Serge **Lang**. Lang's Algebra was my first serious encounter with mathematics, the event was a very singular defining moment in my life.

Back then, I was firmly intent on becoming a poet or, at least, pursuing some kind of literary career. As most budding poets, I loved books and I liked spending time in the library. I was very curious, I would often wander in a section and pick up a book just to see what that row was about. One day I picked up an old rebound copy of Lang's Algebra. It was dirty purplish grey and just said *Lang: Algebra* in half erased white letters. I don't think I had any good reason to pick up the book, it certainly wasn't very attractive, I probably just wondered why one would write such a large tome on algebra. I sat down with the book and read the first page where he defines a monoid and proves the uniqueness of the identity element. I was fascinated. It was so beautiful. I fell in love.

I don't think I read much of Lang's book on that day, I probably only had an hour or less to spare, but I went back to the math section later and I picked up more books. The next one was Willard Van Orman **Quine**'s *Set Theory and its Logic*, which is probably the worst possible way to get introduced to Set Theory but that's how I eventually became a logician instead of a poet.