"I am the kind of Christian I am...."

C.S. Lewis's influence on John Mark Reynolds was very much like Lewis's influence on me and a great many others. Reynolds:

...I am a Christian in great part because of the role his works had in shaping my imagination. I am the kind of Christian I am, because Lewis wrote and lived as he did. [....]

C.S. Lewis was the first writer who inspired me to read all of his works . . . or at least all his works I could find.

Reynolds blogs about C.S. Lewis: Five Books That Changed My Life and gives the reasons for his choices. Here are his five:

1. That Hideous Strength
2. The Abolition of Man
3. Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4. Perelandra
5. The Last Battle

He challenges each of us to choose five.

As I tried to do that I found it impossible. I admire the five he chose and for much the same reasons he gives. The first book by Lewis that I read was Mere Christianity - it provided a reasonable explanation of Christian orthodoxy at a time when that was very much what I needed. Then, like Reynolds, I read everything I could get my hands on. Choosing only five is too hard.

C.S. Lewis: Five Books that Changed My Life | The Scriptorium Daily: Middlebrow