He turned me onto Don DeLillo. And he looked at us like we were all failing him....sweetly.

I don’t like to read at night, because it puts you to sleep, which I don’t like. I like to get up in the morning, and before I get dressed and leave the bedroom, I like to take the book and just spend a half-hour to start my day. That’s how I like to start the day. It’s very comfortable, and you always have a lot of energy. I don’t know, I just enjoy it more in the morning.

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.

There was a book in the early ’70s called “The Last Laugh,” by Phil Berger. That was the first book I ever found, and I think it’s the first book anybody ever did, about the world of stand-up comics.

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

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 stack next to my bed is embarrassingly High. the one on my desk right now is "3 Ingredient Cocktails" by Robert Simonson. Great Read!

I only have one book on the night stand at a time, because I’m a very slow reader and I really enjoy making a book last. If I’m going to bother to read a book I don’t want it to end quickly. I don’t binge. I like to sip. If I like the world, I want to stay in the world. And I don’t read a lot of books, honestly, but I have really turned to it during this virus time, because it’s cozy and I like it better than most shows — when I watch a show, I see script pages and I see acting. Having done what I’ve done, I find it harder to get into. So the book that’s on my stand right now that I’m really, really enjoying is called “Four of the Three Musketeers,” by Robert Bader, and it’s a very, very lon...[Read more]

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

The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara

Well, I read 2 books at once. I just started a biography of John Wayne and it's terrific. And I read every crime novel by Michael Connelly, who I think is the best. And a brilliant book I just finished was One Summer. It detailed life in America in 1927. It's an amazing read, One Summer.

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

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]

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.

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.

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

Moby Dick!

The Nixon Tapes: 1973 Ed. by Douglas Brinkley & Luke Nichter I watched the Watergate hearings while I was a boy in Canada. They said Nixon was the ultimate politician, but no: He was stiff, he’d sweat, he was human, a tragic figure who got caught up in his own insecurities. My favorite part [in these tapes] is the banality: Nixon talks about his mother-in-law making this pie he f—–g hates, and all these guys going, “Yessir!” Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell I love oral histories. Mitchell was a New Yorker writer who’d go around a city and write about interesting people he’d met, from the mayor to the lowest bum. He was probably the first to do New Journalism, [before] Gay Talese. Hi...[Read more]