I loved fairy tales as a small child, and I continued to read and love them long after my friend outgrew them. My parents had a book on Vietnamese tales, and one with Swedish ones, and later I found Andrew Lang’s Fairy books with tales collected all over the world. I was fascinated that tales like the Cinderella story had many different versions. In the Swedish one, for example, Cinderella went to three balls, dressed first in silver, then gold, then in a bejewelled gown, and though she dropped the shoes, it wasn’t made of glass. She also only had one stepsister, and the story didn’t end with the wedding. No, the stepsister pushed Cinderella into the sea, where she was going to be forced to marry a sea monster, while the stepsister made herself look like Cinderella. Luckily the prince noticed, and managed to save his bride, though not before she was turned into a serpent that he had to dip into three baths, winter, milk and water, to save.

When I was around 10, my mother took a university course on children’s books, and read Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, which I picked up and which had a profound impact on my ability to comprehend and analyze my reading. I’se been a long time since I read it, so I’m quoting Wikipedia on it.

Bettelheim analyzed fairy tales in terms of Freudian psychology in “The Uses of Enchantment” (1976). He discussed the emotional and symbolic importance of fairy tales for children, including traditional tales once considered too dark, such as those collected and published by the Brothers Grimm. Bettelheim suggested that traditional fairy tales, with the darkness of abandonment, death, witches, and injuries, allowed children to grapple with their fears in remote, symbolic terms. If they could read and interpret these fairy tales in their own way, he believed, they would get a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

I’ve also realized I missed a book in my list on books which impacted me, namely One Thousand and One Nights. My father’s parents has a lovely edition in a set of 6 books, which I used to read every time I visited. I was very happy when they gifted the set to me when I turned 16. It’s a 1920s edition with gorgeous illustration by Gudmund Hentze. Also abridged- too racy sequences are edited out, though the book helpful points out that even if the edited text is “very amusing,it doesn’t conform to our time’s view on morality”. It’s also not all of the stories, though I’m unsure how many there should be.

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When I was in my preteens and early teens, THE most influential author and illustrator for me was Inger Edelfeldt, a Swedish author and illustrator. She had an enormous impact on me. She was young; only about 15 years older than me and looked incredibly cool. In fact the one and only fan letter I ever wrote, I wrote to her. And she answered! A very nice long letter too. And yesterday she commented one of my photos on Facebook. I know, super silly of me to get excited about, and no real mystery either. It was a photo of Myra and S, and a quick check confirmed she and S are friends. Still. It reminded me of how much I loved her art, and I thought it would be much nicer to talk about her instead.

If you are a Tolkien fan you may have encountered her art; in 1985 she illustrated the Tolkien calendar. She also made the covers not only for Tolkien but for a lot of other books as well. My first encounter with her was the cover of the books in the original Earthsea-trilogy, and it was those cover which made me want to read them.

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Born in 1957 she debuted in 1977, but I didn’t read her until I was eleven so I will talk about the three books which meant the most to me in the order I read them. This was in the early ’80s, and the word “queer” didn’t exist. I knew what homosexual meant, but that there were any other flavours of sexuality or lack thereof or transsexuality, simply didn’t exist in media. In the books, I read het was the norm, and so it was in the show I watched. If a gay character was ever introduced it was only for an episode, and never as an important character in his or her own right. Edelfeldt changed my world by introducing other ways to be than the norm.

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I’ve seen this all around my f-list, and as I love talking books, so...

1. Favourite book from childhood.
This is near impossible to answer. How long does childhood last? However you define it, it’s several years and you change so much. What I loved when I was four had certainly changed when I was eight, and so on. And I’ve always loved books, to name only my favourite would take a long time anyway. Let’s take the book which was the most important, to me from the age of eight until I was eighteen; J. R. R. Tolkien's>Lord of the Rings

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When I read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova the first time it felt like a book written specifically for me. I love long, slow-moving books. I love historical mysteries. I love vampires. I love multiple time-lines. I love history. And though I can’t say that this particular book had an unusual impact on me, it is representative for a few interest that has followed me for a long time.

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