It is time for me to join quite few other bloggers at other sites (too numerable to mention here) in an interesting exercise:

List the ten most influential books in your life.

So, without further elaboration or foundation, and without excessive deliberation except to note that this becomes something like an autobiographical exercise, I offer my humble list with the briefest of explanations for each title:

The Holy Bible: As a child, I lived in a Christ-haunted fundamentalist home where the church and the Bible were the foundations upon which many of my early thoughts were formed.

The Temptation of the Impossible:

Victor Hugo and Les Misérables

Mario Vargas Llosa

John King, translator

Princeton University Press

232 pages

Hardcover $24.95

978-0-691-13111-5

Here, in this compelling book, readers can enjoy the fascinating encounter between two literary giants: Mario Vargas Llosa and Victor Hugo.

Creators:
From Chaucer and Dürer to Picasso and Disney
by Paul Johnson
HarperCollins, March 2006
ISBN 0-06-019143-0
Hardcover

Paul Johnson—the celebrated journalist, historian, and author of many books including the personally recommended Intellectuals, The Birth of the Modern, and The Quest for God—once again challenges and delights inquisitive readers with Creators: From Chaucer and Dürer to Picasso and Disney.