The Writer's Life in Book Recs
No explanation or prevarication—just straight recs from childhood to my early 20's.
I guess it all began at age three when I was electrocuted. I licked an outlet when I was supposed to be down for a nap, and life was never the same. I don’t remember my toddler reading material, except that in photos, I’m holding the books upside down. So, let’s start this list when psychologists say that children reach the age of reason: age 6.
Not gonna lie, this one is pretty self-indulgent. Thanks, Megan, for requesting this one. Head over to “What Substacks Should I Write Next” to request more, or simply comment below if you’re interested in what I have to say on any particular topic.
Please let me know some of your favorite books by age in the comments below. I would love to read them.
Age 6: Mandy and the Secret Tunnel
Age 8: The Phantom Toll Booth
Age 10: Farmer Giles of Ham
Age 11: Emily of New Moon
Age 13: “Ode to the West Wind”
Age 14: Mere Christianity
“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”
Age 15: Style: The Art of Writing Well
"I believe that a writer should try, not to be different from others, but to be himself; not to write 'originally,' but as well as he possibly can. Real originality is spontaneous.” (p. 254)
Age 16: Antigone
Age 17: The Snow Queen (sci-fi novel) & the Russian animation of the fairytale
Age 18: Plato’s Symposium
Age 19: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”
Age 20: The Bell Jar
“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.”
Age 21: Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing
“Let us never deceive youth by foolish talk about the matter of accomplishing. Let us never make them busy in the service of the moment, instead of in patience willing something eternal.” Chapter 8, “The Price of Willing One Thing: Commitment, Loyalty, Readiness to Suffer All”
Age 22: The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
“God has given a Christian such power that he can turn hardships into blessings, can turn the water of misfortune into the wine of heavenly consolation. If you look at this in a worldly way, you have to call it ridiculous … But be careful not to speak scornfully of the ways of God; grace does have the power to turn hardships into blessings. Of two men with the same trouble, to one it will be like gall and wormwood, yet to the other it will be wine and honey” (p. 19)
Age 23: The Haunting of Hill House
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”
Age 24: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
“There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all really are.”
My most important book of the last couple years is the Krisitin Lavransdatter Trilogy. Can't recommend enough.
GKC's The Everlasting Man is a wonderful way banish one's historical materialism.
What a fine idea! I'm sorry you got electrocuted. My goodness, that must have been awful! I adore the Snow Queen, all Kundera's works, and The Haunting of Hill House as well. I used to not love reading as a child, but Mark Twain changed my mind about that.