Say Hello to...the Books That Shaped Me
Essays about a happy marriage, rogue clones in futuristic Korea, and guidance on how to thrive in the midst of your defining decade.
“It is up to you to cultivate your field of mind in order to grow golden crops.”
- Debasish Mridha
Books are the best tools for cultivating the fields of your mind.
While I love going to the movies (I saw this one and this one recently), my mind is captivated in a specific way when I’m reading a physical book. For reasons I can’t fully explain, I’m more engaged when reading about Atticus Finch than I am by watching him on screen.
As Emma Straub argues: books are magic.
Here are a handful of books that have reaped golden crops in both my mind and my life.
Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
In my opinion this is the Great American Novel and not To Kill A Mockingbird.
Keep in mind that it’s a tale of the Antebellum South written in 1936. So, it’s absolutely a product of its time.
What keeps me coming back again and again are the characters. They’re so fully realized that it’s difficult to believe that they never existed. I understood not only their dreams and yearnings, but their motives and prejudices.
It’s over a thousand pages and I’ve read it three times. Worth it!
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
This story is told in retrospect by a former student of a British boarding school who’s coming to terms with her purpose. I won’t say more…
…don’t Google the synopsis! Avoid the publisher’s summary! Run from Goodreads! Allow the book’s eerie atmosphere to pull you deeper into the narrative.
There are scenes here that literally make my heart ache.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Six stories are housed within this book and each is connected.
Honestly, I haven’t read the entire thing, but I have consistently revisited the chapters that take place in futuristic Korea.
On the surface, those chapters are about a clone gaining sentience. However, if you peer deeper, it’s a warning about the ways in which capitalism can become diabolic if not contained within a code of ethics.
The movie is also worth your time.
The Road To Character by David Brooks
“It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?”
This book will make you want to become a better person. The author’s argument (quoted briefly above) that our culture values “resume virtues” over “eulogy virtues” has never left my mind.
This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett.
As reader, Patchett’s writing is simply restorative. Reading her books have a feeling similar to waking up from a good nap. This collection of essays is my favorite of her published works.
In regards to her fiction: I prefer Commonwealth over the Dutch House and Tom Lake.
Primal Screams by Mary Eberstadt.
Eberstadt is a Catholic cultural commentator with a deep understanding of our political landscape. This book administered a healthy dose of empathy and helped me understand why the U.S. is a hotbed division and alienation.
Eberstadt argues the origins of our unrest are rooted in the breakdown of the family unit. See below:
“We are less fettered than they in innumerable ways; we are perhaps the freest people in the history of all humanity. At the same time, we are also more deprived of the consolations of tight bonds of family and faith known to most of the men and women coming before us - and this fact, it will be argued, has had wider repercussions than have yet been understood.”
The Defining Decade by Meg Jay
I’ve given away more copies of this book than any other. Sorry, Holy Bible!
I’ve revisited it dozens of time over the past ten years and the lessons I’ve learned continue to inform me well into my thirties.
I loveeeee discussing books. Do you have one that has shaped you into the person you are today? Tell me about it!
What a great list! I've always enjoyed Kazuo Ishiguro's short storeis when I've spotted them in the New Yorker, but I don't think I've read his novels! Thanks for the lead.
If you liked Never Let Me Go I highly recommend Klara and the Sun, one of Kazuo Ishiguro's other novels. I read Klara and the Sun first (which is maybe why I am biased towards it), but it has the same eerie feeling while being so beautiful and touching.