Born into Hollywood royalty, Sofia Coppola got her showbiz start as an infant in her father Francis Ford’s 1972 epic, The Godfather. In 1999 she made her directorial debut with The Virgin Suicides, and won an Oscar for her second feature, Lost in Translation. Over a career of indie classics, she’s solidified her place as one of the most innovative and artful filmmakers working today.
Sharing a list of her six best-loved books with The Week, Coppola’s picks mirror many of her films’ recurring themes – humor, romance, heartbreak and isolation. Find her favorites below, and check out the bookshelves of other iconic filmmakers right here.
Music for Torching by A.M. Homes
“Really hilarious and mean – a marriage in crisis, lots of unhinged characters, everyones out to lunch. A couple mired in their suburban life burns their house down to try to make it all go away, to start againonly to end up stuck repairing the building instead.” -SC
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
“Touching and romantic and funny; full of the sentimental details of being a teenager.” -SC
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham (also rec’d by Ernest Hemingway)
“His masterpiece, set in pre-World War I Europe. A young man’s heartbreaking and epic obsession with an average-seeming woman. Her character was supposedly based on a man Maugham loved but couldn’t be with.” -SC
The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan
“My brother’s the one who got me into Brautigan’s Gothic western. This story of cowboy hitmen assigned to kill a monster is crazy, weird, and funny.” -SC
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
“This novel, the first of Mishima’s four-part Sea of Fertility series, takes place in turn-of-the-century Japan, and explores the clash between the old Japanese aristocracy and a new, rising class of elites. The son and daughter of two prominent families won’t admit they love each other until it’s too late, and she’s engaged to the emperor. It’s super-romantic, especially when the doomed lovers kiss in the snow.” -SC
They Called Her Styrene by Ed Ruscha
“This is a collection of Ruscha’s word paintings from L.A. They crack me up: ‘We’re this, we’re that, aren’t we?’ and ‘Little Malibu love nest’ and ‘Did anyone say dreamboat?'” -SC
(via The Week)