My man Eddie
This is going to be a fun post.
I was an avid reader as a kid. It started with Mom teaching me to read with the slightly Eurocentric Dick and Jane.
The land that multiculturalism forgot
Around grade 3, it turned to boys’ mysteries and adventures such as Brains Benton, adventures which I shared with the protagonist boys and treasure to this day.
Brains blows the Hardy Boys right out of the water!
Grade 5 saw me find H.G. Wells classic “The Time Machine” in my school library.
How to engage a grade 5 boy’s mind!
By junior high school, it was golden age science fiction and epic fantasy. I still recall being enthralled by Tolkein’s “Silmarillion” in grade 9, and I rather enjoyed the Shakespeare comedies that we studied in high school English class, along with provocative science fiction such as simpler works by Ayn Rand.
The standard by which all epic fantasy is judged
When I hit university, what became important was the caliber of the writing and the mind behind the writing, more than the genre. I got into the Easten Press’s “100 Greatest Books” program before the 90s military pay freezes, the Canadian dollar tanking, and the cost of raising a family put an end to it. (If you’re into great books and great minds, you’ll probably enjoy jrbenjamin’s blog. I do.)
One additional set of books that I bought from Easton Press that I have never had the chance to fully read (got through most of Book One before the kids and the rest of life interfered) is Edward Gibbon‘s classic of the Enlightenment Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Worth their weight in gold
My goodness, but Gibbon had a beautiful mind. One is best advised to have a dictionary at hand when reading him.
Gibbon’s work will be a major foundational element in the sequel to my current book. To introduce him to you, I thought we would look at some of his more famous quotes. To make it fun, I am introducing a poll. It asks which Gibbon quote you like best. The results will form the basis of a new post.
Enjoy:
The Mirror 
Recent Comments