It’s not unnatural for readers to ask me, a onetime book reviewer, to mention a book or two or an author who has influenced my life. Good question, reader. I have always glibly replied that, “It may seem funny, but I’ll have to say the author whose books most definite – ly had an influence is Sinclair Lewis and his novels, of which I have read and studied all 17.”

Some folks nod their heads in non-comprehension, because although Lewis was the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, his name has most recently dropped out of the pantheon of American lit. Many of his later books, like “World So Wide” and “Kingsblood Royal” are nothing short of embarrassing. More recently critics have begun to give him more credit for his prescience in writing “It Can’t Happen Here,” which is a spot-on depiction of real-life demagogues, scoundrels who have beleaguered Western civilizations in the late 20th century, long after Lewis was buried in his hometown of Sauk Centre. You fill in the blanks.

So I’ve stuck by the Prophet of Gopher Prairie in “Main Street,” his depiction of small town life, which I read as a freshman at Whitehall High School, and wrote term paper after term paper about his popular novels like “Babbitt,” “Arrowsmith,” and “Elmer Gantry,” his devastating portrait of a philandering preacher.

By the time I got to grad school, I knew so much about Lewis’s work I wrote my Master’s thesis on this author, of whom my adviser knew so little, he confused him with Upton Sinclair, author of “The Jungle.” That thesis led me to a 20-year career as a teacher of literature, which I guess qualifies as a great influence of my life.

That is, until I read a recent article in the Star Tribune by former Tribune colleague Catherine Watson. Catherine was longtime travel editor during the Golden Age of the Star Tribune. Her stories were legendary, as when she traveled the length of the Trans-Siberia Railway, tailed by Russian agents, wondering what she was up to. Another great one, sailing the beastie-infested waters of the Amazon River in a native boat. (Think the African Queen was exciting? Try Catherine’s take!) During her aegis at Travel, Catherine won every award known to travel writers in the world of journalism.

And so it was good to see her byline in a recent Star Tribune, from which she has been retired for years.

Catherine came back to tell whose books influenced her life the most. It turned out to be a fellow named Richard Halliburton, a fellow who once was famous, but no longer appears in any literary history or list of bestsellers.

Catherine wrote that when she was 14 years old, her mother, an avid reader, gave her a birthday present: “The Royal Road to Romance,” by Richard Halliburton.

RICHARD HALLIBURTON! Ah, yes, I remember him well. Back in the early 50s, I sat day after day in study hall either in detention or before algebra class under a huge bas relief painting of elephants and emirs by Whitehall H.S. alum, class of 1912, John Harley Hopkins, called “After the Ramadan.” Pretty exotic for Whitehall, right?

That huge picture drew me back to the school's modest library, where I first read “Main Street,” “Babbitt,” and “Arrowsmith,” after which I ran out of works by Sinclair Lewis. (Apparently “Elmer Gantry” was a bit too juicy for Miss Ryan, the blue-haired librarian.)

Desperate, I moved to the area under “After the Ramadan,” which served as the school’s travel collection, works by Lowell Thomas (Wreck of the Dumuru,” a novel of cannibalism on the high seas) and a whole slew of travel memoirs by a guy – you guessed it – Richard Halliburton, a famous travel writer of the Roaring 20s and depressed 30s, the fellow whose “Royal Road to Romance” inspired my friend Catherine to pursue the same career.

I grabbed a green cloth hardback with a red and gold emblem, proclaiming “Richard Halliburton’s Seven League Boots,” went back to my seat and began to read. This Halliburton fellow got around, even to Soviet Russia, where he interviewed one of the brutal Bolshevik assassins of Tsar Nicholas II, Alexandra and all of their children imprisoned at a home in Ekaterinburg. Included were photos of the Mad Monk Rasputin, the little Tsarevich sitting in his toy automobile parked inside the Winter Palace, and the harried Tsar himself. This completely absorbed me. And for weeks afterwards, I returned to “After the Ramadan” for another look at the chapter.

And so it goes. No, I didn’t become a Tsarist or even a Monarchist, but I have collected a goodly number of books, serious and couee table, about the adventures and misadventures of the Romanov family, have watched every TV documentary I could get my eyeballs on. And have actually watched David Lean’s “Dr. Zhivago” and “Nicholas and Alexandra” (not very good) numerous times.

So thanks for that, Catherine.