50 Books that have Made a Significant Impact on My Life

Photo on Unsplash by Ed Robertson @eddrobertson

With my 50th birthday just days away, I am reflecting on the things that have made a significant impact on my life thus far. Perhaps the biggest influence in my life has been books.

Since I was a kid, I always had a book nearby for comfort or escape or entertainment. Sometimes it was to stave off boredom in my childhood, like when my parents decided we were going on another long Sunday drive into the countryside. Sometimes I read when I couldn’t fall asleep, a practice I still hold to this day.

Because books have been my daily companions for most of my life, I thought it would be interesting to assemble 50 that have been the best of friends, the most significant, the ones that stay with me long after I read the last page. I am drawn to a compelling story, new paradigms for understanding how culture works, complexity, and narratives that invite me to see the world from vastly different vantage points than my own.

Here is the list.

1. Did I ever Tell You How Lucky You Are (Dr. Seuss)

This is a book I can still recite from memory, starting from the first line, “When I was quite small, quite young for my size, I met an old man from the desert of Drize. And he sang me a song I will never forget. Well, at least, I haven’t forgotten it yet.” It shaped my paradigm for moving through the world.

2. Where the Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein)

A childhood classic, this is also a book that holds poems I can still recite from memory. I find myself saying lines to my sons when we are in circumstances illustrated by Silverstein. For example, “Sarah Silvia Cynthia Stout simply would not take the garbage out.”

3. Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)

All 8 books captivated me starting with the first, Anne of Green Gables. When Anne says to Matthew, one of her new guardians, on their ride home from the train station, “If you realized how much I don’t say, you’d understand that I actually don’t talk that much at all,” I knew I had found my person.

4. Owl Moon (Jane Yolen, John Schoenherr Illustrator)

This isn’t a book I read as a child but one I read often to my boys. What is most striking is its power in simplicity. A father and child. A middle-of-the-night expedition. Awe and wonder.

5. Blubber (Judy Blume)

I don’t often see this book on lists of Judy Blume’s books. But it was a story about a character who was uncomfortable in her own skin and the story resonated so deeply with adolescent me. I would carry this book with me on road trips and feel a kinship. I also had this experience with the protagonist of Circle of Friends (Maeve Binchy).

6. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)

This was also another series I loved. My mom read the first book in the series, which, as a child was The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and then I reread all of them in college. I wasn’t always diligent in finishing required course reading, but I still read novels before bed.

7. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

I was supposed to read this book in high school and only skimmed it. Then, after graduating college I returned to some classics and was astounded at the depth of this book. I return to it once every ten years or so.

8. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)

When I was knee-deep in the English literature chapter (pun intended) of my life, I first read David Copperfield and fell in love with the epically long sentences and flowery descriptions. I loved the dynamic, colorful characters. I am drawn to simpler writing these days but sometimes I read short passages of this classic to reunite old friends.

9. Reaching Out (Henri Nouwen)

This is a treasure in Nouwen’s trove of books. As he discusses spiritual movements from loneliness to solitude, illusion to prayer, and hostility to hospitality, it is the latter movement that transformed my understanding of parenting and teaching. In his discussion of hospitality, he looks specifically at the concept in terms of parent to child and teacher to student (as well as medical professional to a patient), and how bringing the paradigm of hospitality to these relationships changes them in profound ways.

10. Traveling Mercies (Anne Lamott)

This memoir changed my understanding of faith. It was a radically different picture than the more rigid paradigms I had adopted up to my twenties. I didn’t realize faith could look like this with such hilariously poignant lines like, “I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”

11. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)

This is one I read to my friend when she came out of brain surgery. This is a book I read at dinner parties. I hijack my guests imploring them to listen to just one chapter, maybe two. “Jesus Shaves” is at the top of the list. I am actually chuckling as I type this.

12. The Glass Castle (Jeannette Wells)

I don’t often remember the first lines of a book. I definitely don’t often recite the first lines of books when recommending them to a friend. But, I still remember the first line, the first paragraph, of The Glass Castle. From the first page, the reader is taken on quite a ride into the complexity and intricacies of family and loyalty.

13. Untamed (Glennon Doyle)

Untamed made me wonder if a woman could really think this way. Could I? Could I move through the world unbridled by cultural expectations? There were parts I read skeptically, parts I thought were too irreverent. And then I asked myself, what is too irreverent?

14. Daring Greatly (Brene Brown)

Brown’s book has given me a rallying cry when I am scared to step into the arena. This book helped me understand the ubiquity of shame and I suddenly felt less alone. It informs my parenting and teaching as I seek to help people I influence to be vulnerable in safe spaces and build shame-resilience.

