10 Books That Changed My Life

Growing up with a love for reading there were books that stuck with me throughout life. Some that made me want to read more, others that made me want to be a writer and some that made me want to read them more than once. So here is a list of the ten books that changed my life in no particular order.


1. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

This book was a requirement in high school and I could remember feeling like we shouldn't be reading it because it contained adult situations and issues of molestation. I was most intrigued because it was an autobiography and I thought if Maya Angelou can survive all that, surely I can survive being a teenager.





2. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

As a a kid, I thought this was the best book someone ever created. It was the book every parent bought their daughter when they reached puberty. It was fascinating, captivating and bawdry for an eleven year old. The first book I can remember gossiping about or I suppose the first "book club" I attended every morning at school before class.

3. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

I read this book after my mother read it. She ranted on about it for days, ruining all the good parts. But I still wanted to read it for myself. So I read it in one sitting. It was the first adult fiction book I read non-stop. This book epitomized "page turner" for me. It was eventually made into a film starring Whoopi Golberg, Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover. I love the film. It is my favorite film of all time. I could probably do a one woman show and recite all the lines from the movie.

4. The Complete Anne of Green Gables Boxed Set  by L.M. Montgomery

Most readers have their first box set or collection of books. Before the box set of Harry Potter, there was the box set of Anne of Green Gables. I loved the stories, but even better was the mini-series they created that came on PBS. It was the first time I compared notes from a book to the television adaption.

5. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

I have the book still on my shelf today. My copy is nearly two decades old. But I love this book. I get choked up thinking about it. I remember reading it and feeling this sense of amazement with the craftsmanship and the flow of Baldwin's words. It's a short read and when I finished I said I want to write like Baldwin. So I copied the entire book by hand on a yellow notepad just so I'd know what it was like to write beautiful words.

6. Sugar: A Novel by Bernice L. McFadden

I read this book when it first debuted. Something about the simple title drew me in. I decided to see if I could read the first chapter non-stop and if  I could, I would buy it from the bookstore. So I sat down and read it and had to force myself to stop reading it. I took it home and finished it. I ranted and raved about it so much my friend wanted to read it, so I let her borrow it. She took the book and sent it to her mother in Louisiana so she could read it. So I had to buy a new copy because I never give away books that I love. My friend went on to buy her a personal copy of Sugar so her daughters could read it as well. I have bought this book a total of five times because I always end up letting someone have a copy. Her sequel, This Bitter Earth, is great as well. Bernice L. McFadden was my imaginary mentor when I begin my writing journey. When I read her work I felt like I was reading my own. I now own all her books, and some I have several copies of...just in case.

7. Holy Bible (NIV) by Zondervan

Can't lie, I dread reading the King James Version of the bible as a kid. But once I was in my early twenties I found out there were different versions of the bible. The NIV is my favorite version, it clear and concise. I can understand the text much easier and I can still get a feel for the KJV without the headache of feeling like I'm translating. This book really changed my life because by having a better understanding, I became an avid reader of the bible.

8. Carrie by Stephen King

This was the first thriller novel I read and the first book that made me afraid to go to sleep. I was hesitant yet intrigued. Here is a girl who is blessed with these supernatural gifts but they are also a curse. Not to mention her religious fanatical mother who terrifies her. I felt sorry for Carrie and I was perturbed by her experiences when I went to sleep. Then they came out with the movie and I was excited to see how it would all go down on the big screen. It took a long time for me to read another thriller or Stephen King novel because I didn't like the many POV's in the book. And I remember thinking I would never write a book in that type of format. I guess Stephen King decided to do the same, as he changed his format in his later books.

9. A Hero Ain't Nothin But a Sandwich by Alice Childress

I read this book in middle school. Looking back it was the first book I read that gave an articulate description about living in the inner city amongst drugs and violence. Told from the viewpoint of a thirteen year old heroine addict named Benjie, the story is moving and graphic, yet frustrating and sad because you want Benjie to make some different choices. This is a great book. I have read it several times. I think it is more suitable for late middle school graders or high school students. Any younger and they may not grasp the intensity and urgency in the book. It was later made into a film starring one of my favorite actresses, Cicely Tyson.

