For me, it was a book called ‘The Outsiders’ by S.E Hinton. It is known as a literary classic these days, but it was quite hard hitting when it was released back in the 1960s.
In a nut shell; It is about a group of semi-impoverished greaser friends growing up in 1960s Tulsa, Oklahoma, and all the life challenges they face, and how they react to prejudice against them whilst coping with family issues.
It was the first book that made me realise that some people in society don’t get it easy growing up, and I discovered what it meant to live on the ‘wrong side of town’ and what societal prejudice was. The outsiders was the first novel I read that brought up hard subjects like; domestic violence, alcoholism, street gang violence etc.
It was the first book to shatter my naive way of thinking about the world, at 13 years old! It is still one of my favourite stories to this day, and for all its slightly dark themes, I love the compassionate friendship and brotherhood that is displayed in this book!
Very personally, I’m between two.
“Hamlet” defined how I see stories. It was one of the first books I ever read, when I was 3, and made me obsessed with Shakespeare, old stories, and dramatic anti-heroes to the point of becoming a History major far away in the future. Hamlet defined how I think about stories, and about the world, from the very start of my life.
Then there’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. I read it when I was 12, and my mom briefly told me that it had been a controversial book back in its time. It shaped a lot how a see the idea of beauty and art. It’s still my favourite book, one I go back to every year, and there’s something uniquely precious about its preface, the way it shows its ideas, and the history behind it all. It doesn’t just say beauty is important, art is vital: it shows it. When I started studying maps at University, people would always ask why I chose the ones I did, and for most of them the answer “because they were beautiful” seemed shallow. For my advisor, who knew about my thing for Oscar Wilde’s work, it made perfect sense.