Earlier this month, I mentioned my anxiety about turning the big four-oh, which is a mere five days away. The list I made, of books to read in my 40th year, was fun to create and has helped me shift to a more positive view of the next decade of my life.

After lining up important books I want to read in my 40th year, it occurred to me that it’s just as important to honor the books that have made me who I am over my first four decades.

My list spans from my childhood all the way up to this month. These are books that have influenced me in some major way, and I highly recommend all of them. So here they are in no particular order:

40 Must Reads From My First 40 Years

Watership Down  – Richard Adams

To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street – Dr Seuss

Naked – David Sedaris

The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

All Around the Town – Mary Higgins Clark

Circle of Friends – Maeve Binchy

The Gold Cell – Sharon Olds

Until I Find You – John Irving

The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

Tell the Wolves I’m Home – Carol Rifka Blunt

The Joy of Appreciative Living – Jacqueline Kelm

The Four Agreements – Miguel Ruiz

The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin

This is How – Augusten Burroughs

The Reader – Bernard Schlink

The Stand – Stephen King

Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

A Time to Kill – John Grisham

The Scarlet Letter – Nathanial Hawthorne

The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman

There is No Good Card For This – Emily McDowell

State of Wonder – Ann Patchett

Where the Heart Is – Billie Letts

There’s a Monster at the End of This Book – Grover

Good Morning – Brooke Noel

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed – Jon Ronson

Love Walked In – Marisa de los Santos

Poetry of Rumi

The Value of Believing in Yourself – Spencer Johnson, MD

An American Marriage – Tayari Jones

The Book of Essie – Meghan MacLean Weir

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

Are You There God, it’s me Margaret – Judy Blume

Outlander – Diana Gabaldon

Modern Romance – Aziz Ansari

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me – Sherman Alexie

Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert

The Dogs of Babel – Carolyn Parkhurst

This list wasn’t as easy to make as I expected. I was super picky about which titles made it. It isn’t only about being a “favorite” book or even an incredibly good book, though a few of each are on here. All forty of these books have stayed with me long after I read them, in some cases years or even decades. If I’ve ever read a book more than once for my own enjoyment, it’s on this list.

Many of these books shaped who I am in a pivotal way. Some crossed my path at an important time in my life to help me process or reflect on traumatic experiences, some simply healed my broken heart.

I made an effort to only include an author once on this list, so it’s safe to say that most of these authors have written other books I’ve enjoyed as well.

I hope you like my list, and I’d love to hear which books have made you who you are!