The list: number 20

Martha Quest by Doris Lessing.  

I was first introduced to the work of Doris Lessing when I was 25.  I read a review, in The Times, of 

The Summer Before the Dark.  I went and bought it immediately.  Thus was I led to the life (and the 

five books about) Martha Quest.  Teenage angst, the uncertainty of life in Southern Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe, unsatisfactory marriage, war, prejudice, uprooting from home to live in a foreign country, mental breakdowns, women's rights.... All human life is there. 

I have read all her books.  She was a genius (Nobel Prize for literature), and she influenced me greatly, when I was an impressionable young thing looking for role models.

Maybe she's a good choice for our Book Club.  Old fashioned now, I suppose, but still genius for all that.