Exercise 1: Influential books

Consider the importance of books to you both personally and within a broader global sense.

First of all, think back to the earliest books you came across as a child, through your teenage years and early adulthood to where you are now. There may be half a dozen books which stick in your memory or are important to you in some way. There may be many more than that. It may be an early reading book, a particular image or short rhyme which helped you recognise letterforms. It may be the distressed metallic silver cover of a Salinger novel you read as a teenager, or the book you bought on impulse after work one day, seduced by the tactile quality of the cover.

Identify these books in your learning log, use photographs and annotation to create an illustrated list documenting the books that are important to you, for whatever reason.

Now, connect your influential books to those with a more global reach. Identify seminal works that have informed or challenged some of the areas you have identified. These may be scientific, artistic, historical, political, geographic, fictional, poetic or religious texts. For example, a book from your childhood could connect to other seminal children’s books by association, such as Heinrich Hoffmann’s Der Struwwelpeter / Shockheaded Peter (1845) or Charles Perrault or the Brothers Grimm. Likewise a book featuring dinosaurs might connect to Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species.

When we appreciate the breadth and influence of books, we begin to appreciate the extent of a book’s potential impact. Books carry and communicate ideas; powerful messages can be contained within seemingly innocuous bound paper pages. In your learning log, create another list of books, with accompanying images and annotations, which you believe to be more globally important, but connect to your first list in some way.

My influential books

Unknown Fairy Book

Unfortunately I cannot recall what this particular book was called. It was an illustrated book about fairies and my mum would read it through with me when I was very young. I remember how magical it seemed to me and how it made me wonder about nature and the unknown. I think this book instilled a love of nature and folklore in me.

Mr. Men by Roger Hargreaves

The Mr. Men series by Roger Hargreaves was fascinating for me as a young child because of the array of different characters that were explored. Each book was about a different character with a very different personality or physical trait. I think my appreciation of these books was a sign of a developing curiosity about different people and characters.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a book I enjoyed on a pure level of adventure, fantasy and escapism. The book also poses moral questions and serves as a cautionary tale in some ways and this probably made it one of my first experiences of a book that made me think about these themes a little more deeply.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Skipping ahead to my teenage years I came across Nineteen Eighty-Four which is both influential to me and a book with global reach. The book forced me to think about society in a very different and more skeptical manner.

Russian Fairy Tales by Alexander Afanasyev

I can identify my reading of this book as a continuation of my interest in folklore that began with the unknown Fairy book I had read as a small child. These folktales were obviously more complex and with deeper themes. Alexander Afanasyev helped to popularise Russian Fairy Tales.

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious by Carl Jung

I hope the link that I’m making here isn’t too tenuous but I see a connection between Mr. Men and this book. My interest in the personalities and diversity in the Mr. Men books perhaps formed a foundation for my later interests in psychology and archetypes. Carl Jung had a profound impact upon the fields of psychiatry and psychology. 

The Odyssey by Homer

Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Odyssey is a work that embraces adventure and escapism. Unlike Charlie and the Chocolate Factory it is an epic work that is richer in themes and complexity. It is regarded as an important and foundational work of western literature.