Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books that Influenced My Life

It’s time again for the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews.
Today’s topic is: Books that Influenced My Life
BOY, this is a tough one. I kind of think everything we read influences us, at least a little bit. But, I’ll do my best to be a little more specific…
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and The Monster at the End of this Book (featuring Grover)
These two books are quite likely the reason I love to read. They were read to me over and over and over and never got old (SPOILER ALERT: I was ALWAYS surprised to find out Grover was the monster at the end of the book, lol). I bought and read both books to my daughter, and she is a huge reader, too, so who knows…
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey and The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
These were my first real forays into fantasy… I remember my fourth grade teacher didn’t believe I’d read “The Hobbit” when I did a book report on it. I also read one of the poems from it for a poetry contest that same year. But as amazing as “The Hobbit” was,  “The Dragonriders of Pern” and “The Chronicles of Prydain” stimulated my imagination like nothing else. I wrote what we call “fan fic” for both (especially the Prydain books), and I dreamed I impressed my own dragon (or sometimes just a fire lizard, which I honestly wanted in the worst way). I painted a L’eggs pantyhose egg gold and pretended to be Eilonwy from the Prydain Chronicles. With the exception of the Valdemar series (which I discovered as an adult), they were and still are my favorite fantasy books.
Anything written by Janet Dailey
She was the first romance author I couldn’t get enough of. She was amazing. Yes, she wrote during the uber-alpha male era of the 70s and 80s but I loved her and owned everything she’d written and read them so much I virtually had them memorized. I was incredibly dismayed and disillusioned when she plagiarized Nora Roberts and I donated everything she’d written to a thrift store as a result. There are times I regret that decision, but can’t go back and change time, and I never ever bought anything she wrote after that. Honestly, her perfidy was crushing…
Prescription for Nutritional Healing
It’s a little embarrassing how often this book shows up in posts, but I’m telling you–I discovered this book in the early 90s and, up until that time, I had no clue you could use herbal remedies or food or supplements to treat or avoid ailments. Seriously. No clue. Of course, remember this was before the internet was really a thing, so information wasn’t quite so readily available. You could find it, but you had to know what to look for first. I happened to be dating a man who was very ill and conventional medicine was actually making him sicker. In a desperate move, he went to a holistic doctor and, along with a lot of other things, she recommended he buy the book. We both did, and it started me down a path I’ll never regret following.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and The China Study by T. Colin Campbell
So, I’m not a vegan, so almost didn’t put “The China Study” on here because that’s really the focus of this book (basically how animal products make us fat and sick). However, it did help launch me into a lengthy, decades long search into nutrition. I drive people a little crazy sometimes because I kind of know a lot about all the “diets” out there. I have my own feelings on things that I won’t share here because, OMG, nothing starts an argument faster than bringing up the Keto diet, etc. That said, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan is hands down the best book I’ve ever read about food, followed closely by his other book “In Defense of Food”. If you’re interested in a slightly edited version of the book, you can check out his PBS show, In Defense of Food, here.
There are so many more books I could talk about, but … I won’t. You’re probably already bored and wishing my list would end! LOL… what about you? What books have influence your life?