Books that inspired you

[JaneYoung]

I am a little bit shy about posting this. Books can be very personal and can become dear friends. I have this info on my Facebook profile and copy/pasted. I may add a couple later, as well:


Beautiful Joe by Margaret Marshall Saunders (who felt she would not be taken seriously as a woman writer, so she wrote it under Marshall Saunders)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Joe

I read this book as a young child and still have it. The cover is stained and the pages smell old just the way I like them. This book helped set me on a path to help abused and neglected animals to the best of my ability and to my family's long suffering credit.

Another book that helped shape my life was a book by Irving Stone, The Agony and The Ecstasy. A novel based on the life of Michelangelo. I found the book at eye level in my school library when I was 12 and it basically remained checked out in my name for the rest of junior high, every 10 days. I understood the concept of a Renaissance man - very clearly.

Another book was by Louisa May Alcott - Little Women. I read her other books as well, but Little Women was the one that taught me that women can do many things, have many diverse interests, and can be adventurous, spontaneous, roll with life's punches, and laugh.

There are many other books I've read that have inspired me over time but those 3 are pretty much at the core of who I am today.

Jane