written for adults before "The Hardy Boys" by reading Sherlock Holmes. I have the excuse that I was too young and gullible to consider how wrong some of his conclusions were. There is an interesting book called, "Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong" by Pierre Bayard that does a good job of examining the mistakes Doyle made. After all, Doyle was very frustrated with Houdini for not admitting that Houdini had real magical powers. Bayard does state that fictional characters are real, so he may have more in common with Doyle than he intended.
"Heart of Darkness" continues to be memorable.
"The Stranger" (and the geographically related "The Day of the Jackal" - and the movie) is also memorable. Colonialism is a big part of all of these books.
"Papillon", but only the first part, which ends with him leaving the island.
Ray Bradbury stories, especially The Veldt from "The Illustrated Man" and "Fahrenheit 451". At the time, the age of Clarisse (17) did not seem young to me - I was younger than that. There is an audiobook version of "Fahrenheit 451" that is read by Bradbury that I recommend listening to. The first grown up audiobook I listened to was "The Hundred Secret Senses" read by Amy Tan. I figured having the author read it would result in the inflections being more informative and Amy tan did a great job. For great audiobook readers, Jefferson Mays narrates all 176+ hours of "The Expanse" books and novellas. I just finished binge listening and the books are good, but Jefferson Mays definitely makes the books more than what is on the page. Some people complain that he mispronounces "gimbal", but he pronounces it both ways - and both are correct. And thank you to my library for having this, because that would have been expensive. I didn't start reading much other science fiction (H.G. Welles, Edmund Rostand [there is sci-fi in "Cyrano de Bergerac], but not much else) until I was older.
However, there was one other sci-fi book - "The Andromeda Strain". Usually I read the book before seeing the movie, but this was a movie that encouraged me to read the book.
I am not a fan of horror, but I do like the way Edgar Allan Poe writes. "The Cask of Amontillado" was the most memorable to me, but he wrote so much in so many different genres, that there is something for almost everyone.
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is another that has stayed with me, but this and Bradbury were both reading assignments for school. I usually did not like assigned reading - it kept me from reading what I wanted to read.
I can't imagine reading "Naked Lunch" at 12. I didn't finish it as an adult, but I got about a third of the way through before I got distracted from it.
.
Some nice picks here! The Lottery really is fantastic and I liked The Andromeda Strain a lot too.
i was really fascinated by this idea and spent several days thinking about what my list of would be, so i put a list together with the books listed in the order that i would have read them - from about age 10 through 20.
1) The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (still my favorite book, probably)
2) Different Seasons by Stephen King (my intro to horror and the only King book i finished at that time)
3) Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (i read this at the right age to find it funny)
4) Maus by Art Spiegelman (opened my world to non-superhero comics)
5) Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (I read this at the right age to find it hilarious)
6) Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins (recently reread and it is still great)
7) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson (I read this at the right age to love it)
8) The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (opened my world up to new possibilities in reading)
9) The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (my intro to 50's crime fiction)
10) Pimp by Iceberg Slim (my intro to black, urban crime literature)
Great list! I've read 2,4, 5, 9 and 10 and loved them all
Doctor Who novelisations for me, too - I managed to get every one of the Target edition as they came out, starting with David Whitaker's excellent "The Daleks" in 1973. Then Asimov's original Foundation trilogy, the Gormenghast books, T.H.White's "The Once and Future King" and finally, Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" books. I wouldn't be me without any of these.
Ah yes, Tales of the City was an important one for me too.
Great video. Going to try and pick ten....it probably wont be just ten lol
I’ve been thinking about doing this sort of video. I won’t be limiting it to just things I’ve read, but any sort of story that has in some way, changed my life. Such an interesting way to get to know someone better. Very interesting.
-T
I like your take on it!
I was very impressed by The Shining especially with the main character. It wasn't what I expected at all. Unknown Man Number 89 sounds very interesting and something I would read. 😊💙
My golden age was the 1970s when I discovered, at an inappropriate age, adult reading material (normally, surreptitiously from the bookshelves of family members) and the books I read then guided my subsequent reading.
1. Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan
2. Hell's Angels by Hunter S Thompson
3. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
4. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
5. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
6. Lolita by Nabokov
7. The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley
8. The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
9. Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith
10. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Honorable mention: The Coed killer by Margaret Cheney 1976. Must be one of the earliest books about serial killers (Ed Kemper).
Deep Water is great!
This was awesome, Olly. I loved hearing about your early reading influences. I think this is a great idea for a video, and one I think I will do too. So when did you discover Ed McBain? I kept waiting for him in the video!
Thanks Pat. McBain came not too long after Elmore Leonard, but the Leonard was the one that opened my eyes
@@CriminOllyBlog got it! Thanks, Olly.
Great video. And you can kind of see the construction of CriminOlly.
I think many of the books that I read as a kid and remember more vividly than ones I read last week are lost to me in terms of title and author. I picked up Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp at a booksale recently and recognizing that cover was surreal.
Oh wow yeah, that feeling of recognising a book you'd not thought of for years is amazing
Delinquents is actually set is Brisbane :) Though there certainly would've been quite a few scuzzy areas here in Sydney and down in Melbourne where it could equally have been situated too.
Also grew up on 2000 AD and Doctor Who novelisations (many of which were how I first encountered those stories). Lovecraft was probably my most formative author.
Whoops! Thanks for correcting! I should know better than to rely on my memory 😂
This is a hard one, I was s little late to reading as a whole. One of the first books I heard cover to cover was The Dead Zone but duo to my reading level I might have gone a fourth of the story. I completely missed how Johnny died until I saw the movie years later.
That said Stephen King's The Shining would be one. It was the third or fourth King book I read and it was just before the mini series air originally. The thing that stuck out and still does is how much story there is such a simple story. I know to some it might be silly but when think about it, it is amazing. The story is about a family in a haunted hotel and you never ask why don't they just leave. It also a really sold scary story too.
My second is another King book and that is The Stand. I spent the summer reading it and the stories and characters stuck with me long after I finished. I also met one of my closest friends because of the book. I was at a group camp out and he saw the book I was reading and we spent most of the night talking about it.
Third would be Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I had seen the movie at least a dozen times before I read the book and it was the first book I read that was totally different than the movie adoption and it really opened my eyes. It also lead me to read all of his books I could get my hands on and wind up comparing science fiction novelists against him.
Four would be From Here to Eternity which just surprised the he'll out of me. I knew it was famous old novel but it amazed me the topics it tackled give when it was published and it was such a good novel.
My fifth is two but they naturally go together and they are George Orwell's1984 and Animal Farm. They helped formed a lot of my views latter in life and me questioning pretty much everything.
Sixth would be from another writer that shaped my thinking Hunter S Thompson. I read Fear and Loathing on Las Vegas which lead me to read pretty much everything he wrote that I could find.
Seventh would be the manga AKIRA which was the first manga series I read. What got me was there no good guys in the series. The two leads are skirt chasing Bike Gang leader and his best friend who hates how he is treated. It is dark and funny and just an amazing Epic science fiction story.
Eight has to be The Survivalist it was my first test of trashy literature and I loved it.
Nine is The Big Sleep. While it might have not been the first mystery I read it was one that stuck with me thanks to the style and the harsh cynical world it brings to life. It is a book with a strong voice that makes.you notice it. When I think noir I think of this book of low life gangster, women who are always trouble nd dirty cops. It is a book that comes with its own mood like no other book I have read before or since.
And finally Ten would be Clive Barker's Cabal. The only horror writer I had read before him was King and this book exposed me to the less respectable horror. Cabal was not only strange with it is mix of monsters and a serial killer but it clearly felt style wise inspired by the gore filled horror movies of the 80s. It through for a surprise when I first read it.
PKD very nearly made my list, I read a load of his stuff as a teenager and loved it. Really liked Akira back then too
Great to hear a shout out to 200AD. Jude Dread, Slaine, Rogue Trooper et al. Must be many possibilities of great films in there that have not been picked up. Did you ever try Viz? Best wishes.
