Have you checked out goodreads.com? It’s a social networking site where you list the books you have read, rate them, and then link to your friends so they can see what you are reading, read your reviews, etc. It’s an electronic reading journal if you will. Check it out here. If you join, make sure you add me as a friend because I am always on the look out for great book recommendations. You can also put Hijas Americanas in your library. The last time I updated my goodreads page, I started thinking about the books that have made a difference to me (as a person or a writer). Today, I am sharing the books that made the biggest difference in my twenties.
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson (age 25)
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn (age 23)
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (age 23)
Borderlands/ La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua (age 20 & 27)
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (age 21)
Loose Woman by Sandra Cisneros (age 22)
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (age 20)
The Griffin and Sabine Triology by Nick Bantock (age 22)
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (age 28)
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler (age 27)
Since you are here, go ahead and make a recommendation. What books made a difference to you in your twenties?
The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvior (21)
Native Son – Richard A. Wright (20)
They’re both so powerful, and yet, they both affected me in different ways. NS because it’s one of (to me) the most powerful works of fiction I had read thus far, and I couldn’t put it down. TSS, because it changed my life. I had never read anything that opened my eyes the way she did.