At some point, every aspiring writer is dazzled by a story that inspires them to create one of their own. These are a few of my most inspiring books.
1. The Stand by Stephen King
It’s almost a cliché these days to cite The Stand as a favorite King novel, but its impact was both immediate and long-lasting. The gold standard for post-apocalyptic novels, King’s epic still captures the imagination of readers worldwide for taking a global epidemic and making it both personal and spiritual.
2. Watchers by Dean Koontz
The premise is almost ridiculous—a super-intelligent golden retriever and a genetically engineered nightmare monster both escape from a lab and change the lives of a lonely widower and a beautiful recluse. Yeah, that will be compelling. Yes, it’s like a modern-day fairy tale combined with a science fiction thriller. Koontz is at his very best in this one.
3. Raise the Titanic by Clive Cussler
Cussler’s work is the epitome of the politically incorrect Seventies and Eighties, with his hero and alter ego, Dirk Pitt, an unrepentant hard-drinking woman chaser. Doesn't matter—you’ll root for him all the same. I read this before the Titanic was discovered miles below the Atlantic, and it fired my imagination about the possibilities of the future and for telling an amazing story.
4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
The least-loved of all the books by most fans, Book Five of the Potter tales showed how young adult fiction could put the emphasis on “adult” without giving away the characteristics that appeal to the young. Potter's adolescent anger turned inward resonates with all of us who were young and felt incapable of changing a world that was desperately unfair. Death had always been a central theme in Rowling’s tale, but Order of the Phoenix made it real for Harry in a way that we would never forget.
5. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
My first foray into literary fiction came in junior high. Holden Caulfield felt like my kindred spirit, a disillusioned idealist whose rage against the dying of the light of his youthful innocence takes him to places so low he can’t even see the top of the hole. Anyone who ever felt lost and alone as a teenager (that’s all of us, right?) will find a foul-mouthed friend in Holden.
6. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Unfairly characterized as “Harry Potter for grownups,” Grossman creates an entire universe of magic all his own, and it’s much more difficult and terrifying than Hogwarts ever was. Quentin Coldwater shares the spirit of Holden Caulfield, also, feeling lonely, alienated, and out of place until he discovers Brakebills, a college for aspiring magicians. Magic in this world is as much physics as fantasy, and the fantasy is dangerously real. Grossman’s tale is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. The first of an exceptional trilogy, this is an astounding work of story telling.
7. The Passage by Justin Cronin
Building on the trope of scientific hubris bringing about the end of the world (zombie vampires, in this case), Cronin’s first book is like a jolt of adrenaline from the first page, and it hardly lets up until the end. While the other two books in the trilogy were not nearly as thrilling, Cronin’s world-building skills are exceptional, and his characters are so realistic, you understand why they make such bad decisions, even as you dread the consequences.
8. The Firm by John Grisham
Grisham’s career has been up and down, but give him credit for using the strength of his reputation to take chances by stepping out of his expected genres. His celebrity almost outshines his work at this point, which is why it's easy to forget what a compulsively page-turning story The Firm is. Don't make any other plans once you start reading, because you won’t be able to put it down.
9. Watership Down by Richard Adams
This beloved novel about a group a rabbits escaping their doomed warren in search of a safe haven in the English countryside is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. Adams spends paragraphs describing in meticulous, almost clinical detail, the flora and fauna of the region, and yet, the prose is as engaging as a lyrical poem. Our rabbit heroes, however—Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, et. al.—are the beating heart of the story, reflecting our own humanity back at us in relation to our casual misuse of nature’s beauty and bounty.
10. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Another cliché, it seems, to cite this novel as an inspirational influence, but it may very well be the most perfect book ever written. Lee captures the virulent hatred of racism, the injustice of the Southern excuse for law, and the necessity of moral courage through the vibrant lens of Scout, to young to be disillusioned by her world but old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Given today’s national climate, reading this book may be as much of a moral imperative now as it was at the time of publication.
Which books have inspired you to create your own tales? Share your experience in the comments.
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