Most recent: Factfulness, by Hans Rosling. For the past year or so, I've been trying hard to understand why people act the way they do, when those actions and beliefs are often irrational. This book brought so much of that together.
Very first: The Song of Wandering Aengus, by William Butler Yeats. I read this when I was six or so. I found it as an illustrated children's book in children's section of the public library of the very small rural town. Someone decided this very adult poem, about an old man who wasted his life chasing an unattainable magic dream, was a good children's story. It introduced me to the idea that poems and stories could express sadness and failure and other negative feelings, not just the happy silly stuff of the other age-appropriate things I read.
Now I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands
But I will find out where she's gone
Kiss her lips, and take her hands
And wander through the dappled grass
Pluck 'til time and times are done
The silver apples of the Moon
Golden apples of the Sun
Very first: The Song of Wandering Aengus, by William Butler Yeats. I read this when I was six or so. I found it as an illustrated children's book in children's section of the public library of the very small rural town. Someone decided this very adult poem, about an old man who wasted his life chasing an unattainable magic dream, was a good children's story. It introduced me to the idea that poems and stories could express sadness and failure and other negative feelings, not just the happy silly stuff of the other age-appropriate things I read.