This was the first book I read, if I remember right. The first book that I read that was not meant for children, I mean. I just pulled it at random from my parents' bookshelves and read the whole thing. I don't know how old I was, but it had to be 10 or 11, because I know by 12 I was reading voraciously. At that point (10) I had not preference for poetry over prose, and my chief intellectual interest was Greek mythology. I had become a reader in search of something (I wasn't sure) at age 8, and had read most of the Bible at this point.
Before the first re-reading in 50 years, all I remembered was Philip praying for his club foot to be healed and being disappointed, an accidental declaration of love in a foreign country, and the someone telling Philip in France that he was a mediocre painter and dashing his dreams. I remembered that Philip lost his faith, and reading the book helped me to be a non-religious person as well. A lot of other things faded away in my memory.
Another book that spurred my atheism was the Bible itself. There is a reason why theology students like Weeks are more likely to be non-believers than ordinary folk.
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