The Mercury News
April 3, 2003

Books I Like: Tori Amos

Singer-songwriter Amos, 39, performs Friday and Saturday at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Her Web site is www.toriamos.com .

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $8.95 paperback). "I'm reading this to my daughter Natashya -- she's 2 1/2 -- and she seems very much drawn to the story and the pictures. If there's a scary lady involved anywhere, my daughter is right there with it."

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown (Henry Holt, $16 paperback). "All these lost voices in our history -- this book was so important in rediscovering them. I used the book as a reference work while I was writing my album 'Scarlet's Walk' last year."

Manuel Alvarez Bravo: Photographs From the J. Paul Getty Museum (Getty Museum, $17.50 paperback). "Alvarez Bravo (1902-2002) was a great Mexican photographer. I surround myself by his photographs when I sit at the piano and compose."

Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche by Robert A. Johnson (HarperSanFrancisco, $12 paperback). "Carl Jung used the term 'shadow' to describe the unlit part of the ego, and Johnson, a Jungian analyst, discusses how to explore it and move toward wholeness."

American Gods by Neil Gaiman (Harper, $7.99 paperback). "It's about a titanic battle in modern-day America between these burned-out Old World gods and some new gods who are in charge of things like the Internet and television."

The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath (HarperCollins, $17.95 paperback). "That's the level I'm striving for."

-- Bob Frost
Special to the Mercury News