Oh yes! Big fan of Viz. There’s an animated Rogue Trooper film in the works at the moment I think
I read a lot of those novelisations when I was a kid. I every so often, after a few new ones had been published, I would read the Doctor Who books again in the order that they were broadcast, as you say it was the only way to access the older (for me Hartnell and Troughton adventures). The same goes for Space 1999, Star Trek (including the photo novels series) and Star Wars.
Yeah I read the Star Wars novel many many times
Great video! I don’t know all 10 for me but The Stand is definitely there, Monster (Christopher Pike), and also The BFG. And Matilda!!!
Also, look at you with a sponsor!
I need to read more Christopher Pike!
Hopefully the sponsorship isn't too intrusive, I'm actually quite enjoying making the clips
@@CriminOllyBlog I’m very happy that you got a sponsorship and the light sounds good!
Idk if it's relevant but one of the books that made me, me is "A Month in the Country" by J.L Carr. I just love that book!
Me too!
'Pickman's Model' is definitely a top ten Lovecraft story for me. And Lovecraft has definitely been a tremendous influence over the type of horror that I enjoy reading.
'Christine' was also my first King book, but the one that really pulled me in was 'It'. I read it when I was 16 and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Slept with a light on in my room for about three weeks after I finished it. I was a King junkie after that and up to his accident. His newer offerings haven't called to me even though I've bought a lot of them. I'll have to do a King TBR. I finished 'The Dark Tower' series but I did not care for the self-insertion angle at all or the ending. There was a lot of angry-reading.
'Ulysses' by James Joyce made me realize that I am not into alternative styles of presenting story information (this excludes comics and manga). The books that have come out over the last ten, twenty years where the format is emails or texts or in those veins have been non-starters for me...even if the premise of the book is interesting.
'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams. Such an iconic book. Didn't realize it would shape my sense of humor toward the dry, satirical, and absurd. Devoured this book and the rest in the series like I was going to expire if I didn't. I use to purchase every copy of HHGTTG I'd find at thrift stores. I don't have them anymore outside of my original copy that I got in 1982. Gotta share the wealth.
The Time-Life books by Carl Sagan about our solar system planets. Another devoured series. I use to check these out of my school library when I was in 4th grade all the time. To this day I remain an astronomy, cosmology, and physics devotee. Even though learning the formulas for certain calculations in college nearly killed me. Also, Saturn is the shiznit.
And that's all I can think of off the top of my head during my lunch break =)
Hitchhiker's guide might have made my list actually, my dad is a huge fan and we used to listen to the radio show a lot
Nice list!! I was suprised that there was no William Hope Hodgson in it. 😅
He might have made it for House on the Borderland, but HPL came first
That's a great list, for an intriguing topic. I think I will try and get a copy of The Delinquents; on the other hand, I'm never gonna be much of a Burroughs fan.
Some books that made me:
The Stand, by Stephen King (original version). My first by the author, read it around 1980, when I was 12. Read huge chunks of it at the library. Really my first dip into Horror that would end up mattering...but the bigger deal was being 12 years old, deciding to read a 1000-page novel, and loving it. Longer books were no longer intimidating, or to be avoided - the right ones would be some of the best reads ever.
Bear, by Marian Engel. I read this too young, but I was suddenly into novels with bears. Richard Adams and John Irving ended up being DNFs...but then I bought this cosy-looking novel by someone named Marian Engel. It is NOT cosy! This was the strangest sex-centered novel I had ever read. I mean, I had done some Men's Adventure, and Guy N. Smith crab novels, so I knew how trashy fiction was portraying the male fantasy version of sex and the woman's body. But Bear by Marian Engel is not that. It is a book that repels many people who try to read it - and I had my troubles with it at a too-young age - but I learned that sex in a book could link to psychological themes, or ideas of healing and growth, or even the Gothic idea of going too far and then snapping back to normality. And to be quite frank, youngster me learned that when you start buying on a whim in the grown-ups' section, or the Literature section, things can get very strange very quickly. Books could go anywhere, and could be gross in ways that might shock.
