The Count of Monte Cristo, The Scarlet Pimpernel and Little House on the Prairie series. Favorite books of all time. Read them every year. Can’t really say they define me though. LoL
This made me think of the textbook that taught me about Electromagnetics and Maxwell’s equations as an undergraduate so many years ago. Ahhh… nostalgia…
This is actually really difficult, so let’s just say these three are some of dozens.
Alice Adventure’s in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Of course.)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (or The Haunting of Hill House) by Shirley Jackson.
Alice in Wonderland was my first favorite book as a child, and of course, many schizophrenics including me find it relatable.
Coraline was my first Neil Gaiman book, and Neil was my favorite writer from age 11-15 and has influenced me massively.
Shirley Jackson was the first female horror writer I was exposed to, and she’s made me feel more confident being one myself, and the main characters of those particular books are very lonely and imaginative weirdos and thus very relatable to me. Merricat Blackwood in particular reminds me of myself, although I didn’t kill my family.
Then there’s a book that I had when I was a kid that I really loved. It was from like 1954 and was about an old man who lived on a little island and something about his boat being lost and he found a new one after a hurricane. Loved that book, man