Biblioteca Personal

In honor of Jorge Luis Borges’ biblioteca personal, here’s my own list of media that has been deeply influential on me. (Incomplete, but I’ll finish it off later!)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

What can I say? H2G2 is my favorite novel, and I reread it every year for Towel Day. Most of my juvenilia is a faded carbon-copy of Adams, and most of my writing since then has been a long journey to sound less like Adams and more like, well, to be honest, a mixture of Helen deWitt and Robin Sloan. But Adams is the bedrock.

Obviously Hitchhiker’s is “effortlessly” funny and deeply engaged with both the day-to-day annoyances of modernity and the deeper, more profound itch of existentialism. It’s a classic of philosophical (or is that mathematical?) literature, with one of the core conceits being an Infinite Improbability Drive produced by calculating the finite improbability of that same device existing.

But what I’ve always appreciated most, perhaps, is that Adams had a foot in both of the “two cultures”. He studied English at Cambridge, but he was also a would-be programmer that famously bought the first Mac in England; in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, he clearly finds Samuel Taylor Coleridge as interesting as Prolog. He is, to my mind, one of the patron saints of that mixed culture of computing and liberal arts that brought the world computer industry, only to be swallowed up by that same industry — but not completely.

Scott Pilgrim

I read Scott Pilgrim in early high school because I liked Edgar Wright and I liked comics and I wanted to read the comic that inspired the new Edgar Wright movie. Needless to say, I thought Scott and his friends were the coolest people ever, and my mode of speech has ever since been deeply inflected by Pilgrim-isms. Also, the fact that I went to university in Canada (which in turn has determined the course of the rest of my life) may be, in part, attributable to the Toronto setting.

I love Scott Pilgrim because it grew up with me. When I first read it, in high school, I thought it was a story about being an effortlessly cool adult. When I read it years later, well into adulthood, I realized it was a story about being an effortlessly lost child. Also, the big last-act reveal in the comics that Scott is (spoiler alert, again) an unreliable narrator is one of my favorite endings. It’s such a gimmick, such a trope, but somehow in the context of Scott Pilgrim — a world of self-absorbed just-barely-adults that think they’re more mature than they are — it just works.

And then Bryan Lee O’Malley followed it up with Seconds, a story about hitting 30 and realizing how many life paths are being closed off, and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, a story about (spoiler alert) hitting 40 and realizing you’re really actually an adult that’s lived half your life already, making mistakes all the way. But they all have a gentle optimism that people really can change, can improve themselves, even if they keep making the same mistakes; as Ramona says at the conclusion of Takes Off, “what I’ve done in the past doesn’t have to define me. Help me keep remembering that, okay?”

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Get in the damn robot, Shinji! Both an insanely cool mecha anime about fighting aliens to avert the apocalypse and one of the greatest works of art about mental illness and trauma. The scene of Shinji on the train listening to the same song on repeat for an entire day is, to my mind, the most accurate depiction of depression in any media.

Of course, to have the “real” Eva experience, you have to watch not only the original show (and its controversial ending), but also End of Evangelion (which gives a completely different ending), the remakes in the Rebuild of Evangelion series (which give a third completely different ending), and the series FLCL and Gurren Lagann (which are, in different ways, direct responses to the themes and plot of Eva). Good luck!

Satoshi Kon

Each of Satoshi Kon’s works is special in its own way. Perfect Blue is such an assault on the senses I doubted my own existence after leaving the theater; Millennium Actress is so bittersweet I used one of its songs in my wedding; Tokyo Godfathers is my go-to Christmas movie; and Paranoia Agent is tied with Neon Genesis Evangelion for my favorite television show. Only Paprika stands out as merely good, and even that has some of the wildest visuals ever animated.

World of Tomorrow (Don Hertzfeldt)

The only entry on this list that I’ve largely memorized, particularly Emily’s final monologue (“You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all the dead…”). Heartbreaking, despite being stick figures. Its predecessor It’s Such A Beautiful Day also comes recommended.

The Last Samurai (Helen deWitt)

The great masterpiece of 21st century literature; a constant reminder of all I could achieve if I only set my mind to it.

Warhammer 40,000

I spent an (embarrassing?) amount of time reading Warhammer 40,000 sourcebooks growing up. It still seems like one of the few fantasy settings that really gets feudalism and faith, and the Chaos gods are never far from my mind.

In the Mood for Love

A film about yearning that is secretly a film about nostalgia; the ending intertitle gives me chills every time I reach it.

Y Tu Mamá También

A film about going on a sexy road trip that is, yep, also secretly a film about nostalgia. The scene of Luisa calling her ex-husband while the boys play pool is one of my favorite in cinema.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

A film I rewatch every year; deceptively bittersweet beneath its formal (but iconic for a reason) exterior.

Wishbone

I can’t actually remember watching this show about a Jack Russell terrier acting out Shakespeare and other classic literature, but it definitely explains some things about me.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch

The earliest television show I can remember watching (if only vaguely), and the ultimate source of my love for witches and snarky talking cats.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Endlessly multilayered — a film about intergenerational trauma and missed opportunities and East Asian philosophy — but personally I appreciate it as possibly the greatest story about neurodiversity ever told.

Tampopo / The Making of Tampopo

A sketch comedy about talented amateurs fighting the odds to produce something great, and that’s just the making-of documentary!

Half-Life 2

A landmark in diegetic storytelling, an underrated classic of the dystopian genre (“Dear Dr Breen, why has the Combine seen fit to suppress our reproductive cycle? Sincerely, A Concerned Citizen”), and the major source for the lambda I use as a personal icon.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

The ultimate comfort food, but deceptively feminist beneath the surface. “Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn’t marry a girl just because she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help?”

The Kiss Quotient

Another milestone in neurodiverse fiction — an autistic woman as the protagonist in a romance novel, written by an autistic woman. Even better, it’s effortlessly charming, too.

Don Quixote (Cervantes)

Still laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly progressive; well deserves its central place in the Western canon, and easy to recommend despite its heft. Just make sure to skip the inset novellas — they’re quite long and quite uneven in quality.

Divine Comedy (Dante)

Much more subtle than most give it credit; the scene of Dante finally coming face-to-face with his true love Beatrice is one of my favorites in literature.

Faust: A Tragedy (Goethe)

So idiosyncratic it’s difficult to recommend, but “Verweile doch, du bist so schön” is one of my favorite lines in literature.

The Tempest (Shakespeare)

My favorite Shakespeare, even if I’m not convinced it’s his best. Prospero, Miranda, and Caliban are among my favorite characters in literature.