How to curate your personal canon
In the third grade, I read a book about an arrogant porcelain rabbit who falls from the safety of a little girl’s doll collection into the unpredictable world beyond. Edward Tulane is lost at sea, buried in a landfill, passed between drifters, lonely children, and grieving parents. Along the way, he is broken and repaired, abandoned and found. Each of his adventures strips him of his vanity and indifference, forcing him to feel love and loss, grief and hope.
I have, of course, read many “serious” and “important” books since the third grade. I’ve read Plato’s Symposium, Dante’s Inferno, Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov—long, winding classics considered “essential reads” in intellectual circles. And, in those years since third grade, I’d mostly forgotten about the book from my elementary school library that had once made me feel so deeply for a porcelain rabbit.
It wasn’t until I found the book at a second-hand book sale a few months ago that I recalled the story. I immediately purchased The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and went home to read it for the first time in nearly a decade.
At nine years old, I couldn’t have articulated what exactly it was about the book that stuck with me. But now I can realize how the book shaped how I view loving and being loved. How love matters because the fear of losing that person (or object) makes it all the more fragile. How, even though Edward Tulane was sometimes spoiled and selfish, he still deserved love and was ultimately changed by the love he received.
It was these reflections on it after re-reading it that earned it a place in my recently curated personal canon.
In academic contexts, a “canon” is a collection of works deemed essential. We think of the official lists—books, films, art, and ideas that are considered important by institutions or critics. These lists are often presented as universal or foundational, representing the best or most significant works that everyone should know.
But a personal canon is something entirely different. It’s not handed down from universities or intellectuals, but a set of works and ideas that you’ve chosen—consciously or unconsciously—to carry with you. A personal canon is the books, essays, films, and even conversations that have shaped how you think and see the world. It’s not necessarily a list of favorites or even the best works you’ve consumed. Sometimes it might include works that you struggled with or maybe even disliked, but what’s important is that they stayed with you in a meaningful way. Your personal canon reflects your intellectual and creative foundation, the influences that have formed your worldview, guided your thinking, or left a permanent mark on you.
So why create one? I consider a personal canon a tool for intentionality. When so much of what we consume is determined by algorithms, trends, or what everyone else is talking about, it’s a way to reclaim control over your intellectual life. It encourages you to reflect on what you’ve internalized and the works have shaped your values and beliefs. It reminds you that you’re allowed to decide what counts as meaningful or influential, not based on what’s popular or required, but on what’s resonated with you.
It is also, perhaps most importantly, a kind of compass. When you’re unsure of what to focus on next or in need of guidance, you can return to these works. Maybe there’s specific kinds of creators or ways of thinking that are missing from your canon. It can help guide you to what’s next.
And of course, you can continue changing and adding to it. But the point isn’t to simply fill gaps according to someone else’s standards. It’s to notice the works you’ve already internalized, the ones you keep circling back to.
In a world constantly pushing you towards the new, popular, and officially endorsed, a personal canon is a way to center what actually matters to you, rather than what’s supposed to matter.
I perceive value, I confer value, I create value. I even create — or guarantee — existence. Hence, my compulsion to make ‘lists.’ The things (Beethoven’s music, movies, business firms) won’t exist unless I signify my interest in them by at least noting down their names. Nothing exists unless I maintain it (by my interest, or my potential interest).
—Susan Sontag. As Consciousness is Harvested to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks
So, where and how do you start?
One of the most helpful things for me was to simply ask myself the right questions.
