books that changed me

Jason listed his the books that influenced him and asked me to list mine. If you click here, you'll find a list of the 20 books that helped shape my sensibilities, beginning all the way back when I was a young boy.

At the top of the list, of course, is the master of magic realism - Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose One Hundred Years of Solitude changed the entire way I write. Previous to my exposure to him, I had kept my love for "literate" fiction apart from my beloved marchen. I never thought that there was a way to break down the walls of the artificial ghetto that condemned tales of wonder to a select, younger audience. But this author managed to fused the two, creating a new landscape where magic and social realism stand side-by-side.

See what shaped me - and make your own list!