We asked library-goers: What book really impacted you?
From autobiographies to graphic novels, here are the works that nine strangers at the Cambridge Public Library said stuck with them.
Maybe it got you through a tough time. Maybe you groaned as your high school teacher assigned it, only to discover she may really have been onto something. Maybe you pulled it off the shelf on a spontaneous trip to the book store and never looked back.
What book has stuck with you? Everyone has their own answer. We asked nine strangers at the Cambridge Public Library to give us a title off the top of their heads.
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Kendall Dudley
It’s maybe not the greatest book, but in combination with the museum, it’s outstanding: The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk. It has 83 chapters, and Pamuk made a museum in Istanbul that has 83 wall units, with concrete artifacts that sprang from this fictitious story. It plays with the notion of fiction and reality, and it shows that sometimes fiction is greater than reality.
I teach a life-story writing class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Part of my work is helping identify critical stories in their lives. Sometimes [they’ve been doing the work for their stories] all their life, but they don’t recognize it.
Darcy Muskind
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. It’s maybe not the deepest book, but it spoke to me. I read it when I was 18, the summer after I graduated from high school.
Felisa Weiss
Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green. It’s a graphic novel that deals with food addiction, eating disorders, and OCD. I stayed up all night reading it and was just crying the whole time.
I work with kids who have those issues, so it really was a realistic depiction of those challenges. It’s the best book for dealing with eating disorders and adolescent issues. There are a lot of triggers, which people should be aware of. But I brought it to the residential facility that I work at, and everyone read it. It got the girls, who are 12-18 living at this facility, interested in writing down their own experiences and making their own graphic novels.
Nate Hendrick
Crime and Punishment was a really good psych study. Dostoyevsky is probably my favorite author. It’s written in a really modern way and, actually surprisingly, not that different considering it was written in the 19th century. It’s really gripping, and you get into the story right away.
Rosie Delacruz
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor. It’s really incredible to see how she takes her family circumstances and takes charge of herself. She really navigated two worlds: being a Latina and a New Yorker, an American.
We share a last name, so I always wonder if we had cousins in common. You know, if our relatives came over from Spain together. Maybe her ancestor dragged my great-great-grandfather along or something.
Ellen Kolton
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. I loaned it to a friend who somehow ruined it—I don’t know, maybe she dropped it in the bathtub or something—so she bought me a replacement copy. Then I loaned that one out to a friend, and she loaned it out to so many other friends that it got really battered so she bought me a replacement.
The writing is amazing, and it’s just a gripping story. I made a complete timeline myself. It jumps from 1941-1944 and I tracked it all out. I’m an old English major, so I’m a little crazy.
Amanda Thornton
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. It’s his first work, so it’s a little bit rough. He wrote it on a typewriter, and it’s obvious he didn’t really revise anything.
Basically, he’s working and totally penniless. There’s a lot of stuff in there about living check to check that’s still true, things about not having a savings account or a safety net. Not as much has changed as we think.
Shivan Sarin
This is hard … Can I choose three? First, I’d say Gandhi’s autobiography. Every time I read it I get different things. I read it when I was younger, and I was captivated by the independence movement. As I get older I’m really struck by the complexity of his transition, his protest, turning his self denial into opportunity … The role that religion played is also fascinating; he’s Hindu but draws on elements from other religions.
Crime and Punishment is the one book I keep in mind from high school. It looks into the psychology of someone in a different period of life. It’s an intense look into the burden of guilt and freedom.
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin taught me that a leader is all about bringing people together and drawing on different things. Really, all of these books taught me that everyone has something to bring to the table even if they seem antagonistic.
David (declined last name)
Life in the Argentine Republic in the Days of the Tyrants by Domingo Sarmiento. There’s a statue of Sarmiento on Comm. Ave which most people don’t even know because they’ve never stopped to say, “Who is that?’’ He used to be a U.S. ambassador before he became the president of Argentina. He was known as a great educator and was friends with Horace Mann.
It’s a book about Argentina in the days of the Cordillos, real rough characters. I’ve got a lot of relatives there, so I really care about this stuff. It’s a dangerous world we’re living in. But there are a lot of nice people too, otherwise we would never have made it this far.
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