Ooohh, good thread. I read a lot of Australian authors growing. Don't know if any of them will be particularly meaningful to a world wide audience:
-Praise, which came out when I was 13 and I was riveted. Certainly not age appropriate, but it had some parallels with my own life and I was/am always fascinated by stories of break down in all it's forms.
- Discovering Tim Winton when I was about 14. I loved his use of language and his descriptions of an Australia that I knew. Now I find him intensely irritating, but then I loved him!
- Outside my Australiana theme, a book that was very formative was Animal Farm, which I read when I was about 15. It gave me words for what I could see happening in the world around me and the institutions I was associated with, but hadn't been able to articulate. Still one of my favourite books of all time.
When I was twelve, I discovered the recently published The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; it was like a revelation. Finally, I had proof that there were other people like me. At least one of them, anyway-- because if Douglas Adams existed, as he must, then it meant that I was not a perfect singularity. I had been having these bizarre existential thoughts in my head since I was three or four-- when I didn't have good words to describe things like 'theory of mind' even.
Me too!
(Don't usually do this quoting thing... no idea if it will have worked once I hit submit).