15. The Coddling of the American Mind (Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff)

This is an important work on cultural examination, specifically related to college and college students. However, the themes and trends Haidt and Lukianoff unpack help me understand the challenges and limits of younger generations and how to help them build intellectual resilience.

16. Culture Wars (James Davison Hunter)

I read this in graduate school and it was my first deep dive into understanding the binary conflict in the United States. Written in 1994, Hunter explores the dichotomy between the two groups he identifies as Progressive and Orthodox. Understanding the fundamental differences in how these two groups view the world, helped me begin to examine United States culture and politics in a new way.

17. The Culture of Narcissism (Christopher Lasch)

This was another graduate school read that astounded me in its prescience because it was written in 1979 but spoke to present-day cultural characteristics of the early 2000s when I read it. And certainly, it offers insight into the age of social media long before social media was on the scene.

18. Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville)

My husband has asked me to stop referencing this book so often. Perhaps I got a little obnoxious with how often I started sentences with, “You know, de Tocqueville writes about that in Democracy in America when he says…” It was getting a little tiresome. But, it is a fascinating look at the values, myths, and qualities of the United States and its citizens from a French Aristocrat in the last 1800s. It informs a lot of how we interact with one another and the world today.

19. Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neal Hurston)

I was introduced to this book by friends while I was living in Vienna, Austria post-college, and I was so captivated by the story, writing, themes and the perspective that I reread it soon after my first reading. A fascinating look at a woman seeking to understand herself, using relationships to find identity. But also offered a look at life beyond my narrow perspective.

20. A Severe Mercy (Sheldon Vanauken)

I think I was so drawn to A Severe Mercy in college because I was longing for a deep connection that would make me feel whole. I now know it is problematic to look for this in a romantic relationship, that the relationship is stronger when two whole persons come together. But the fusing of the two people in this book to one another was so compelling to late teens, lonely me.

21. Teaching to Transgress (bell hooks)

My mind was blown as I read this book in one of my many quests to better my teaching and engagement with students. hooks is a master at delivering a direct, challenging, dynamic message about the teacher/student relationship while offering a powerful exposition of critical feminist theory.

22. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (Susan Cain)

Quiet gave me a new label for myself in my adult life, ambivert. It also helped me better understand my mother (a strong introvert) and enabled me to better attend to students in my classroom who are present and engaged but less apt to share their ideas verbally. Quiet encouraged me to cultivate my own quieter side.

23. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

There are some books I can just get lost in. This is one of them. Dynamic. Complex. A classic. Tolstoy explores the complexity of the human condition through compelling narrative. I may pull this book off my shelves tonight and read it again.

24. Getting the Love You Want (Harville Hendrix)

When we were getting ready for marriage, my husband and I were recommended this book and it helped us understand some of the crazy unconscious, psychological reasons people can be drawn to one another. It gave us language for the conflict cycle we found ourselves in again and again. There were seeds planted in those early days of marriage that have taken root and helped our relationship over the last twenty-four years.

25. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother (James McBride)

I have long been a fan of stories that helps me understand the world from perspectives vastly different than my own. I might even argue it’s critical to sharing the planet with one another. This fascinating story shares the many intricacies and intersections of identity, race, family, youth, and growing up. This is another book I have read and reread several times.

26. The Color of Law (Richard Rothstein)

I read The Color of Law with a small group of professors for a professional development day at the community college where I teach. I have been working to better understand systemic racism and this book lays out powerful data and anecdotes to explain how racism has informed a lot of governmental policies and laws. This is an important book.

27. Your Erroneous Zones (Wayne Dwyer)

A fellow professor, older and wiser than me, exhorted me to read this book after she listened to my teaching woes. She challenged me and my insecurities and directed me to read this. One question Dwyer asks that I repeat to myself regularly is “What is that negative thinking doing for you?” He posits that we hold onto certain ideas because they are serving us in some way and it is important to understand their function in our psyche before we can let them go.

28. Writing Down the Bones (Natalie Goldberg)

Good. So good. If you want to become a better writer, if you want an “outside the box” way of exploring writing and your writing practice, this is the book for you. A dear friend gave it to me and sometimes we sit together and write using prompts from Goldberg.

29. The Relationship Cure (John Gottman)

Gottman is the marriage guru. Not only can he and his research team predict the end of a marriage with over 90% accuracy, but he also offers insightful and practical tools for repairing and strengthening a marriage. This one is a must on your bookshelves if you’re in a long-term romantic relationship.

30. Les Miserable (Victor Hugo)

Read this in high school. Couldn’t put it down. I also saw the musical a few times but this is another book I curled up with, and settled into. I often think about the Bishop and his response to escaped prisoner Jean Valjean and wonder if I could move through the world like this. I strive to be like this a little bit more every day.

