His Dark Materials
I just finished reading the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. I loved it. It's Narnia for Unitarians. I read the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time when I was in college, when I was dating a Presbyterian youth minister who gave me the books as an answer to my question, "What do you think Heaven looks like?" I liked the Narnia books, and I even got an appreciation for Christianity out of it, but in the long term the message just didn't resonate with me -- the idea of our eternal reward being a neverending day trip to a really nice botanical garden wasn't so compelling. His Dark Materials works much better for me. I think it was ruespieler who introduced me to both His Dark Materials and Erik Davis' book TechGnosis, which I'm really glad I read first, since it gives a good background into the Gnostic heresies that His Dark Materials draws from. Anyway, good books. Now I'm going to go eat pizza and watch a bootleg Jackass DVD.