To join in the fray, I guess I'll do a top-ten book list, too. The criterion on Dr. Reynold's blog was: "To make the top ten list (or the close 20) is to have read the book more than five times, carefully, and not for work. The top ten list must have influenced my life for more than five of my forty years. Books in the top ten list should still be meaningful, thus giving some slight preference to the grown up me."

That's a little tough for a 21 year old, and eliminates all the books that I have read in Torrey. So I'll tweak it a little, since eliminating all of the books in Torrey neuters my reading depth severely. My criteria is this: that it has shaped my paradigm or aided my process of sanctification significantly.

Top Ten:

1. The Bible. My whole life has been shaped by this singular literary masterpiece. The thoughts and concepts in it make up the sum of my thoughts, taught to me regularily from a very young age. I believe that most of my aptitude for learning came not from public school, but from Sunday School.

2. The Dawn Treader. Lewis was a staple of what my mother read to me at night before I went to bed, but for some reason this book's romantic tale resonated the most powerfully with me. The vision of the noble Reepicheep sailing into the end of the world over liquid light has been a model of manhood for me my entire life.

3. The Lord of the Rings. I've read this epic at least every other year since second grade. I love the vision of courage in the face of evil, and the battle for a waning civilization ennobles my mind to facing the task before us today.

4. The Divine Comedy. I read this the first time only two years ago, but it is the kind of book you fall in love with not because it's easy reading, but because it's hard reading, and it takes discussion and thought to milk the rich concepts out of it. The impression I receive from it is that same impression I receive from the last chapters of the Dawn Treader, a poet sailing through a sea of liquid light. Its beauty is astounding.

5. Le Morte d'Arthur. Hic Iacet Arthurus, Rex Quondom Rexque futurus. My heart is the resting place of this great king, and the Senegral is the most beautiful part of the book. Galahad beats his father at being a knight because he beats his father at being a man: he is perfectly virtuous.

6. Winnie the Pooh. I imagine this betrays the lack of depth in my reading, youth and shallowness of soul, but this, along with Peter Pan, has had a profound impact on my concept of the imagination and its role in my life while growing up. I still return from time to time to that magical place at the top of the Hundred Acre Woods.

7. The Opuscula of Saint Francis. Anything by Francis I love. I love books written about Francis. I find him the most delightful of all the saints, and his spirituality the most impactful on my own. I would be have joined the Franciscan order if he were alive today, so that I could serve God under him in simple holy love, and his theology of nature allows my own great love to thrive.

8. That Hideous Strength. When I read this book in high school, I learned to love things for what they really are. When it spoke of Logres, I understood the Ideal Britain, and yearned to understand the true America (Columbia, perhaps?).

9. The Aeolian Harp. Coleridge's poem's vision of beauty captured me. I love many of his poems, but this one and Kublai Khan especially. They've helped me to refine my imagination to see beauty. I don't know if this one will stay on here for my whole life, for I hope to find better and holier poets.

10. Hamlet. It's a toss up between The Life of King Henry V and this play, but no English speaking person should deny a Shakespearean influence on their life. Shakespeare taught me politics and the duty of the individual to the state.