31. The Shell Seekers (Rosemund Pilcher)

This book is a little more flowery than many of the others on my list, which is funny because many of Pilcher’s books have flowers on the covers. She reminds me of Maeve Binchy’s books. It’s an easy read about the beauty in relationships. Another fun one for escape.

32. Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday (John Steinbeck)

I have spent the last two decades wondering why I was so drawn in by Steinbeck, and, specifically Cannery Row. I loved East of Eden and was moved by Grapes of Wrath, but there was something about the cast of quirky characters in Cannery Row that drew me and kept me interested and led me to want to revisit them in his follow-up book, Sweet Thursday.

33. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)

I confess that when I first read this I was surprised that old English literature could be so intriguing, so exciting, so mysterious. This book is all of these things.

34. The Curate’s Awakening (George MacDonald)

A favorite professor introduced me to MacDonald in college and this particular book helped me ask important questions about belief and faith. At the time it helped me in my own awakening.

35. The Chosen (Chaim Potok)

This was required reading in college and it offered such a compelling look at orthodoxy and a young man’s experience in it. I was drawn into the wisdom from a cultural perspective I was not familiar with before I read it.

36. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

One only needs to read the author’s name and know this is good. So good. Humbling. Important. Captivating.

37. Personal History (Catherine Graham)

Perhaps it was because I grew up outside of Washington, DC and The Washington Post was a fixture in my childhood that I was initially drawn to this book. But I stayed for the exploration into the leadership of a powerful woman. I liked reading an insider’s take on Washington DC.

38. Chesapeake (James Michener)

I haven’t read much Michener. It certainly is an undertaking but I loved this epic novel, particularly because I had grown up visiting a cousin’s house on the Chesapeake Bay and I was interested in a comprehensive look at the region. Chesapeake did not disappoint.

39. The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)

Amy Tan has a spectacular ability to articulate the complexity of mother-daughter relationships within the context of cultural tension. I couldn’t put this down when I first read it in my twenties and it is an experience I have every time I pick it up.

40. Becoming (Michelle Obama)

When I admire a powerful woman, I love learning about her origin story, her journey, and her process. Obama not only shares her story, but she also shares insights into the world, unique hurdles she faced, and the firm foundation of family and identity on which she stands.

41. The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World (Melinda Gates)

I reference this book almost weekly in my classes. Gates is inspiring not only for her philanthropy but for her dedication to listening and understanding the lives of women around the world. She is humble. She is fascinating. And she offers an important analysis of how to interact with and solve some of the big issues facing women globally.

42. The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis)

In my ongoing existential crises and questioning, Lewis offered an interesting speculation on what life after death might look like.

43. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)

I remember first listening to this book and then reading it and being so drawn into the life of this child who must escape her father and the pain in her home and is welcomed into the veritable bosom of amazing women. Because this book is set in the south in the 50s, that the women are black, the young girl is white, adds additional power and dimension to this powerful story of love.

44. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

I feel sheepish not adding Jane Austen here. I did a one-unit tutorial on her in college. But the Bronte sisters wove intrigue and edginess into their stories in ways that drew me in and kept me reading. See the explanation for Wuthering Heights.

45. Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)

So, I will add Jane Austen. Sense and Sensibility is my favorite of Austen’s, particularly for how she examines these two qualities “sense” and “sensibility” in the context of rigid cultural expectations for women.

46. The Good Earth (Pearl Buck)

I read a short story in college by Pearl Buck, “A Debt to Dickens,” which endeared me to her as a kindred spirit, a fellow reader who turned to books for companionship. The depth of this book points to her love of literature from a young age when she lived in China. The story of a poor farming family in China, this book contributed to my understanding of worlds very, very different from mine.

47. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)

I have long wondered about the role of Christian missionaries around the world, the idealism, myopia, and ignorance that often led them. In this novel, Kingsolver expertly examines all of these things through the eyes of a daughter trying to understand her father as he takes (drags?) his family into the Congo.

48. A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini) and The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

Although I found The Kite Runner intensely compelling, it was A Thousand Splendid Suns, a story from a woman’s perspective about the cruelty and tyranny of the Taliban, that broke my heart and compelled me to learn more.

49. I Told Me So: The Role of Self-Deception in Christian Living (Gregg Ten Elshof)

Although Ten Elshof is writing within the context of faith, the themes here related to understanding one’s blindspots are universal. This book literally opened my eyes to the concept of blindspots, the importance of discovering my own, and the understanding that everyone has them.

50. I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (Amy Sedaris)

It seems fitting to end with one of the sillier books because it is just a happy way to finish this list. From crafts the reader can do with old pantyhose to how to entertain a rich uncle to what to serve guests who are high, Amy offers the wackiest, funniest most entertaining book I’ve ever read. Because hospitality has been a core value in my life, I love her unique take on something I find incredibly important.