1. Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde. The story was quite moving and to me all the character are three dimentional and you really care about every one of them. There is a twist at the end that I didn't see coming and is somewhat similar to the ending of Half-blood Prince when a certain someone died.
2. The Giver by Lois Lowry. Despite this being a YA fiction novel, everyone should read this book. The world that Mrs. Lowry build was quite different from 1984 or A Brave New World. It was original. It made me strive to write an original piece in all my stories to the best of my ability( even if the saying goes that everything has been written under the sun-- or something like that-- don't remember the exact quote.)
3. Sphere by Michael Crichton. This author taught me how to make every chapter a page turner. Michael Crichton is the best at making the reader want to stay up all night to finish his book. His writing is so easy to read yet mature enough to respect that it wasn't written by just an average writer. The suspense was superb and the drama that led to its final conclusion was nothing short of remarkable. I don't believe that his idea was original ( i forgot where i read but the person stated that Sphere was similar to some other book, forgot the name of the novel) but I enjoyed it and love it dearly. I could read it again and again.
4. Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling. Some or hopefully most would figure out that some of the Harry Potter's stories aren't original ( i think there's somewhere in wikipedia that you could find so many books that was published before Harry Potter that had similar concept or plot) but what J.K. Rowling did that the other authors, I believe, didn't do was to create a smart twist at the end. J.K. created a world that might've existed if magic was possible. It's a world that one would love to visit if it was real. Humor and interesting supporting characters made the books intriguing. I believe this series taught me how to plot a series if I decided to write one. I need to make an outline from the beginning to the end before I begin to process of writing a first draft. The outline is the road map or blueprint. It can change but it's better to have a map/blueprint to move ahead than to have nothing at all.
There are so many books i could mention that influenced my imagination. Hopefully...no, It will help me create superb novella and novel. You can't write a great novel if you don't learn from other authors. You can't write unless you read first. So books and writing go hand in hand. That's why almost every writer's advice for first time writers is the Read, read, read and Write, write, write. Okay, that's it. Just wanted to share that with you guys. Hope you read them and enjoy them as much as I did.