Lately we've been thinking a lot about literary influence, whether in relation to Geoff Dyer's D.H. Lawrence obsession or Graham Greene's haunting of Pico Iyer.

Like apprentices of any trade, writers learn theory and craft from those who came before. As serious as that business can be, we can't help but make a silly association and be grateful that the writers we love today didn't "Just Say No" to the influence of their forebears.

Did we spend way too much time in front of the TV in the '80s, or does anyone else remember the public service announcement in which a kid rocking out in his bedroom is confronted by his dad, who holds some illicit substance overhead? The dad asks how he learned to use drugs, and the son shouts, "You, all right?! I learned it by watching you!"

Literature, thankfully, is a healthier form of intoxication. Below are writers' firsthand accounts of books that left a lasting impression on their creative visions. Here they detail what they learned, and most importantly, from whom.

Joan Didion, author of "Blue Nights" and "The Year of Magical Thinking"

"Victory" by Joseph Conrad

"I often reread Victory, which is maybe my favorite book in the world…The story is told thirdhand. It’s not a story the narrator even heard from someone who experienced it. The narrator seems to have heard it from people he runs into around the Malacca Strait. So there’s this fantastic distancing of the narrative, except that when you’re in the middle of it, it remains very immediate. It’s incredibly skillful. I have never started a novel—I mean except the first, when I was starting a novel just to start a novel—I’ve never written one without rereading Victory. It opens up the possibilities of a novel. It makes it seem worth doing." [via The Paris Review, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1, interviewed by Hilton Als]

Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln"

"The Guns of August: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Classic About the Outbreak of World War I" by Barbara W. Tuchman

"Female historians were rare when I first read Guns of August as a sophomore in college. Yet here was a woman writing about military history—a field traditionally reserved for men, and carrying away all the honors! I remember thinking I would give almost anything to tell a story as masterfully as she could, to chronicle complex events with such simplicity, to bring characters to such vivid life. There are a hundred questions about research and writing I would love to ask her." [via Biography.com]

Annie Dillard, author of "Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, An American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"

"The Day on Fire: a Novel Suggested by the Life of Arthur Rimbaud" by James R. Ullman

"Two summers ago, I was camping alone in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I had hauled myself and gear up there to read, among other things, James Ullman’s The Day on Fire, a novel about Rimbaud that had made me want to be a writer when I was sixteen; I was hoping it would do it again. " [via her essay “The Death of a Moth" in Harper's, May 1976]

Jacques Pépin, author of "The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen"

"The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus

"The Myth of Sisyphus is a book about the absurdity of man's condition in a world without God...[it] stimulated my mind and made me want to study and understand more…for me it was a book that corresponded with my ideas of life. We must be responsible for our actions. We have to believe in man, in his power, dignity, and goodness, and in his ability to create a responsible life of his own…I think that consciously and unconsciously those points have always been with me, serving as a guiding light. To that extent, I am still under the influence of Camus, and will continue to be so until the end of my 'absurd' life." [via "The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them" edited by Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen]

Jay-Z, author of "Decoded"

"The Seat of the Soul" by Gary Zukav

"There are two books that I absolutely live my life by. This is one of them. ['The Celestine Prophecy' by James Redfield is the other.] Growing up, I was always curious about religion. This book made the most sense to me; it's about the way you live your life. I believe in karma and doing the right thing even if it may not advance you as far as you want. If every single person felt the same way about karma and intention, then the world gets fixed tomorrow. But temptation gets in the way. Zukav is right: It may take lifetimes to learn." [via Oprah.com]