A fellow blogger, Naomi at Consumed By Ink, asked me what books that have inspired me as a writer. Like so many writers, I think just about everything I read inspires me. This list is one of books that have a continuing inspiration on me. So here I go with the list. The books are in an alphabetical order by author. If there is no author, then title.
Writers That Inspired and Influenced Me
Ernest Hemingway
Albert Camus
Graham Greene
Yasunari Kawabata
Alice Munro
William Trevor
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jhumpa Lahiri
Books That Inspired and Influenced Me
Each of these books has sent me off on a new adventure.
1. Hans Christian Anderson: Fairy Tales
2. The Arabian Nights
3. Matsuo Basho: On Love and Barley, Haiku of Basho
4. Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
5. The King James Version of the Bible (especially St. Mark’s Gospel)
6. Elizabeth Bishop: Poems
7. Ray Bradbury: Zen in the Art of Writing
8. Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus
9. Truman Capote: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
10. Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
11. E.L. Doctorow: Ragtime
12. Harlan Ellison: Dangerous Visions
13. Shusaku Endo: Deep River
14. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
15. Athol Fugard: The Road to Mecca (A Play)
16. Eden Gray: A Complete Guide to the Tarot
17. Graham Greene: Heart of the Matter
18. Grimm’s Fairy Tales
19. Edith Hamilton: Mythology
20. Seamus Heaney: Poems
21. Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
22. Ernest Hemingway: Short Stories
23. O. Henry: Short Stories
24. Richard Hugo: The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing
25. Victor Hugo: Les Miserables
26. The I Ching
27. Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House
28. James Jones: Some Came Running
29. James Joyce: Dubliners
30. Yasunari Kawabata: The Existence and Discovery of Beauty
31. Yasunari Kawabata: The Old Capital
32. Par Lagerkvist: Barabbas
33. Laotse: Tao te ching
34. Jhumpa Lahiri: Interpreter of Maladies
35. Livy: History of Rome
36. Federico Garcia Lorca: In Praise of Duende
37. Norman Maclean: A River Runs Through It
38. Somerset Maugham: The Razor’s Edge
39. Alice Munro: Stories
40. Pablo Neruda: Poem
41. Frank O’Connor: The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story
42. Molly Peacock: How to read a poem and start a poetry circle
43. Chaim Potok: The Chosen
44. Robert J. Ray: The Weekend Novelist
45. J D Salinger: Nine Stories
46. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagan
47. Poets in Their Youth: A Memoir by Eileen Simpson
48. Sophocles: Oedipus Rex
49. Sophocles: Antigone
50. Junichiro Tanizaki: In Praise of Shadows
51. William Trevor: Nights at the Alexandra
52. William Trevor: Stories
53. Anne Tyler: The Accidental Tourist
54. Derek Walcott: Poems
Uncle Bardie's Stories & Such 
I would like to recommend Mark Doty. His primary genre is poetry, but his prose is awesome as well. He blew me away with his book Dog Years. His ability to describe what seems indescribable is breathtaking. After reading Dog Years, I bought The Art of Description. I am not a writer, but I wanted to know how he did that!! He has other memoirs but I don’t think I am emotionally strong enough to handle them right now. I can’t recommend him highly enough!
I will have to look for him. Thanks.
Great list
Oh, I forgot to mention that my blog name is Consumed By Ink – you must have had the word ‘inspire’ on the brain. 🙂
Oops. At least the link worked.
I love seeing the books that have inspired writers, and anyone really. I want to ask why/how have these books inspired you, but that would be mean, because there are so many. I will definitely be coming back to look at this from time to time, since there are so many here that I haven’t read, and a few authors that I haven’t heard of.
I just have to say that I loved The Old Man and the Sea, when I read it in High School, and I think I was in the minority, so it’s nice to see it on the list. Alice Munro, too, of course!
I haven’t forgotten the post you suggested I write, but it might take a little while. I have been working on it, though.
Thanks for mentioning me in your introduction! 🙂
I do look forward to it.