My first literary crush

Slate asks various members of the chattering classes to name the most influential book they read in college.

As far as my college career goes, I'd have to say Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist, which I read in a Modern English Lit class and which led to my choosing to write my thesis on Ulysses. Since then, though, my tastes have changed: I prefer 19th Century writers like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dickens and Trollope and straight-forward narrative.

What was your first literary crush? Bonus question: Is there a book you avoided in college that you later picked up and couldn't believe you'd avoided? For me it was The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, which I was supposed to read for a Modern Novel class, but somehow wriggled my way out of. For years it sat on my nightstand, then one day I picked it up and I didn't get out of bed until I finished it two days later.