Open Thread: Books that Define Your Worldview?

If You Had to Select Just 4, What Would They Be?

I’ve recently seen several Notes in which folks share the four books that represent their worldview. It’s a fascinating question: Can you define or describe your personal philosophy using just four books? Not really, but it offers a fun exercise in trying.

I answered:

1. Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

2. Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop

3. Virginia Postrel
   ’s The Future and Its Enemies

4. Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica’s Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

Frederick Douglas. Engraving by J.C. Buttre.

Why these four? I deeply resonate with Douglass’s yearning for liberty and opposition to injustice, to be a self-possessed man. I also find the dual portrayal of work and contemplation depicted in Death Comes for the Archbishop deeply resonant as well—ora, after all, et labora.

Postrel’s work undergirds my own optimism about leaving people free to innovate and develop bottom-up solutions to human problems; beyond that, her title calls back to Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies, which represents my views as well.

Finally, that Serbian monk: Elder Thaddeus’s book has done more to shape my spiritual and communitarian outlook than almost any other book. I find his wisdom and gentleness truly inspiring. Whatever maturity I possess—attribute it to my meditating on that book for the last fifteen, or so, years. Also note I still have a long way to go.

But now, for you: If you had to select just four books to represent how you see and engage the world—any genre, any time period—what would they be? Share your four below.

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