Three That Matter is an annual Bookstore initiative designed to celebrate reading as a shared, campus-wide practice. Each cycle, members of our community are invited to name three books that have shaped the way they think, work or see the world. These selections form a growing, evolving portrait of the ideas, stories and voices that circulate through our institution.
Curated by the Bookstore, this project is intended to strengthen our sense of community by making visible the many different paths that bring us together as readers. When students encounter the books that have mattered to people they see and learn from every day, it creates new points of connection, curiosity and conversation across disciplines and roles.
Throughout the year, featured titles will be highlighted and made available through the Bookstore at a 20 per cent discount, inviting everyone to take part in this shared act of discovery. Three That Matter is not just a list of books, but an ongoing invitation to reflect on what we read, why it matters and how those stories help shape who we are together.
Brendan Cummins' Three That Matter
The Hobbit, Or, There and Back Again, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit is one of the first books I remember my father reading to my brother and I and probably the first book I ever re-read when I started reading for pleasure. I loved flipping from the text to one of Tolkien’s maps that helped me visualize the journey of Bilbo, Thorin and the rest of the company. It is a story of the power of the good, simple things in life and how heroism comes in the most unlikely of places. The way that Tolkien builds his world set my standard for what I wanted in any book because I could lose myself in that world. That and a dragon! My first tattoo is Tolkien’s drawing of Smaug the Terrible from the fronts piece of the 1937 printing.
The Question #1-36, Denny O’Neil (writer), Denys Cowan (artist)
This was the first comic book that challenged me to think about what I was reading. From the very first issue where Vic Sage, known as the hero The Question, gets shot in the head and dumped in the river, to martial arts instructor in a wheelchair, to the everyday bad guys like corrupt politicians and bad cops and no super-villains that populated the Question’s world, it asked the reader to rethink what they wanted in a superhero comic. Sage wrestled with the nature of justice and the morality of his actions as a vigilante. At the end of every letters page, O’Neil posted a recommended reading list, one selection that he thought the readers would enjoy and that were shaping his narrative.
It was from this list that I was introduced to On the Road, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and The Tao of Pooh. A pretty big footprint for a comic book.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
Besides the best opening sentence of any book, ever, I keep going back to Fear and Loathing because Thompson’s prose never fails to challenge. There is something powerful in recognizing that we, the observers, are part of any story we write. Thompson’s style, his energy, and unfiltered perception and critique of the world reminds me of what power we have when we share a story. I return to Thompson for the way the words make my mind race and buzz with ideas and inspiration. Sometimes I like to think I’m channelling some of that raw observation into my work, or at the very least reminding myself that we make the story.