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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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]

The Nixon Tapes: 1973 Ed. by Douglas Brinkley & Luke Nichter Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

[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]

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.

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

The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara

I loved the Great Gatsby. I can’t believe they did it in 3D. What the fuck? Dahrma bums. these are just random. My Travels with Charlie. Grapes of Wrath. Crime and Punishment. Slaughterhouse 5. All vonugut when i was a youngster. Catcher in the Rye. 9 Stories. SOmething by Thomas Mann I can’t remember. Heart of Darkness. I claudius. The Golden Ass. Hercules my shipmate. Fire from Heaven. Persian boy. The chronicles of narnia when I was a kid and now my daughters. TR biography. lots others.

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.

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.

[This link contains all the recommended books - there are more than 100] The list contains City of Thieves by David Benioff, Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, and Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang.