The 4-ish books that helped shape who I am
Four of the books that showed me truth, compassion, authenticity, morality, and how to live a life of meaning, integrity, and joy.
Hello friend,
Now that time has rolled back an hour and the sun will set just before 5pm here, it’s the perfect time for cozy evening reading.
I want to share with you some of the books that have helped shape who I am and the way I live my life.
These books have played pivotal roles in my growth as a person from a young age and up through my early adult years. I’ve listed them in chronological order with a little about them and how they’ve impacted me.
While all of these books are excellent and are arguably classics, I do think the timing I read them in my life also played a very important role.
If you’ve read these, I’d love to know your thoughts and if they’d made any kind of impression on you as well.
Top 4-ish books
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
This should probably be Shel Silverstein in general rather than just this one book. When I was 5-6, my family lived in the Chicago area and we’d regularly have the library’s Bookmobile park in our neighborhood (just outside our home!). I loved those days the most and every time I’d march onto the bus and crouch down at the kids section, I’d see Shel Silverstein’s books. I ended up checking them out fairly often and this was the start of my love for poetry.
The absurdist nature of the poems were a portal for my imagination to reach further corners to “what ifs” and possibilities of the world that I couldn’t dream up myself. If my little kid brain had been hooked up to a scan you could probably see live action of different areas glowing and expanding.
Even the book titled Where the Sidewalk Ends had me pondering if the sidewalk really did end somewhere in the world and what it would be like. “Will I ever see it??”
The world as I knew it was very normal and mundane and the wild ideas in his poetry gave me a curiosity for the world that I didn’t have before. They also spawned my love for literature and reading in general.
Writing this, I just realized I’d always dreamed of owning my own copies of these books and I never have. Maybe I owe it to my younger self to finally add them to my shelves.
Poem from A Light in the Attic
Put Something In
Draw a crazy picture,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.
Honorable mentions: The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?" the boy asked.
"Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure.”
I’m not sure if this book came before or after the next book but I’m going to list it first. I probably first read them both around the same time.
The Alchemist is a novel about a shepherd boy who leaves his family and life in Spain to travel to find a treasure he dreamed about around the Egyptian pyramids. It’s a book about destiny, manifesting your destiny, overcoming obstacles on your path, and a lesson that while your path may take various turns, you will eventually find your way to your ultimate destination if you keep the faith in yourself and your abilities.
This book is one that encouraged me to seek out what I want in life and follow my own dreams and not just wander down well-trodden paths of all who’ve come before me. It’s a book that showed me your life can look different than those around you, it’s ok, and we all have our own purpose we’re here to fulfill.
Out of all of these, this is the one book I’ve gifted over and over, even at work holiday parties for Secret Santa gifts. My younger self used the book as a thermostat to gauge the likes and interests of the people around me and I’ve been known to mutter “Never trust anyone who says they don’t like The Alchemist” once or twice.
My older self knows we all learn life lessons in different ways and not everyone will have the same aha moments through specific books.
But boy was it fun to have people read it and then come back later for their thoughts and how widely the thoughts spanned. It was almost as much fun as when I started learning about MBTI personality types.
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
“Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our lives trying to satisfy other people’s demands. We have learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.”
When I was 17 I worked in a candy store at the mall and I quickly became friends with most of the people that worked in the mall because most people like candy.
One person I became friends with was an elderly custodian. Whenever he got to emptying the bins outside of my store, he’d pop in and we’d chat for a bit. (Side note, it’s sad to think he’s likely passed on by now.)
One day he brought me this book, The Four Agreements, along with a pair of Kokopelli earrings just as a nice gesture. This kindness alone was so special and poignant.
It’s a pretty short and quick read that you could easily read in a day. It’s a book sharing the Toltec wisdom about 4 principles of life which are:
Be impeccable with your word
Don’t take anything personally
Don’t make assumptions
Always do your best
The book outlines each of the four principles with insight on why each are meaningful for living an authentic and fulfilling life.
At the time I first read this book, I was in my senior year of high school, and you know how high school can be with irrelevant fabricated drama in teenagers lives. Reading this at a time when I was about to become and set the foundation for how I would act as an adult was quite pivotal.
I think because it didn’t have long drawn out explanations for the principles, but was short and concise with its wisdom on living, it showed me that maybe it really is as straightforward as those 4 things. Life doesn’t have to be complex and difficult. It can be simple, meaningful, and beautiful just by choosing to be a beacon of light for yourself and those around you.
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite... Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”
I think I read this book when I was 20-21 and at the time, it was probably the largest book I’d ever read and the first one I couldn’t wait to steal a few moments in my day to get a few more pages in. I was insatiable.
This book might be the top “shaper” book of my life. I entered adulthood in the year 2000 and it was a time, fresh off the 90’s that everything was going pretty well in the world.
In the schools I attended we weren’t taught a lot about Africa and to be honest, I’m not sure what made me purchase this book when I did. I think I was just browsing Borders bookstore (RIP) and thought why not read about this man I see often in the news.
No matter what I say right now about it, will not do it justice and I really hope you read it for yourself.
From the beginning of the book, when Mandela describes his birth and youth growing up in rural South Africa and having to change his name from Rolihlahla to an “easier to pronounce” English name, Nelson (given to him by his school teacher), my attention was immediately captured by this world that I really knew nothing about.
I honestly couldn’t believe the audacity of the English settlers that came in and created this demeaning and violent apartheid state like they just had the right to waltz in any corner of the globe and take over. (I think we all know another place like this..)
The book takes you through his entire life and details the apartheid and his role in fighting against it, his arrests, and ultimately his decades in prison, and then his presidency.
It was the prison time that really changed something in me while reading it. Mandela’s convictions, morals, and will to live with such empathy, compassion, love and unwavering strength to fight for equality and truth through everything that was done to him made me believe that there is great importance and worth in standing up for the things you believe in.
I realized that if you’re going to believe in something, you need to believe in it with your whole heart and to never let anyone sway you, especially when it comes to morality, equality, and basic human rights.
There was one point during his prison sentence toward the end of his 27 years served, where he was doing backbreaking labor as an older man. They had him breaking apart large stones for hours with inadequate tools (spades and pickaxes) to build a wall and to dig trenches.
You could see they were trying to break his spirit but they never did. In his journal entries he would talk about how he felt bad for his captors because they too, were sacrificed by the system and used as pawns. The way he could still write with hope and love after almost 3 decades was so profound.
Every so often the human race gets sent these incredible humans to give us hope and I don’t think there will ever be anyone quite like Nelson Mandela again.
This book made such an impact on me that I have a tattoo for it on my foot. It’s a tattoo that always reminds me to stand up for what’s right and to stand up for people who may not be able to stand up for themselves.
Honorable mention: They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The Three Lost Boys from Sudan. This book really affected me when I was 22. I remember having a really hard time eating and feeling guilty for everything we have in the western world. It will break your heart.
So there we have it- the top books that have helped mold me as a person within their pages. There are others that have been significant in my life. For example, I was hemming and hawing about including the book of Emily Dickinson’s letters. They really carried me through a hard time but while I found comfort in them, I don’t know that the book stroked my gray matter in the same way as the others. :)
What books have helped shape who you are as a person?
Earlier this year I read 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think and I think if I’d read it in my early 20’s it would’ve been on this list as well. There’s something to be said for timing and how and when the fates bring things into your life.
I’ll be interested to see if I ever come across another book that has such an impact on me that it helps “shape” who I am or if those days are behind me. What do you think? Can we continue changing the form of our core selves well into our adult years?
X,
Courtney
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