"When I was 9 or 10, in Kenya, the Nancy Drew books showed me a type of empowered girl that I was not used to at all."

"I used to read those in secret with my sister. When I was older, Charles Dickens inspired my sense of justice and fairness. George Orwell criticized liberals for apologizing for Communism; he continues to inspire me to persist in my position that Islam unreformed, when put into practice, leads to a dystopia. Orwell today would tell us that the Islamic State is Islamic and shame those who refuse to acknowledge a truth so plain."

Said Ayaan Hirsi Ali, answering the question "If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?" (and rejecting the premise because "It can never be one book; it has to be several books, because as a human being you evolve").

She also recommends 2 books that I just added to my Kindle: "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," by Charles MacKay, and "The Quran Speaks," by Bahis Sedq (who she says is "the most sophisticated of all the dissidents in the Muslim world... the Muslim Luther, if there were only a way to keep him safe"). The MacKay book was first published in 1841. Here's an illustration from it: