Favorite Art, Music and Literature

Found below are my favorite books, essays, movies and musicals.  The literature is listed in listed in the approximate order that they entered my life.

Most Influential Literature

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
The Bible, King James Version
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
Walden by Henry Thoreau
Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Favorite Stylists

Like many of you, I love chocolate. The prose of the following writers are like chocolate for my brain when I read them.

• Ernest Hemingway
• Willa Cather
• Charles Dickens
• Pat Conroy

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Favorite Art

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (painting)
The David by Michelangelo (sculpture)
The French Impressionists - Love them all. No one captures the female spirit like Renoir.
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Favorite Movies

A River Runs Through It
Apollo 13
Mr. Holmes

Plays and Musicals

Wicked -- One of my favorite all-time stories. Love Elphaba. Love the musical score.
​King Lear by Shakepeare. Viewing this play from the front row of the Oregon Shakespearean Festival as an in-coming college freshman nudged me away from medicine and toward an English degree.
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Favorite Rock Band

• U2

Favorite Lyricists

​The songwriters of my youth greatly impacted my love of  words and story.  Most were folk writers:

• Gordon Lightfoot
• Harry Chapin
• ​John Prine

Favorite Protagonists

Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird - Perhaps the most noble protagonist in American literature. While society today demonizes people for their biases, Atticus refers to people's close mindedness as "blind spots." This more-forgiving attitude towards differences might be useful in our very polarized world.
Elphaba from Wicked. Fiercely independent, just of heart, dedicated to doing right. She has lessons to teach any young adult.
Alyosha Karamozov from The Brothers Karamozov: A young man of great faith, Alyosha spends his energy doing good deeds for his fellow men and tries to help them become happier and more fulfilled individuals.

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