Amazing Spider-Man #147-150 (actually, it was several years before I owned and read #148): the start of my comic-book/superhero reading. So, in comes an appreciation for sequential art, comics that went beyond just the fights by running mysteries and whodunits, cliffhanger endings designed to cause perpetual purchasing (but some are better than others), and what comics could do that, for the longest time, movies looked unconvincing doing. Until movies caught up.
Orbitsville, by Bob Shaw, and Quick Service, by P. G. Wodehouse. Sort of a one-two punch, in 1984, when I was 16 years old. Sure, I had read a lot of SF by that age - Jack Williamson, Perry Rhodan adventures - but I hadn't read the book that awed me, a book that gave me a clearly-definable, unmistakable Sense of Wonder. Now, a re-read of Orbitsville decades later showed me that the Sense of Awe is more likely to be caused in a 16 year old than a 54 year old...but at that time way back when, I was ready for a book that was not just about adventure and action, or even world-building; I was ready to have my brain expanded. That's what Orbitsville did for me. As for Wodehouse - that was mainly about finding my favourite writer, and learning how the English language works, from the typewriter of the Master.
Fascinating hearing your list. I’ve never read the original Stand, I really should. And Bear has been on my list to get to for a while
Love to see The Belgariad series make an appearance. Read it in H.S. in 1990 and loved it. It pops up every now and then on BookTube. Really fun series. What can be said about The Shining that already hasn't been said. My favorite book.
Yeah I still remember it really fondly
Finally this is the list I have been waiting for. 😊
Hope you liked it!
Here's the list of books I'd like to share and I am aware that I am the boring one in the classroom:
1. "The Trial" by Kafka
2. "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe
3. Basically all short stories by Maupassant
4. "Hell's Scroll" by Akutagawa
5. "Kitchen" by Banana Yoshimoto
6. "Re-Life" - a manga that literally changed my life
7. The Bible - yes, I'm an atheist, but it provided me with many life lessons and an interesting perspective on life and the history of humanity. I highly recommend it.
8. The Brothers Karamazov - Maybe the greatest novel ever written.
That's an interesting list!
Great topic. The Giver, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Flowers for Algernon, Flowers in the Attic, THE AMERICAN GIRL BOOKS OMG WAS OBSSESSED, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Maniac Magee, Goosebumps of course. There are probably some great ones I'm leaving out. Very 90s kid. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
I love Flowers for Algernon!
I also cut my reading teeth on novelisations of Dr Who and Star Wars. In fact, I remember having to read the Empire Strike Back novel (as I'd missed it at the cinema) so I could see Return of the Jedi.
I think Jedi was the first one I actually saw
That was really interesting. As a little girl, I read the Bobbsey Twins, Charlotte's Web, then Heidi two of the series, The comic books of Wonder Women as well as Betty and Veronica, then Ellery Queen followed by Agatha Christie, Then Judy Blume's Are you there God, it's me Margaret, then The Great Gatsby. I think that is pretty accurate, it is just my old memory, I didn't write down the books I read and it doesn't include the Disney books I read that were novelizations of movies like the Boatniks.
Great list! My sister was a huge Judy Blume fan when we were growing up
@@CriminOllyBlog Me too, I met her when I was really young I was in elementary school in NJ where she lived, she came to our school with boxes of Margaret and talked to us as we waited to buy the book. She is a very nice lady. Ask your sister if she read Forever?
I'm reading The Belgariad for about the fifth time. Love it.
Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff is a current favourite.
It's such a fun series
I know you're going to find this bizarre, but I myself love books like you, and am of similar age, I too loved dinosaurs as a child, but unlike you it never left me, and I became quite a scholar on the subject. I read 2000ad as a child with relish as a 14 year old for years, and still have all my progs safe. I love Lovecraft, and buy all editions of his books, because they always make beautiful editions of his stories , and finally Stephen King...I collected all his books , the UK and US equivalents, it's a very expensive pursuit, but they look stunning on shelves.
See so you're not on your own young man😂. Keep up the excellent uploads.
