Four books that changed Libby Gleeson

Libby Gleeson is the Australian author of many books for children and teenagers.

One of four books that changed her, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

BELOVED
Toni Morrison

This book taught me that good fiction can tell truths about the world more powerfully than non-fiction. At first I wasn't sure what this book was telling me. Who was the character Sethe? But gradually I became totally absorbed in knowing of the terrible tragedy that was the lot of this family of slaves in America's South. The language is so rhythmic and sensual and the drama so intense that I have never been able to read it again.

Read about another book on the list.

Beloved also appears on The Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Elif Shafak's top five list of fictional mothers, Charlie Jane Anders's list of ten great books you didn't know were science fiction or fantasy, Peter Dimock's top ten list of books that challenge what we think we know as "history", Stuart Evers's top ten list of homes in literature, David W. Blight's list of five outstanding novels on the Civil War era, John Mullan's list of ten of the best births in literature, Kit Whitfield's top ten list of genre-defying novels, and at the top of one list of contenders for the title of the single best work of American fiction published in the last twenty-five years.

--Marshal Zeringue