10. There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz

This is the first book that made me cry. I believe I was 19 or 20 years old when I read it and I can remember thinking what can I do to help the children in these living conditions, even though my living conditions were probably not any different growing up in the inner city myself. It's a gripping story. Sadly, Chicago is facing some of the same issues today. I can't help but wonder how two decades later, there has been little significant change for the impoverished of Chicago. The book is a true story,  Lafeyette and Pharoah, aged 11 and 9 years at the beginning of the book in 1987, live in the drug and gang infested ghetto of Chicago. Their family consist of their mother who struggles financially and is on welfare and public assistance, a frequently absentee father, an older brother and younger set of triplets. They often go without necessities and are in constant struggle just to survive the run down projects they live in, the gangs that control them and the daily struggles of life and violence they must endure to survive in the other America; the one we don't hear about. 

What are some of the books that changed your life or made a significant impact on you?

Interview with T.K. Thorne, author of Noah's Wife

I had the honor of meeting Ms. Teresa at the Alabama Conclave Writers Conference and she was one of the first people to greet and welcome me. Right then, I knew she had a generous and caring heart. So I wanted Ms. Thorne to be my first author interview for fiction. Her work is unique and in a category by itself. The depth and richness she gives to her work is in abundance and you can tell she has taken great care with her characters to make them believable.


Mrs. Thorne was so kind to answer a few questions regarding her novel and her writing. She has donated a free autographed copy of her book to one lucky person who comments on my blog in the comments sections at the end of the interview. Just tell us what you thought of the interview and you will be entered into the drawing. It's as simply as that. The contest drawing ends in 3 days, so good luck and please share the link and spread the word. I hope you enjoy the interview and we wish Mrs. Thorne the best in her future endeavors.

From Book Jacket:

Noah’s Wife is Na’amah, a beautiful young girl with Asperger Syndrome who wishes only to be a shepherdess on her beloved hills in ancient Turkey, a desire shattered by the hatred of her powerful brother, the love of two men, and a looming disaster that threatens her world.  Na’amah tells her story and sees the world through the unique lens of a condition known today as Asperger's Syndrome.  Her savant abilities and penchant to speak truth forces her down a dangerous path in an age of change--a time of challenge to the goddess' ancient ways, when cultures clash and the earth itself is unstable.  When foreign raiders kidnap Na’amah, her journey to escape and return home becomes an attempt to save her people from the disaster only she knows is coming.

The Biblical account of Noah's wife only gives us a nameless woman who bears Noah's children and is with him in the ark.  T.K. Thorne, an award winning author, has filled in the story with her imagination based on geological and archaeological evidence of a great flood in the Black Sea region 7,000 years ago.

1. Where did the inspiration for "Noah's Wife" come from?

I was looking for a topic and thought Sena Jeter Nashlund’s Ahab’s Wife was such a great idea—a story from the perspective of an unknown person about a really famous one.  I recently had a chance to speak with Ms. Nashlund and confessed I stole her concept.  She was very gracious and pleased that it worked for me.  (Isn’t it wonderful when writers help other writers?)

So with that idea in mind, I sat up straight when I heard a local poet, Irene Latham, read her poem, “Noah’s Wife.”  She prefaced the reading by telling us that in the Bible story of the flood, Noah’s wife is only very briefly mentioned and not even given a name.  That was an exciting moment (Can’t get more famous than Noah!) and I started researching a possible historical basis for the flood.  The clincher was discovering the geological and archaeological evidence about a great flood in the Middle East around 5500 BCE.  That gave me a date to work with and I began to play with the idea.  It took four years to write and research.

