I suppose reading was almost always a part of my life: my mom read classics like The Chronicles of Narnia to me before bed each night, my elementary school best friend Beth and I shared both a birthday and a subscription to the The Baby-Sitters Club fan club newsletter, and my librarian knew me well enough to know when to take me by the literal and figurative hand and lead me from the kid section to the adult stacks. She told me to start with Little Women, by the way.

But somehow I didn’t realize I was a Reader until much later—one hot summer day in Tennessee, stretched out under the ceiling fan on the old family sofa when Charlotte Bronte addressed me as such: ”gentle reader.” I have searched for that thick, pebbly red library binding copy of Jane Eyre for so long to no avail, but the memory of my brain pinging “oh, that’s me” changed something in me forever. No longer did I select only three books from my English teacher’s  suggested summer reading list; I made it my goal to chew through the entire list by the time school started back each fall.

I worked for my college bookstore all four years. I started stacking up hundreds of books and lugging them from house to house every time we moved after I married a Naval officer. I eventually found my way into the work that’s the joy of my life as the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club Community Manager.

Books aren’t part of my life; books practically are my life. My day revolves around books and talking about books. I read almost the first thing every morning, starting my day with philosophical and devotional reading like scripture and poetry. I finish the day reading—usually gentle things like letters and kidlit and more poetry. I take a tea break most afternoons to read a few pages of whatever classic I’m working my way through (25 in 2025), followed by whatever we’re reading next for book club. I check into my favorite bookish community forums throughout the day on the MMD Book Club app on my phone. I follow bookish creators on YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and Substack. I’ve made friends trading books and book recommendations and making pilgrimages to beloved bookstores and author talks in cities far and near.

On those bookstore shelves and library stacks, I’m drawn to classics or books that I suspect might become classics some day, especially literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, anywhere I can find a great story, whether that’s told through the lens of a precocious copper-headed orphan, a rugged mountain climber, a dogged journalist chasing down facts, an Oxbridge professor exploring myths in a new way, or a New England pastor and poet. I know some of you are the same because you are my friends and kindreds here.

Some links (including all Amazon links) are affiliate links. More details here.

I spent a good portion of my life in and near Memphis, Tennessee, yet had never made the pilgrimage to the Lorraine Motel and the National Civil Rights Museum until I read this nonfiction narrative that reads like a crime thriller. Because it is. The story of the manhunt for Martin Luther King’s killer after his assassination in April of 1968 and its aftermath had my heart in a clutch, even though I knew the ending. I’ve pressed this book into the hands of so many readers and gone on to read many of MLK’s works because of his legacy, despite the terrible fate he met on the Lorraine Motel balcony. I’m thankful for his work, his words, and this book that led me to them. More info →

This is the book that made my faith my own. Buechner was a Christian minister, but unlike any spiritual thinker I’ve ever come across. His novels and memoirs and sermons are irreverent reverence. They’re fresh and literary. This slim essay made me “listen to my life” for the echoes of the gospel that are as large in theme as any tragedy, comedy, or fairy tale I’d ever read… and then some. More info →

I used to write off poetry as a genre that was not for me. It’s hard sometimes to understand, and … to be honest a little pretentious a lot of the time. But somehow sitting under Malcolm Guite at an arts and literature conference, poetry came alive for me and what I’d perceived as pretension was more mystery, which is the rich gift of poetry with its perfect tension of sparse and florid language. Guite has several books of his own poetry, as well as anthologies that are practically a master class in poetry itself. In this anthology, Guite selects a different poet per day for the advent and Christmas season, then gives two or three short pages analyzing the poem. This is my favorite of his collection, but he has various anthologies for other holidays and seasons of life. More info →

This was the book that made me need to talk about it. When I read this novel about a time-traveling man who makes friends and falls in love despite his rare genetic condition that makes him jump back and forth throughout time with little control over it, I immediately had to read it again. Then, I had to read it again, to get the deliberately choppy and confusing timeline straight. But this time, I made my husband listen to the audio along with me because I just had to talk about it. Though I wasn’t in a book club at the time, I knew this strange and nonlinear novel would make a great book club read. More info →

Someone gave me a piece of advice in my early 30s: they suggested you pick a book to reread every year for the rest of your life. Good advice, except I couldn’t for the life of me think of any book I’d want to read again and again and again. Until I read Lewis’s retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth, that is. As soon as I read this cryptic and complicated novel, I knew this was a book that would never finish saying different things to me, no matter how many years I had left to read it—the definition of a true classic. I’ve read it every year since and I’ve only barely begun to understand what Lewis considered his most mature work. More info →

What books have shaped you? Have you read any of these? Please tell us in the comments section!

P.S. Check out our team’s The books that shaped me series.

About the author

Ginger Horton is our Book Club Community Manager here at MMD. Her go-to genres are literary fiction and classics. You can find Ginger on Instagram at @gthorton or the MMD Book Club account @MMDBookClub.