First Literary Crush

Sauvage Noble talks about a story from Slate where highly influential people were asked what book most influenced them in college. I have to say I wasn't too surprised that I hadn't heard of most of the books, but was surprised that a few of my favorites weren't on there (I guess that means I'm probably not going to be that influential). After reading the article, I decided to add a few more books to my never-shrinking reading least:Seven Types of Ambiguity by William Empson and Henry IV by Shakespeare. The books that were already on my list (but I haven't touched yet) were The Iliad and The Odyssey, both by Homer, and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (Michael Nalwalker would be proud of me), all which I've heard good stuff from.

Since Angelo on Sauvage Noble listed a book that he loved in college, I'll follow suite and list a couple of the books I found most beneficial in college: Beyond Personality by C.S. Lewis and How to Read a Book(actually, this one I didn't get to until the summer after my fifth year, but that still counts, right?) by Mortimer J. Adler.

Beyond Personality is actually quite small (like my attention span) and simply explained seemingly complicated theological questions. After savoring that book for awhile, I went on to read a few other books by Lewis, and have learned much from him in the process. He, along with G.K. Chesterton, always seemed to find a way to express ideas clearly, and never failed to add wit in his writing. It's a hope that I could some day write as simply, powerfully, and as carefully as he.

How to Read a Book was actually assigned as optional reading in the intro course to Electrical Engineering the first quarter of my freshman year, but most of the students in that class, including myself, were quite cocky and thought we didn't need to learn how to read something for more than information (that song by Rod Stewart, "I wish that I knew what I know now" comes to mind). Anyway, I re-discovered How to Read a Book via another book (Scripture Twisting by James W. Sire) and a course I took my last quarter in college, LIGN 176: The Language of Politics and Advertising (which was my favorite course, btw). I actually didn't realize it was the same book that was recommended to me at the beginning of my college life until I looked it up on Amazon.com and recognized the funky-looking cover for it. For now, if anyone asks me a book that they should read, I recommend this one first. So go read it. ;)

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