26 Books that Changed My Life: #13 The English Patient

M: Moments Must Be Cherished

Hello new followers--the best part of the A to Z challenge is meeting new people.

I thought I would spend the month of April delving into the literature that has made me the person I am today.

1] In this list you will find some of my favorite books, but you will also find books that I appreciate and books that I would recommend although they may not be my favorite. These are books that changed my way of thinking or my way of looking the world. These are books that helped solidify the core of who I am.

2] These books are in order of the theme that I came away with not alphabetical by title or author.

About this book:
With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal,and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.

Publication Date:  September 1, 1992

Why this book:

We don't realize how every moment in our little insignificant lives defines us and shapes us and makes us who we are. OK, so I'm not like these characters at all...I've never been in a war-torn country or been on either side of an affair, but I have loved, have traveled, have memories of people who have come and gone, people who at one time were a big part of me. And, these memories swirl around in my present life all of the time.

And, it's the first and only movie I ever watched in the theatre by myself. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

I love this book. I love this book so much that I'm having a hard time talking about it. Michael Ondaatje is such a lovely author.

More on that here.