Originally Posted by saltwn

Whew! If I go way way back to that first influence I would see a particular
Bible. A New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs and the words to some old hymns. It was very worn from reading and that fact enlightened my emotions to the tenderness of its owner. A good big man who wore a white shirt with the sleeves always rolled a quarter of the way; shaved with a straight razor and had a tattoo of a ship on his chest. My uncle.
Tom Sawyer. Profiles in Courage (children's abridged), Old Yeller, Little House in the Big Woods, Teseract [alternate title 'A wrinkle in Time']

I read a lot of biographies and encyclopedias as a child
collections of Greek Myths, poetry, and short stories. I loved old books. I read an 1897 school book (literature) from cover to cover. In it were excerpts from Don Quixote, The Devil and Daniel Webster, and long poems and odes.


Teen age years I reread Gone With the Wind and I think I was influenced by that woman (Scarlett) who renovated a farm, built a business, and had children anyway.
The Yearling.
Dickens, Bret Harte (Mark Twain's mentor), Mark Twain, Jack London (who wrote about the south seas as well as the northern climbs)- who really did work his way to his destination on a Chinese ship.
I used to like to read a lot of plays.

The Parsifal Mosaic by Robert Ludlum helped me to understand the socialism vs. the Czar thing. A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables (still my favorite), The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Tacitus' Germanicus and Agricola.
I love the popular authors John Grisham and Stephan King -master of characterization- who I think is underrated due to his genre of choice.
But Non fiction is still my favorite.