I realised the other day that, of all the books I’ve read in my life, there are five that have either touched me deeply or have changed my life. I thought if I shared them here now, someone out there might decide to read them too and maybe they will touch someone else.

WARNING – SPOILERS!

1. 1984 – Bridge To Terabithia; Katherine Paterson; published 1977

   I read this book when I was thirteen. It was the first book that ever shocked me and the first book that ever made me cry. Don’t read on if you don’t want spoilers because it is impossible to write about this book without mentioning the single most important event of the whole story. I remember enjoying the book very much and feeling very comfortable with the characters. I enjoyed the friendship between Jesse and Leslie and when Jesse went off to spend the day at the museum with his teacher instead of his best friend, I didn’t even see it coming. See what coming? The first death I had ever encountered in a book – and the death of another child at that. For the last few chapters, detailing how Jess dealt with the death of Leslie, I cried. Profusely. I sobbed all the way to the end of the book.

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   Years later, I have read the book several times and it still has the same effect on me – I still cry from the moment Jess is told of Leslie’s death, right to the end of the book. I recently saw the movie and, boy, was I glad I’d chosen to watch it at home on DVD instead at the cinema. I sobbed for the entire last half-hour of the movie – I’ve never seen a movie so true to the original story. I was terrified at first that Hollywood might have ruined my beloved story – made it a happy-ever-after where Leslie didn’t die. Thankfully, they didn’t shy away from such an important part of the book and it played out on screen exactly as it did in the book, right down to the smallest detail.

   I would recommend this book to everyone, adults and children alike. I know that it is used in the classroom from 5th grade (Year 6, UK) upwards because of the themes it deals with – finding yourself; learning to trust others; insecurity; grief and loss. It is a beautiful story and the depth of emotion contained within it will not fail to touch your heart.

2. 1987 – Flowers in the Attic (and sequels); Virginia Andrews; published 1979

   This book was recommended to me by other girls at school. It didn’t seem that interesting when I first heard of it, so I didn’t bother. My best friend at the time kept pestering me to read it though, so I did. And there it was. Another book to make me cry.

   This book is a heartbreaking read for anyone who is particularly close to siblings and/or parents. In fact, the whole series of books will make you run the whole gamut of emotions from disgust and anger and incredible sadness, to relief and joy, even though the overwhelming emotion is heartbreak and the strongest theme is betrayal – of love and trust. It’s also quite scary to see how, despite our best efforts, we sometimes do take on the sins of our parents.

   I’ve read the five books in this series probably more than ten times now, and just like with “Bridge to Terabithia”, I’ve cried every time. My heart breaks for the main character, Cathy, as she struggles to come to terms with the greed of her mother and the actions it led to – locking her four children up in an attic room for more than three years. The repercussions of those actions reverberate through the entire series which, shockingly, is supposedly based on a true story.

   This book – this series of books – will draw you in and mesmerize you. The best bit for me was actually in the second book – Petals on the Wind, where Cathy returns to confront her mother. I was almost breathless with anticipation during the build up and then satisfyingly shocked and horrified at the outcome. The weakest book in the series is probably book three, “If There Be Thorns”, which is told from the alternating points of view of Cathy’s two sons, Jory and Bart, about how they see their parents and what happens when they find out the truth of their parents’ childhood. Or maybe, in another sense, it isn’t the weakest – maybe it’s the most disturbing, which is why I find it so difficult to read.

   Book Four, “Seeds of Yesterday” returns to Cathy’s point of view, a few years after the events of “If There Be Thorns”. Reading this book, you realize that there will never be a happy ending for Cathy, and again, it’s a heartbreaking read. Finally, we go right back to the beginning with a prequel, “Garden of Shadows”, finding out that everything we thought we knew from the first four books isn’t actually what we knew at all as it reveals shocking secrets about Cathy’s mother and grandparents.

   And with that, I’ll leave you to read the books….

3. 1989 – Children of the Dust; Louise Lawrence; published 1985

   I was eighteen when I first read this book and it scared me to death! It’s the story of three generations who live through the aftermath of a nuclear attack. The first part of the book, about the nuclear attack itself, is the scariest part and the bit about the dog will have you crying your eyes out. We move on to the next part of the book, the next generation, who live in an underground bunker keeping safe until it’s time to return to the surface. Finally, we find out about the generation after that, who try their best to survive on a planet decimated by nuclear war.

   It sounds like the most depressing read ever, but surprisingly, it isn’t. The pervading theme of the whole story is hope. In fact, the final segment of the book is the part that finally helped me to get over my fears about nuclear war. Even though it’s fiction, it gives hope that the world can and will carry on after such devastation and that the human race will survive, even though they may have to mutate slightly to deal with it.

