What are the most enlightening books of fiction you've read?

As an avid reader for over forty years, there is a very long list of books I read long ago that I found pretty “enlightening” to me personally at the time…in the sense that they connected me to new thoughts and experiences, or resonated with my own life in some way, or opened up a window into an unexplored part of myself…and there are many more recent encounters with fiction that have been equally inspiring and edifying. Where to begin…? In no particular order:

Tolkein’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy

Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath

Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy

Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles

Bester’s The Stars My Destination

Adam’s Watership Down

Sendaks’ Where the Wild Things Are

Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon

Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Harlan Ellison’s short stories

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories

Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany

Bach’s Illusions

Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front

Kryon’s The Journey Home

Fowle’s The Magus

Helprin’s Winter’s Tale

Crowley’s Little, Big

Haldeman’s The Forever War

Selden’s A Cricket in Times Square

Aristophenes’ Lysistrata

Naipaul’s A Bend in the River

Orwell’s 1984

Golding’s Lord of the Flies

Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge

Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness

Herbert’s Dune

Scott Card’s Enders Game

Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

Clarke’s Childhood’s End

Simmon’s Hyperion

King’s Dark Tower series

Virgil’s Aeneid

Brin’s The Postman

Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy

Dahls’ James and the Giant Peach

Dickens’ Great Expectations

Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Lewis’ Screwtape Letters

Bradley’s Mists of Avalon

….and so many more!

(From Quora question: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-enlightening-books-of-fiction-youve-read/answer/T-Collins-Logan)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

This link is not meant to be clicked. It contains the trackback URI for this entry. You can use this URI to send ping- & trackbacks from your own blog to this entry. To copy the link, right click and select "Copy Shortcut" in Internet Explorer or "Copy Link Location" in Mozilla.

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as Linear | Threaded

No comments

The author does not allow comments to this entry