I can still remember the very first book that my aunt bought me as a child that I considered to be a real book. It was Stephen Lawhead's In the Hall of the Dragon King. I was hooked. My aunt had said that she would buy me books as often as I requested, for which I am forever grateful. That seemingly small offer to a young boy has had profound effects. I have continued over the years to buy everything that Lawhead has written.

My appetite for books, reading, and learning has only grown since that time as a boy. My next literary endeavors consisted of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and whatever I could get my hands on of C.S. Lewis. Reading LOTR is like taking a deep breathe in a place of sublime beauty and wildness and realizing how truly breathetaking the right air could be. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia was also an affecting read. His description of the land beyond the sea in The Last Battle as being larger than the doorway and house, which supposedly contained it, makes me long for that land still and to help bring to this earth.

It is interesting that most of my earlier books and reading odyssey focused on fiction, which I still love, but read far less of these days. My major diet consists mainly of nonfiction, where I am trying to systematically teach myself certain subjects that I wish I had learned earlier: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and hopefully next I'll be able to start teaching myself formal logic.