All of us have those books that have made us who we are today. Maybe we are inspired by the biography of our personal hero, or maybe we have been deeply influenced by a religious text.
Maybe we’re being molded by some of the pieces we’re reading in our philosophy seminars, or maybe there’s that one special childhood story that always seems to color our worldview.
This past week, The Eye’s Allyson Gronowitz discussed My Ideal Bookshelf, a collaboration between artist Jane Mount and writer Thessaly La Force to produce images of well-known figures’ 100 favorite books, revealing a great deal about their personalities. There’s no doubt that someone’s favorite books can say a lot about them, and learning one’s preferred titles can make you feel a lot more intimately acquainted with them. We thought it would be fun, then, to find out some prominent past Columbians’ favorite books.
Columbia, despite the nearly complete lack of American writers in the Core, nevertheless seems to foster an appreciation for American classics. Actor James Franco counts William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying among his favorites, and songstress Alicia Keys loves Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Willa Cather’s My Antonia.
