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I read Bring Out Your Dead: The Great Plague of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793 by J.H. Powell years ago, and it caused me to consider the different ways people react to times of great crisis. Why are some people heroes and stay to provide aid at great personal risk and others demonize the victims and consider only their own safety? I spent days considering which type I would truly want to be and years wondering if I would have the courage of my convictions. The descriptions of Philadelphia even caused me to go there to see the many historical buildings that still stand.
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck is partly to blame for a life-long devotion to long, meandering road trips. Experience has led me to believe that Steinbeck is guilty of some embroidering, but I forgive him.
Reading Walden by Thoreau at a young age led to a simplified life which I have never regretted, nor have I felt compelled to explain myself to others since we all have to work out what we value for ourselves.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard has the same effect on me as a day at an art museum. When I put the book down or step out of the museum after hours of immersion in art, my vision is altered and I see the astonishing beauty of everything. I walk around in awe until the effect wears off. I've read it multiple times until it is as familiar as Goldilocks was in my childhood.
The novels of Tom Robbins have a similar effect. They infect me with the certainty that life is an incredible adventure, imagination is a gift worth cultivating, and words are magic and beautiful. If I start to forget, I read one again to get myself straightened out.
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