I’m reading a bit of Alan Jacobs these days. Jacobs is a very gifted writer and when gifted writers talk about the books that have shaped them I listen, with both ears, a pen, an open moleskin and with a powered-up mp3 recorder [(if I have one in my backpack (usually the case)]. Here’s his list (see his full blog post here):

Age 6: The Golden Book of Astronomy

Age 10: Robert A. Heinlein, Tunnel in the Sky

Age 14: Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End

Age 16: Loren Eiseley, The Night Country

Age 20: William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

Age 22: The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur

Age 24: W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand

Age 30: Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination

Age 35: Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Age 38: W. H. Auden, “Horae Canonicae”