2. What genre would you classify your novel?

Primarily Noah’s Wife is an “alternative” story (It is fiction set in a historical context, and it is mostly generated from my imagination.)  That said, I tried to use all the Biblical names and follow the story from this angle:  What do I think might have really happened in that time/place without the overlay of moral/religious redacting that could have resulted in the story we have now?  It won ForeWord Review’s “Book of the Year” (2009) for Historical Fiction, so I feel pretty comfortable with that genre classification, although it has romantic elements, as well as adventure …and could fall into a literary genre too!

3. What would you like readers to get out of reading Noah's Wife?

I would primarily hope they, like me, would fall in love with the characters and feel as if they were transported back in time with them.  I’ve had many people tell me that the story they grew up with is now so much more real to them.  Like all good stories, there are multiple layers.  One of the most interesting aspects to me was learning about the historical roots of the divine feminine from which our patriarchal religious heritage grew.  Another layer is that my character, Na’amah, has a form of autism we (now) term “Asperger’s.”  I would love for my book to help open some understanding of people with that syndrome.

4. When did you begin writing?

My grandmother read to me when I was young and I learned to love books.  I wrote my first story at age ten…or at least part of a story.  It was about a girl who got lost in a forest looking for a magical fox.  I read it aloud to my parents.  My mother did the “encouraging parent thing” and praised me mightily.  My father said, “Where’s the end?”  From that day on, I always put an ending on my stories! 

My plans to be an astronaut didn’t pan out, so I had adventures by writing about them.  Then, on the way to becoming a social worker, I accidentally became a police officer.  (Too long a story for here.) That has been a rich source of experiences for me, and many find their way into my stories, including perspectives on human nature I might not have had growing up as a sheltered southern girl.

5. What is your writing process like? (Do you have a set time that you sit down and write or just write when the urge comes)

Because I have a full time job, I am mostly a weekend-warrior writer.  But the actual typing of the words is only part of the process.  When I am working on a project, I am thinking about it constantly—in the car on the way to work and back, while I am loading the dishwasher, or even in the shower.  I have to let my imagination go and put my characters in a situation, listen to what they have to say or do about it, work out the plot, etc. and then when I do sit down to write, it goes pretty quickly.  It’s when I haven’t done all the pre-work that sometimes I do the stare- at-the-white- page thing.

6. What are you currently working on and what can we expect from you in the future?

 

My work-in-progress is Angels at the Gate.  Like Noah’s Wife, it’s an alternative story, this one of Lot’s Wife. (Yep, she's the one who turns into a "pillar of salt" looking back at Sodom.)  I know, it sounds like I have a grand plan to write novels based on little-known women of the Bible, but here's how it happened:  One  of the guys I work with (and tends toward the sarcastic) out of nowhere one day, cut his eyes sideways at me, and said, "Noah's wife, eh? What's next, Lot's wife?"  My first reaction: No way!  Sodom and Gomorrah?  Too dark.  But, as the days passed, I found myself thinking about how I would do it, until I just sat down and wrote the first sentence—

 "If the path of obedience is the path of wisdom, it is one not well-worn by my feet.  I am Yildeth, daughter of the caravan, daughter of the wind, and daughter of the famed merchant, Zakiti. That I am his daughter, not his son, is a secret between myself and my father.  This is a fine arrangement, as I prefer the freedoms of being a boy."

And then one word kept following the next!

7. What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

The only way to ensure failure is to quit trying.  Rejection is hard, but you have to endure a great deal of it.  If you are like me, each time will hurt, but pick yourself up out of that hole and start typing.  Oh, and always put an ending on your stories!

Thank you Mrs. Thorne for taking the time to do the interview.

Please visit Mrs. Thorne at her website or click the amazon picture below to purchase her book. Thank you.

www.tkthorne.com

Blogging at www.tkthorne.wordpress.com 

Free Book Giveway of "Noah's Wife" ends March 30, 2011, midnight. One winner randomly selected by random.org