Asif Kapadia

"An incredible, sensual, magical, dark, twisted story. There was a point when everyone was reading this book in London and I delayed. For some reason I didn’t like the cover (embarrassing, but true), but finally the word of mouth was just too strong and I dove in, took one sniff and was blown away. It’s one of the finest books I’ve ever read."

"An inspirational, life changing book about an amazing personal journey. I first read it just as I was starting college, and I’d grown up in a pretty poor, rough part of London. At the time I was heavily into music by Public Enemy and loved Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing. So listening to Chuck D and Spike Lee talking about Malcom X motivated me to search out the book as I wanted to learn about the man for myself."

"A collection of magical, supernatural Japanese folk tales, first recommended to me by a well-traveled and well-read friend, this collection has a special significance as a four line footnote from this book about a young boy training to be a samurai inspired the screenplay of my first feature film, “The Warrior.”"

"The master filmmaker creates the finest book about filmmaking, all told in his own words."

"Dryly humorous, collection of tales about a poor Italian family and simple things in life. The book was recommended to me by an inspirational tutor at university and this collection, more than any, motivated me to try to write short screenplays."

"Simple, dark, powerful short stories about families, break-ups and their kids caught in between. Love the restraint. It’s all brewing under the surface, less is more."

"I love Westerns and always wanted to make this into a movie. I still do! It's the one that got away. A tight, taut, tense standoff, and almost impossible to put down once you start reading, dealing with differing beliefs in nature, faith, spirituality."

"I’ve always been fascinated by the psychology of people and trying to understand what motivates ordinary people to do the things they do, as well as the guilt and the redemption of these people afterwards. I cannot think of another book which took me into a character's brain before, during, and after, a crime quite like this one."