Well if you really want to read Russian novelists, you should learn to speak Russian, that's the best way. But if you don't want to do that, there are wonderful translators, a husband & wife team by the name of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, they are the greats. So even if you've already read Russian literature, you should reread. I would begin with a book of Tolstoy short stories, there's a book called the Death of Ivan Ilovitch and other stories, which is a jumping off point. And not ironically at all but it's very funny writing.

Chester Himes! Thomas Pynchon (obviosuly) john o'hara..John Steinbeck...George Orwell....Shirley Jackson! Caroline Blackwood

As a young man, probably THE FOUNTAINHEAD. But now, I'm too old to be influenced. I know where I stand, and I know who I am.

The Artists Way was given to me by Frank Conniff (follow him on Twitter!) and it really changed my life (I think).

Read Sam Lipsyte's The Ask.

Johnny Carson 1984 Confession of an Economic Hitman Kicking Through the Ashes Feed The Beast The Chitlin' Circuit Callus On My Soul Cheat: A Man's Guide to Infidelity Among the Thugs The Count of Monte Cristo The Westies Sweet Child of Mine: How I Lost My Son to Guns N' Roses My Appetite for Destruction: Sex & Drugs & Guns N' Roses Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN Becoming Richard Pryor The Bible Flag of Our Fathers

1. When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron 2. Holocaust and Human Behavior 3. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein 4. Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Bonfire of the Vanities.

My favorite memoir is Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up.” I think that’s the best book about being a comedian, written by a comedian, ever done.

Fragments of a Journal by Eugene Ionesco Nietzche (bio by Walter Kaufman is a great bible for Nietzche) Socrates (books about him and Plato's works) I'm reading a lot of psychology, some by Koestler I read comic theory, THE HUMOR CODE is a good read, as is Koestler's act of creation and I've been reading a lot of The Far Side and R. Crumb stuff too.

The best non-fiction I've read is anything by Joseph Campbell. And probably the best fiction I've ever read was a Pulitzer Prize winning book called INDEPENDENCE DAY by Richard Ford.

[Traveling Mercies.] The autobiographical essays in this collection cover faith and family, booze, men, and self-love. They’re full of the small moments in [Anne] Lamott’s life, the observations that make you laugh really hard and make you bawl really fast — two of my favorite activities. She talks about how the most popular prayers are “Help me, help me, help me” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I’ve read all her work, and she continually surprises me and speaks to me. One of the lines from this book that I love is: “All you can do is show up for someone in crisis. Your there-ness… can be life giving, because often everyone else is in hiding.” That’s just killer. Lamott is so open an...[Read more]

all time is either Fables or Sandman or Spider-Man or Fantastic Four.

Favorite books are The Catcher in the Rye and Ham on Rye. I only read books with Rye in the title.

The Marx Brothers book is a great book. Before that, I read another book about comedy — I think I’m doing this because it gives me that feeling I’m missing, of being around. When you’re in comedy, you’re like a tropical fish in an aquarium, or at least I am. That’s my life. If you said to a tropical fish, Would you like to go anyplace else, he’s going to go: You know what, I think I’d like to just stay here, I like the aquarium. So I am a tropical fish in an aquarium. And since I can’t go onstage and hang around other comedians, I read about them. So there’s this other book I just found on my bookshelf — I bought it, and never read it — it’s called “Seriously Funny,” by Gerald Nachman. This ...[Read more]

The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara

Oh, my favorite book? AJ Jacobs - anything by him I really find fun, and easy to ready. I also really like - what's his name - Mitch Albom, anything by him I really like. He wrote a book called FOR ONE MORE DAY, I read it on a plane, and it really stuck with me, and I thought it was a really beautiful book - it starts out with him trying to commit suicide, and he ends up reliving a perfect day with his mom, and I've always loved that book. It was the first book that had a really significant impact on me. I got off the phone, called my mom and said "I love you." It's a really great book.

Most books back then were awful and most books now are awful. The classics stayed on. Reading modern books is like you went panning for gold and had to go through a bunch of rocks to find one single lump of coal. Or, the way I do it, you just go into the store and they give you big bars of gold from the old days and you read those.

I'm reading "Search for Lost Time" by Marcel Proust [2018]. I find Pynchon to be the most knowing writer of our time.

I will always put "Here Comes Snoopy" by Charles Schulz first because my dad gave it to me when I was seven and I stayed up all night reading it and it was the first book that made me laugh out loud