Day 29: Literature

I'm going to take an easy day today and discuss literature.

I'm a big fan of the written word in its many forms: fantasy, non-fiction, spiritual, secular, classic, instructive, journalistic, diary-esque, blogs, technical, etc. God has used the written word, not just in the Bible, to speak to me and to make huge impacts in my way of thinking and my daily life. Particularly through some works of C.S. Lewis like Mere Christianity, the fundamental ways I think about God have changed and evolved. But even beyond works of a spiritual nature, a little reading can go a long way to building a solid knowledge base and making one a fully educated person.

Here are some of my favorite books:

• Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis
• The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
• The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
• Letters to Malcom - C.S. Lewis
  
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
• Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
• Through Painted Deserts - Donald Miller
• Crime and Punishmnet - Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The Gambler - Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Persuasion - Jane Austen
• Emma - Jane Austen
  
• 1984 - George Orwell
  
• Messy Spirituality - Mike Yaconelli
• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
• Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

That is only a sampling, with some emphasis on the front of the list since I put the authors that immediately came to mind with repeated works there. In addition to these I do a lot of reading on websites, including the blog Stuff Christians Like and occasionally I'll get hooked into popular books like the Harry Potter series. Though I admit, I cheated there; I watched the first five movies then read books five through seven (loved Deathly Hallows).

Perhaps my biggest inspiration for my own writings and Christian philosophy comes from the works of C.S. Lewis. It always seems that his writings shape my worldview in some way, and his work Letters to Malcom is the inspiration from a similar untitled project of my own based on fictional written letters. C.S. Lewis is also my inspiration for my interest in time thanks to his chapter called "Time and Beyond Time" in Mere Christianity. And Fyodor Dostoevsky taught me that not everything worth saying can be said easily or simply as I attempted to claw my way all the way to the end of Crime and Punishment (which is totally worth it).

But all that aside, I love to chat about books, both classics and modern and the knowledge and wisdom they can impart, both mentally and spiritually.

What are your favorite authors? What are your favorite books? What has inspired you?

I promise I won't call you out ;-) I'm just curious. Let's talk literature.

See you tomorrow.