My alma mater, The University of Texas, publishes a slick bi-monthly alumni magazine called THE ALCALDE. Lately they’ve been running a feature where they solicit alums to submit their personal Top 10 List of Most Influential Works. As you might expect, lots of lawyers, doctors, and successful professionals have submitted their lists with impressive tomes such as THE BIBLE, THE BOY SCOUTS’ HANDBOOK, and WAR & PEACE amongst their choices. Mine reads a little differently…I will say that my interpretation of the word “influential” was over the course of a lifetime as opposed to what are my most influential “right now”…but yeah, I’d say that each of these works inspired and shaped me at one point or another, and some of them still do….so without further ado, in no particular order:

SCULPTING IN TIME (book)
Andrey Tarkovsky
(1989)

BLADE RUNNER (film)
Dir. By Ridley Scott
(1982)

WINGS OF DESIRE (film)
Dir. By Wim Wenders
(1987)

VIOLENT CASES (comics)
Neil Gaiman / Dave McKean
(1987)

THE SANDMAN (comics)
Neil Gaiman
(1988-1996)

GUSTAV KLIMT: 1862-1918 (artbook)
Gottfried Fliedl
(1997)

THE ART OF RICHARD POWERS (artbook)
Jane Frank
(2001)

DREAMTIGERS (book)
Jorge Luis Borges
(1985)

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (film)
Dir. By Irvin Kershner
(1980)

BEHOLD THE MAN (book)
Michael Moorcock
(1969)

Anyone out there care to share their own Top 10 List of Most Influential Works?