Let’s Talk Bookish: Books You’re Grateful For

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022.

November 25: Books That You’re Grateful For

Prompts: What are some books that you’re grateful for? What books have had the biggest impact on your life?  How did you discover them?

I could sit here for ages listing all the books I feel grateful for in some way or another. Even books I read as a kid that I can’t remember titles for, or Horrible Histories which I constantly borrowed from the library, Goosebumps and Point Horror I constantly borrowed from my brothers, etc. Interview With a Vampire is definitely at the top of the list – it was actually after reading Anne Rice’s fantastic book (and the others) that I had an idea and thought, well, maybe I could write a vampire novel. (I did! And queried it! At 15! Thankfully no one picked it up!)

I think the first Stephen King novel I read was Cell, which was in the house when I was hunting for something to read. And I’m grateful for this book because it led me to pick up ‘Salem’s Lot in the library! Which set me off on a journey into King’s work as well as horror itself. The Hunger Games – all three of them! – I’m grateful to for providing entertainment on a long train journey from Hull to Cardiff, after a friend insisted I read it. It was at the point in my early 20s when I had the (incorrect!) assumption that YA just wasn’t for me. But reading it stripped me of that idea and I’ve tried to champion YA ever since.

I’m grateful to Stardust, the first Neil Gaiman book I read. I absolutely loved it. And I’m grateful to Small Gods, which I picked up in the local library, and which helped me discover Discworld.

I’d say out of these, it’s Anne Rice’s book that probably had the biggest impact on me, especially in terms of my interests and the direction I took my writing at the time. Speaking of, there’s a few books about writing that I’m grateful to, as well, largely for helping me improve my own craft!

These include King’s On Writing, The Emotion Thesaurus and Mastering Showing and Telling in Your Fiction. Honestly, as a writer, you need to constantly work on your craft, and these books are great for that.

There are many, many more I could mention, but I’ll stop and there and ask, instead, what books are you grateful for?