There’s a meme going around asking folks to list the 5-10 books that really influenced you. I don’t know if I can do a simple list of 5-10 books, because books have been such a major part of my life – and a major influence – since I was very young. But I can do a snapshot of influence, in no particular order…
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
The inhabitants of Tortall (Tamora Pierce) and Valdemar (Mercedes Lackey)
Stephen Covey’s books (yeah, the time management guy)
Seanan McGuire – all of her books and her as a person
Charles deLint – everything, but especially Greenmantle
Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea books, and everything else she wrote and said
Gael Baudino – the Strands series, the Dragon series (!!), and Gossamer Axe
David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous (oh, so much!)
Everything Carrie Fisher wrote and presented
Stewart Farrar – his solo books and his presentations
Gerald Gardner – everything he ever wrote, everywhere
Robin Wood – When, Why… If, and her as a person
Jack Kornfield’s After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
Rachel Pollack’s Forest of Souls
Jane Yolen’s Sister Light, Sister Dark, and all the books that followed
Patricia Crowther’s Lid Off the Cauldron
Robert Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and several others
Several of the smaller series by Anne McCaffery
And, loath as I am to admit it, Thendara House and the Free Amazons of Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradly (phooey).