Veronica Roth made a big splash in the literary world in 2011 when she released Divergent, the first in a successful trilogy that, like many books in recent years, have been transformed into a film franchise.
Roth stopped by q recently to discuss her newest series, a duology, called Carve the Mark. While she was here, we asked Roth to name five books that have changed her life over the years. From her predecessor J.K. Rowling’s giant book-turned-film hit to some literary classics, scroll down to see what Roth picked and why.
For her full q interview, click here.
The Giver by Lois Lowry
“It was the first distopian book I ever read. It was really beautiful and I ended up writing distopian later in life.”
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
“It’s seven books, really, I’m cheating! Those books made me fall in love with reading and took me on an adventure and that’s what I ended up wanting to take other people on.”
Dune by Frank Herbert
“My father told me to read Dune when I was young, probably too young to read that book, just because it’s hard to understand in certain places. But it was my first foray into really big sci-fi worlds and I fell in love with science fiction after reading that.”
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
“I think it was one of the first books where I realized you can just fall in love with a character and that, even if the story is kind of slow, you’ll follow it if you’ll follow that character.”
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
“My husband and I read it together when we were just dating and we talked about it a lot. That’s one of the ways I fell in love with him.”
— Melody Lau, q digital staff