Sounds like I’m in good company!
That series by David Eddings was my jam and my introduction to reading outside of school.
Heres my ten
Where the wild things are, must have taken it out of the library 20 times!
Pawn of Prophecy, the Belgariad series had amazing characters, Relg, Mandorallen etc
Lord of the flies, in English class at school, i remember class falling silent at Piggy’s fate.
Macbeth, also at school, after initial resistance realising its a great story (Romeo and Juliet too).
Red Dragon, after having seen The Silence of the lambs movie, i had to read this.
The Godfather, as well as the Sicilian, Omerta and the last Don, loved discussing book vs movie with my dad.
Child 44, first novel for a while after a spell of sports autobiographies and a truly great thriller.
Kafka on the shore, a recommendation from my brother, the perfect holiday book to drift away to.
The troop, owes a lot to Lord of the flies and feels like a full circle after a long time away from reading.
Tender is the flesh, the last book iread which made me feel ‘everyone needs to read this’
I did Macbeth at school too and agree it's really great
I got very heavy into fantasy as a kid through david eddings. I remember pretending I was sick and read three books in one day because I just could'nt stop.
Heartbreaking to hear what kind of people he and his wife turned out to be..
Yeah it really is horrible
Rupert the bear annuals, rhyming couplets read by my Dad,
'A Traveller in Time' probably my first historical fiction, Little Grey Rabbit is my spirit animal. 😂
'Jane Eyre' abridged children's edition in '83 to get ahead of the TV series. These days I read the full version.
"Pride and Prejudice' -straight after JE, far too young to get the nuance, loved it all the same.
'The Colour of Magic' read the first 3 discworld novels when I should have been studying.
"Tender is the Night' a set text, my enjoyment not dimmed by studying it.
'Birdsong' just because
'Memoirs of a Geisha' more controversial now (whose story?) but I found myself willing her to succeed, despite the occupation.
'Heart of Darkness' I love the tone and for its time, clear eyed.
'The Emigrants' I have issues with the cannibalising of real people's history but the dreamlike quality is brilliant and it makes me sob.
Lovely list! Totally agree the 3 that I've read are great
I want to try Lovecraft but don't know where to start. What is a good entry point to his stuff?
I really like The Color Out of Space
@@CriminOllyBlog Thanks! 🙂
Loved the bookish content but move over Don Draper, Olly is an incredible ad man!
Ha ha thank you! I’m always a bit nervous about sponsored slots like that so try and keep them quick and engaging
Curious if you have read any of the original Doctor Who novels along with the Target books. If so, do you have a favorite DW author?
No really just the Target books as a kid
Hmmm, I went down a rabbit hole re: Deadline at Dawn. I think I have to read it now. Damn it. 🤭 I probably should read The Delinquents too.
Oh you should!
10 books…that’s a hard one because I’ve been reading since I was quite young. Green Eggs and Ham would probably end up on a list.
XD
(It had a major impact on me)
That is a classic
For what it's worth, the book that had the most influence on my life is _The Fountainhead,_ by Ayn Rand.
For many others it's the Bible.
I've still not tried that one
i just listened to Halo Jones on audio - it is GREAt!
I did not know that existed!!! thank you!
@@CriminOllyBlog yes they are published by Rebellion via Audible they did full casts of Judge Anderson and classic Dredd stories as well.
Oh cool!
Nice list!
Okay. What’s a book that made our friendship? Wrong answer only! 😂
House of Leaves, obvs
@@CriminOllyBlog I said wrong answers only, not the RIGHT one. 😂😂
Can't believe you talked about The Delinquents and didn't mention Kylie 😂
😂😂😂
I grew up in South Africa in the 70s. Am I the only one who read Biggles and Cherry Ames?
I read some Biggles!
🖤💚
New sub here, great idea for a video 👍🏼
Thank you!
Do you still have contact with that kid that introduced you to Lovecraft? You owe him for your love of the horror genre , man😂
Sadly not
1
I thought your mummy and daddy did 😮😅
😂
Made you what?
Me