The Snow Leopard. I can't remember the author's name, but I do remember that he searched the Himalayas high and low for this beast that was once thought legendary. He never found it, but the leopard became a sort of symbol for the kind of quest in which one finds not his stated goal but the greater one of self-knowledge.

My Father's Dragon. My favorite first adventure book. It set the stage for every adventure novel that I have loved since then. I bought it for my daughter when she was 5, and she loved it too.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. The central character escorts his cousin to an isolated TB sanatorium in Switzerland and becomes infected. He is confined and experiences a microcosm of the World here, falling under the sway of different mentors who each teach him a way of seeing life.

The Fountainhead. Ayn Rand. I read this in my senior year of High School. I realize that Rand affects different people differently, but she nearly made an arch-Republican of me for about six months.

Grendel. Read this in college after reading Beowulf my last year of High School. Besides being an example of excellent writing, it taught me that there were always two sides to every story.