Portnoy's Complaint, Ten Minute Toughness, Denial of Death.

When I was in first grade on the last day of school, Mrs. Stafford, our teacher, said, "I want to give out a special present today, to a kid in the class who has tried so hard to improve his handwriting." And she's going through this whole speech about this kid; I'm staring at this kid that I knew that she liked, and I just hated him, and I was getting more and more angry. And then at the end, she said it was me! The present was a Dr. Seuss book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, that I have since thrown out. But I remember it was in purple cellophane wrapping, and I still consider it the greatest honor to have received that gift. So, that was my favorite book.

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

Well, I like anything that's written by Leo Tolstoy, or Gogol, my favorite is War & Peace.

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

Finished [Running the Light by Sam Tallent]. One of the best books I've read. Ever. Especially if you're a comedian.

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.

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.

The first adult novel I read, and this is a favorite memory of mine, resulted from my grandfather — who was a voracious reader — taking me to Novel Idea in Tulsa, Okla., to pick up a book for school. As we headed to the checkout line he said, ‘Why don’t you pick out something to read for pleasure?’ I went to the Young Adult section, and he stopped me: ‘No, no. Go to the Fiction section.’ I was 12, and this was a big deal. The Fiction section is where all the books with sex and bad language lived. I self-consciously browsed the aisles, careful to avoid unwittingly picking up Fear of Flying or something, until I came to a paperback with a spooky cover. The title: Salem’s Lot. Description: Vamp...[Read more]

It's one of the greatest books of all time, and the greatest character is The Mule

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

[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]

Right now, I'm reading a book called THE PEACE TO END ALL PEACE, by David Fromkin, which is a very thick book, about how the Middle East came to be, and why the Middle East is the way it is today. It's a very, very good and important piece of historical work. Another very important book to read, which I'm re-reading, is called WHY NATIONS FAIL. There are two books everyone should read: one is GUNS, GERMS & STEEL and the other is the rebuttal to that book, which is WHY NATIONS FAIL. Which will give you an understanding of why some nations are prosperous, while others are not. It's a very important book.

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

Read Sam Lipsyte's The Ask.

Just reading Tiffany Haddish's LAST BLACK UNICORN- beautifully written and hilarious. I love memoir- so, Mary Karr. Graphic Memoir- Allison Bechdel (sp?) Fun Home and "Marbles" by Ellen Forney. Madness by Marya Hornbacher, anything by Kay Redfield Jamison. I also like For Dummies- Personal Finance for and Bipolar Disorder for.

The Waste Lands. Blaine is a PAIN! That being said the entire series is an awe inspiring work of glory. At points it's like Stephen King had some kind of cosmic meltdown and left this mystical radiation all over the series.

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.

My 5 favorite books of 2020: Antkind by Charlie Kaufman Earthlings by Sayaka Murata Little Eyes by Samantha Schweblin Weather by Jenny Offill The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel

Well, my favorite author is Mark Twain. He’s smart, and funny. Huckleberry Finn, especially the chapter all the purists hate, in which Tom Sawyer stages an elaborate rescue of Jim, is a writer having as much fun as possible. But my favorite book is a two-parter by Laurens Van Der Post, A Story Like The Wind and A Far Off Place. My favorite book used to be The Plague by Albert Camus.