Four books that changed Charlie Lovett

Charlie Lovett is a writer, teacher, and playwright, whose plays for children have been seen in more than 3,000 productions. He is a former antiquarian bookseller and an avid book collector. He and his wife split their time between Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Kingham, Oxfordshire, in England.

Lovett's novels include The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession, First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen, and the newly released The Lost Book of the Grail.

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

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
John Irving

I read The World According to Garp as a 19-year-old, when I went backpacking around Europe. It was the first contemporary novel I had read for fun and I will forever associate it with that summer of independence. I loved Irving's characters, his frankness, and the way he wove short stories and chapters of books "written" by Garp into his narrative. It opened my eyes not only to the world of contemporary fiction, but also to new modes of storytelling.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The World According to Garp is among Kathy Reichs's six best books, ten books that changed Sean Beaudoin's life before he could drive, and John Niven's ten best writers in novels.

--Marshal Zeringue