To choose only three makes this a challenge. I would probably have to go with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis for the first one. A teacher read it aloud to us in the fifth grade I believe and I think it was the first fantasy book I was exposed to unless you count television where I had seen cartoons of The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn. And a cartoon of The Swan Princess that made me fall in love with Tchaikovsky. I haven’t been able to find this cartoon, there is a newer version that isn’t it, but this one had a haunting melody of Swan Lake, which also reminds me of The Last Unicorn, it wouldn’t surprise me if my mind didn’t combine the two to create a cartoon that never existed, because my memories as a child were very fluid and were rarely accurate. I seemed to live in a fantasy most of the time so telling what was real and what wasn’t is hard for me.
The second book would have to be Dragonriders of Pern my Anne McCaffery. I got it in the library when I ran out of Margaret Henry horse books to read, I loved Misty of Chincoteague, so that would have been my first foray into science fiction. Following that I would go on to discover Andre Norton and Ursula K LeGuin, and eventually, Jack Vance and a whole bunch of amazing writers.
The third book I am going to go with Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, because it made me feel like I could read anything, it was the unabridged edition. It was a very thick volume, and ignited a love for classical literature and a fortitude to read to the end no matter the size of the book. It also taught me what not to do, because there are spots where it is difficult for a modern reader, and I know what doesn’t work and what does. Even great writers can make mistakes.
This was a tough call, because a lot of books have influenced me greatly. Jack Vance’s Lyonesse, George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones, Ursula K LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which I read also in the fifth grade and did a book report on, Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, my love for Arthurian legends, and Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber. Cj Cherryh’s Cyteen. And many, many more. I could keep going.
I used to peruse thrift stores for old sci-fi fantasy books, anything with Del Rey, or Ballantine, or DAW, or Fawcett, or Tor. I had old editions of the Lord of the Rings from the 60s, a copy of 1984 from the 50s and Dune by Frank Herbert from the 70s. All of these are gone because I couldn’t go through my books when I moved and had to get rid of them in a hurry.
I still have my 60s copy of the Silmarillion because it was in my purse at the time. But that is it. I feel the loss everyday, wish I could have planned more and panicked less. But the past is the past, and I have the memories and can find the stories easily enough.
The Infamous Jennisfora Strikes Again...or something like that 