Books that made a difference to Gillian Anderson

Gillian Anderson is an award-winning film, television, and theatre actress whose credits include the roles of Special Agent Dana Scully in the long-running and critically-acclaimed drama series, The X-Files, ill-fated socialite Lily Bart in Terence Davies' masterpiece The House of Mirth, and Lady Dedlock in the BBC production of Charles Dickens' Bleak House.

One book that made a difference to her, as told to O, The Oprah Magazine:

Mountains of the Mind
by Robert Macfarlane

Macfarlane combines stories of his own experiences summiting mountains with a history of mountain climbing. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, man saw mountains as ugly: God's mistakes that got in the way of us going from point A to point B. As Macfarlane explains, it was relatively recently that we began to think of them as "majestic" or "sublime." I'm also fascinated by the way that mountains can possess people. On some level, I understand that—not the need to conquer, but the hunger. And the risks that one is willing to take in order to have what one wants.

Read about another book that made a difference to Anderson.

--Marshal Zeringue