On Facebook, there’s a meme asking people to list ten books that influenced them, without putting too much thought into it. Yeah, like I can limit it to ten 😀
The ensuing conversations reminded me that when I was about 12, we got a couple of boxes of books from my grandfather — mostly Louis L’Amour westerns, but a few tucked in the bottom were, ahem, totally unsuitable for a girl my age, like Frank Yerby’s The Golden Hawk, which I hid under my bed so my mother wouldn’t find out I was reading it and brought out to read at night by flashlight when I was supposed to be sleeping.
Talk about eye-opening! I can honestly say that I learned more about the complexities and ambiguities about love, hate, sex, and revenge from that book than from any other single source. I must have read it several dozen times over the next few years, until I left for college.
I don’t think I want to go back to read that book. I’ve moved to far along. But I’m thinking I might want to read more of Yerby’s writing one of these days.
The House at the End of the Road 
Yeah, ten books that have stuck with you . . . either my mind blanks because I don’t know where to start, or the list is well over 20 without thinking hard. (I don’t recall anyone else listing Joy of Cooking, though.)
I’ve never read Frank Yerby. I might have to look him up. 🙂
Some of his stuff is apparently quite edgy and political. I only ever read the historical fiction, though.