I don’t think enough has been written about how the adult is shaped by books read as a kid. For me, Alan Garner, Nicholas Stuart Gray and Tolkien provided me with a worldview that still influences my perspective. I suspect @neilhimself.neilgaiman.com probably agrees with the premise.
I also forgot to mention Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, particularly the chapter The Piper at the Gates of Dawn about pagan devotion. My CofE school missed that chapter out when we read it in class.
The object I own, was the luckiest to get and afford, and love the most (now on loan to the British Library I think) is the Rackham painting from that chapter.
In the brief moment before the image loaded I saw a flash of the artist's name in the alt text and thought it said Rickman, and you know what, it does bear some resemblance.