   If you are the sort of person who has a fear of nuclear attack, then this is a good book to read, even though the first segment is incredibly hard and uncomfortable. It’s worth persevering until you reach the final chapters and the warmth of hope seeps into you. The story is bittersweet, really, but a definite must-read for anyone who likes their emotions to be dragged around the block a few times whilst reading.

4. 1993 – The Rainbow Gate; Freda Warrington; published 1989

   A must-read for anyone who has ever suffered from depression. Unlike the other books I’ve written about, this one falls into the genre of real fantasy, taking the reader, as it does, into another world or, more accurately, plane of existence and turning conventional ideas about religion and reincarnation completely on their heads.

   It’s the story of Helen and her friend, Rianna. Helen can remember that, as children, they often seemed to be in a different world and not the park they had entered. As an adult, Helen discovers that she and Rianna had indeed been walking the boundary between this world and the next – the place people go when they die. However, this is not the heaven many believe in, but another world where the process of reincarnation continues. This land, Tevera, is the home of a bright, happy people – the Chalcenians – and the sombre, depressed people – the Domendrans.

   The fascinating aspect for me was the discovery, later in the book, that being Chalcenic or Domendric was not a race but a state of mind – the state of being happy or depressed. As someone who has suffered from depression, I related very much to the characters who moved in and out of these states of mind and many people who suffer from depression will also recognize the changes.

   I was fascinated, too, by the process by which people arrived in Tevera after they died and what happened to them there. At first, there is a very sinister feel to everything that happens, but this is a story where not everything is as it seems.

   I would recommend this book to people who love the fantasy genre (and indeed I would recommend all of Freda Warrington’s books!). I would recommend it to people who are interested in the hereafter, or theories about life and death and, more especially, I would recommend it to anyone who has ever suffered from depression.

   This is a book I still read today, although it still has such a profound effect on me I prefer to save it up for special occasions. It is a definite must-read.

5. 1994 – Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy; Dirk Benedict; published 1991

   Are you surprised? I’ve moved from fiction to non-fiction – autobiography, really, with this “warts and all” story of actor Dirk Benedict’s battle with cancer.

   I must admit, before I continue, that Dirk has been my favourite actor since I was a child of around ten years old, and would watch him in Battlestar Galactica, so it is no surprise to those who know me that I’ve read his book! When people would ask me, as a teenager, why he was my favourite actor, I couldn’t really say. It was true that, as a sci-fi and action genre fan, I enjoyed BG and The A-Team, but there was something more that I couldn’t quite put into words.

   It wasn’t until I finally managed to get a copy of his book and read it in 1994, that I realised. I think I had somehow known as a child that this man would one day change my life. He did it through this book.

   1994 was a difficult year for me. It was the year when, as a young woman of only twenty-three, I began to suffer from depression and from several other illnesses. I had to leave college and I had no focus in my life. Then I read Dirk’s book, bought for me by my parents as a way to cheer me up and make me feel better. They must have hunted everywhere for it. But then, my mother is the woman who also replaced my copy of Children of the Dust when she saw how unhappy I was that it was lost. I hadn’t got round to replacing it myself, but she surprised me with it one day. Anyway, I digress.

   Dirk’s book, about how he changed his diet and lifestyle to beat cancer without medication was an eye-opener and a page-turner. His insights into what really makes the body tick and heal were an epiphany to me. It was the first time I’d ever heard of macrobiotics and I was fascinated. Now, I can’t say that I immediately began to embrace a macrobiotic lifestyle, or even that I do now, but I did make changes in my life and embrace principles which I read about in that book.

   For the first time, I began to look at what I was eating and how it might be affecting me, and slowly, I changed. I stopped eating meat and cut down on animal products. These days, I’m practically vegan. I began eating grains (although not wheat because I’m intolerant) and have made the effort over the years to eat neutral foods grown naturally in my local environment. I can honestly say that, although I still have minor health issues, I would be much worse were it not for the ideas I found in his book. Two of the seven principles of macrobiotics which I have noticed in the world time and time again are:

   #5. What has a front has a back.

   #6. The bigger the front, the bigger the back.

   Nowhere are these principles more noticeable than in the damage we have done to our environment and climate and if you think about them long enough, you’ll know what I mean, but that’s another article.

   In short, if you are searching for another way, if you think there must be something more out there, get into macrobiotics. Even if the food thing is beyond you, as Dirk wrote inside my copy of his book when I met him a few years ago -“let the notions in this book into your life.”

So there you are. The five books that have touched my life and changed it in some small way. I hope they do the same for you. Thanks for reading!