In this week’s book section, I read some of John McCain’s favorite books.

John McCain loves For Whom the Bell Tolls. He talks about Ernest Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War novel and its hero Robert Jordan with a passionate adoration he’s never even displayed for his own wife. “My number-one hero of all time!” McCain said on the campaign trail in 2007. “I am an incurable idealist and romantic. Robert Jordan is everything I ever wanted to be.”

According to a recent New York Times story, McCain tried to be Robert Jordan, imposing the narrative of Tolls onto his own autobiography, leading to fights with his cowriter Mark Salter. “You know he is a fictional character?” Salter said he asked McCain, who replied, “I know, but he was influential!”

Jordan is especially influential for McCain, a man who models real-life actions on fictional events. Viva Zapata!, McCain’s favorite film, closes with a stirring scene wherein villagers dress like Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata to show solidarity. The scene, which was written by John Steinbeck, is clearly an inspiration for one of McCain’s latest ads, wherein a rainbow coalition of men and women stare into the camera and proudly announce, one after the other, “I am Joe the Plumber.”

What can we learn about McCain by reading For Whom the Bell Tolls?

Find out in the books section.