True Ancestor (the AmbivaBro) listed his, inspiring me to put mine in his comments. What's inspired, and inspiring, about his list is that it juxtaposes The Indoor Noisy Book with Henderson the Rain King, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind with a Travis McGee novel by John D. MacDonald, The Diary of Anne Frank with A Wrinkle in Time.
This is the truth, man! The books that really stamp and brand us aren't all "great" books (the only official classic on my list is Anna Karenina). There are obscure books that just hit us right for mysterious, utterly individual reasons. Their cadences become the ground bass of our minds. And there need be no apology for this. On the contrary, it suggests that no book written with passion and sincerity is ever lost, because somewhere, someone was rapt and shaped by it.
Go on over to T.A.'s, read his list and mine, and add one of your own that is equally honest and peculiar. In this way we can honor (and even introduce each other to) some of those "lost" books that aren't lost because -- as in the "Fahrenheit 451" meme -- you embody them.
- amba
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