NPR asked listeners, “What books shaped you in high school?” That’s an interesting and revealing question, well worth thinking about. Some of those who responded to NPR said that those books, experienced in those formative years, set them on their life’s course.
For me, I’d have to say J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I suppose those did set me on my life’s course of exploring both literature and Christianity.
Both of those I read on my own, not for school. I wonder if more recent high schoolers are reading books like that, either for fun or for school. And, considering today’s other post, if teenagers are being set on their life’s course by the angst-ridden, depressing, nihilistic young adult novels that most schools are forcing them to read.
At any rate, what about you? What books shaped you in high school?
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