Out of My Life and Thought
For The book to start with: for anyone who wants Schweitzer's life and the reasons behind his choices in his own words.
Schweitzer's autobiography, published by Felix Meiner in Leipzig in 1931 and in C. T. Campion's English translation in 1933 (in Britain as My Life and Thought, in the United States as Out of My Life and Thought). It runs from his studies at Strasbourg to the end of the 1920s and is as much an account of his thinking as of his life: he summarises in turn his books on the Lord's Supper, the life of Jesus, Bach, organ building, Paul and the philosophy of civilization, and explains his decision at thirty to study medicine and go to Africa, his internment during the war, and the moment in 1915 when the phrase reverence for life came to him. It ends with an epilogue on his convictions about thought, ethics and religion. It is the best single introduction to his work.