Most of us can name people who contributed greatly to our lives. In my case, I had a boss who gave my career a good start, a pastor who pushed me onto the straight and narrow and a Scout leader who modeled leadership. Many others, both men and women, also influenced me greatly, some still around, but many now gone.
In addition, I have a great collection of friends and companions who also touched my life; most remain with me today. They are books that line my bookshelves, books that entered my life at key times or provided me with valuable help or insight.
When I prepared for college, I needed to begin a collection of books other than the technical manuals and magazines that had been a big part of my life. I began my library with a two-volume Thorndike Barnhart dictionary. Even though wearing scuffed and worn covers, the two volumes still occupy an honoured place on a shelf in reach of my computer. Those volumes are patriarchs of a family of dictionaries. I tend to reach first for a newer family member, an ITP Nelson New Canadian Dictionary. At least 14 other dictionaries make up the family: among them British and American dictionaries, flip or reverse dictionaries, and Greek, Latin, Afrikaans, French, German and Zulu dictionaries. I’m a word person; without my dictionaries, I would have become a totally different person.
A few steps from my chair, I keep a collection of favourite authors. Among them you will find 15 volumes of Gregory Clark. I first read his columns in the Star Weekly. I’d stretch out on the floor and exercise my skills, a grade 2 student battling with dyslexia and sounding out the big words. Thank you Greg; you helped teach me to read, and without your influence, I certainly wouldn’t have become a columnist in later life.
Near Clark are 11 volumes by my favourite novelist, Nevil Shute. For years I refused to read his most famous book, On the Beach, because it portrayed the end of the world through atomic war. When I finally relented, it gripped me like no other novel. In its closing pages, a couple living near a beach in the southernmost part of Australia wait for the atomic cloud to reach them. Everyone else has died, and they ration out their meagre food supply, not knowing if the food will last for the remaining few days of their lives. Today when I empty a container in the kitchen, I think of that story. Many people believe On the Beach influenced world leaders to back off during the Cold War. Thank you Nevil for a great story, an account that possibly saved our lives.
Eight volumes of A.J. Cronin occupy a shelf near Shute. That outstanding novelist wrote a book that might have changed my experience in South Africa, if I and the mission leaders had read it beforehand. The Keys of the Kingdom tells of a missionary priest who managed to cross the cultural barrier and make a difference despite opposition from church and political leaders.
I’m running out of space and I haven’t even got to Thomas B. Costain, and I didn’t mean to ignore The Book. I’ll tell you what, drop by sometime and I’ll complete this tour of my library, introducing you to other books that changed my life.