As shown by her breathtaking one-woman shows, “Fires in the Mirror” and “Twilight: Lost Angeles” — about the 1991 and 1992 riots, respectively, in Crown Heights and Los Angeles — Anna Deavere Smith is no mere actress and playwright: She’s more of an artistic activist. Last week she received the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, which, at about $300,000, is one of the richest rewards in American arts. Whatever will she splurge on? “I imagine the government will have its way with it first,” says Smith, who played National Security Advisor Nancy McNally in TV’s “The West Wing” and currently appears in “Nurse Jackie,” when she isn’t teaching at NYU. Here’s what’s in her library.
The Wounded Healer
by Henri J.M. Nouwen
I came across this in a bookstore at a monastery — Nouewen was a theologian. It’s a slim book, and what I love about it is his definition of “hospitality”: It’s not “Welcome to my house, have a drink,” but opening your heart to the people you meet and truly listening to them.
The Known World
by Edward P. Jones
The novel is about a black man who owned slaves just before the Civil War. It’s an extraordinary piece of writing about moral ambiguity. Jones is a genius! He lives very simply. I took him out to Aspen to speak on a panel, and he was riveting! Women fall in love with him. When he said he had no furniture, he was surrounded by women saying, “Let me help you find something!”
Words of the World
by Sarah Ogilvie
This book was written by a lover of words. Ogilvie is a linguist currently working for Kindle, and she worked as an editor on the Oxford English Dictionary. This is a fascinating history of how words from outside England, in the 19th century particularly, fought their way into the OED.
Hallelujah Junction
by John Adams
Right out of Harvard, Adams came to San Francisco. I was there, but he was a hip artist and I was a kid in acting class, alone and struggling. I stumbled on his CD “The Chairman Dances,” and a small piece, “Christian Zeal.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Some of the same things that influenced him had influenced me.