30 Days of Book Talk discussion

If you were able to go back in time, which book would you make your younger self read?

I wish Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain had been published when I was still a 16-year-old shy, uncertain introvert.

Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality by Brian Little would have also helped me a lot.

As it is, I am still really glad I did read them in 2020.

I think if I'd read Plutarch's biographies when I was younger, I would have developed an appreciation for Greek and Roman classics, and ancient and world history.

There are quite a few ancient to medieval classics that I think would appeal to young boys, but they never got recommended to us.

The books I’d make my younger self read are all written in Persian, one is written by a Sufi master, one is Shahnameh, and the two other are Golestan and Bustan by Sa’di.

not really a book....but i wish i knew classicals were my choice genre

I don't know about books I would make my younger self read, but there are several I'd like to tell the young me not to waste valuable reading time on.

There are two books that I've mentioned on other threads that were "change my life" books. But I'm not sure I would recommend them to my younger self...I think the books came into my life when I was at the right time to benefit from them; if I read them earlier and I hadn't had certain experiences, they might not have had such a profound impact on me.

But maybe I would encourage my younger self to read more nonfiction, as I never developed much of a taste for it and now have little patience for any reading that I might God forbid learn something from...I want only to be entertained.

Ange, I’m in a similar boat. One novel that powerfully affected me in my early 20s I’d actually attempted as a teen and given up on in disgust! Books really do have to come along at the right time in your life.

I’ve debated whether I wish current offerings in the YA genre were available when I was a young teen. There’s a lot of books out there I might have loved but am not going to appreciate the same way now. On the other hand, the YA genre is largely geared toward adults looking for more easy reading today, in a way it wasn’t at the time. I think I was reading more books about real teen issues rather than what adults want to read about teens or want to think teens are reading.

May I ask a question that might relate (I think) to this one?

Of course!! :)

Are there any books anyone wished their younger selves hadn’t read at that precise point in time?

Gogol wrote: "Are there any books anyone wished their younger selves hadn’t read at that precise point in time?"

Yes, more than one. Run Baby Run and a lot of guff about the Salem witch trials which were on the same shelf in the school library. I know Cruz' book was supposed to "scare kids straight" but what it did was give me an obsession with the occult that took a longish time to get over.

I had a similar experience, I think books read at an impressionable age change life trajectories, and I think not reading certain books is as important as reading certain others.