I have been influenced by so many authors, that it is impossible to credit them all. A few stand out, though, that I find myself recommending, quoting, and rereading over and over again. I enjoy knowing who is ‘behind’ speakers and writers, and so want to mention a few of the shoulders I stand on. No one tops G. K. Chesterton for frequent quotation at my house. “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly” and “Truth can comprehend error, but error cannot comprehend truth” are two of my favorite GKCs. I refer to his wonderful comments about detective fiction when I discuss the life and work of Dorothy Sayers (my Sayers favorites: all the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries and “Mind of the Maker”), and if everyone would read his “Man Alive” the world would be a better place! To Josef Pieper, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude for his “Leisure, the Basis of Culture” which I recommend to all who will listen as the single most influential book of our over-busy lives. This book was certainly the seed from which my own Souls at Rest grew. Martin Buber’s “I and Thou”, David Bailey Harned’s “Patience”, and James Taylor’s “Poetic Knowledge” have all woven themselves into my thinking. I think everyone in America should read John Taylor Gatto’s “Underground History of American Education” and Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” side by side to better understand our country’s experiment in fast food education! Surely Thomas Dubay’s “Fire Within” and “The Evidential Power of Beauty” are spiritual classics already. Lately I’ve discovered the singular writing of Fr. Luigi Giussani via the slow-but-sure Communion and Liberation approach to reading his “Why Church” and “The Risk of Education” out loud in a group setting. He will be heavily quoted in future books, I’m sure! I love to talk about two works in particular of C.S. Lewis: “A Preface to Paradise Lost” and “Till We Have Faces”. So many Lewis fans have missed these gems – the first, because it is a rather obscure scholarly work and the second, because it is somewhat difficult to understand. You can read more about these two talks using the links below. There simply isn’t room for all the fiction I have loved, though I realize that even light reading is also a significant part of one’s formation – Sigrid Undset, P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, J.R.R. Tolkein, Charles Williams, Dante, Rumer Godden, and every Brother Cadfael mystery Ellis Peters ever wrote. I include all this in the spirit of fun for those who, like me, go straight to the bookshelves if allowed in the front door of the home of a new friend.