Reading from birth (according to my mother) is my biggest influence. My mother read fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and bedtime stories, never balking at re-reading Cinderella, Snow White, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Engine That Could, Dr. Suess. Black Beauty, Nancy Drew, Little Women, Charlotte's Web, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables--I read all those by 5th grade, falling love with Janet Lambert's girls' series about several military families stationed @ West Point. As an adult, Henry James and Nathaniel Hawthorne remain 2 of my favorite authors, alongside Rick Riordan, Lisa Unger, Gillian Flynn, Lisa Scottoline, Carol O'Connell, Laura Lippmann, Jennie Shortridge, James Scott Bell, Daniel Gottman, and I read widely in popular psychology and neuroscience.