C) Age: 24 - 30 Subject: Books that left the most indelible impression. Story: 18 - 23, I almost exclusively read Christian books. There were some notable exceptions like Boris Yeltsins autobiography and the anthology entitledTwelve Poets (featuring Shakespeare, Pope, Donne, Wordsworth, Browning, Keats, Housman, Robinson, Dickinson, Yeats, T.S Elliot), but I viewed myself as a pilgrim, and only read the books designed to spur me on in the pilgrimage, and only wrote the things that could spur others on in the pilgrimage. It was during those years that I wrote the poems that I later published as the book entitled Till The Promised Land & Other Poems. Actually, the original title was Pilgrimage Poems. It was during the same period that I conceived the idea of Pilgrims Magazine. It later ran up to the fifth edition under the name Inspiration For Life, after some friends persuaded me that the name Pilgrims wouldnt attract anyone. For the firm I set up to publish the magazine, I chose the name Pilgrims Publications. This time, no one could dissuade me. Then something changed as I closed in on my 24th birthday. I purchased 2 books - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Richard III by William Shakespeare - from a bookshop, and as I savoured them, they reignited the literary dreams of my high school years - the dreams I had nurtured before I became a full-blown pilgrim. I figured that I could pursue those dreams and still remain a pilgrim. I certainly became desperate to write a book with the power, the beauty and the timelessness of David Copperfield. I knew that if I was to write a classic, I needed to read classics. Thats how classic fiction, classic drama and classic poetry regained their place in my shelves. I feel on course towards writing the classic novel. And yes, I am still a pilgrim. Perhaps not exactly the same pilgrim I was back then, but a pilgrim all the same. Top 15 classics read between ages 24 and 30: 1) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. 2) Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. 3)A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. 4) Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. 5) 1984 by George Orwell. 6) The Great Gatsby by F. Scot Fitzgerlad. 7) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. 8) To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee. 9) The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. 10) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. 11) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. 12) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. 13) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. No, I didnt finish it, havent finished it, but I enjoyed many of the celebrated plays and sonnets. 14) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. 15) Allan Quartermain by H. Rider Haggard.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 07:56:27 +0000
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