"Another one I read as a teen. And didn’t just read, but carried around with me, wore it like a badge, thought it said everything about who I was: a beatnik in suburbia. I haven’t read it since, and part of me thinks now it might be awful. But I will stay true, and state for the record how much I loved it at nineteen."

"For me a favorite movie is a movie that you can watch at any time, and so I would say Gone With the Wind. I think the cool thing about Gone With the Wind… Well, this is what I decided, as I get older and more intelligent, why I like the film — because as a little kid I just loved the love story, and the Civil War was an interesting thing to me — but now it’s that I think it’s really cool to have the heroine of a film be someone that you really just don’t wanna like. You struggle liking her and I think that’s awesome. It is not a happy film. When it ends it’s just so heartbreaking, and I know it’s happening but I just can’t handle it every time."

"This Is Spinal Tap. Let’s put that one on there. This list is gonna get really long in a minute. I mean, I love all of Christopher Guest’s movies, but I’ll put that one up there. I could easily say Best in Show as well. I don’t know, there’s just something about the Britishness of the rock and roll, which has always made me laugh, in a way. It seems to say a lot about the age that I grew up in and just before I came along. At the age I first saw it, I was very right for watching a satire about the ’70s and ’80s and a culture that had just come before, I guess. The performances are so delightful. I also really like Waiting for Guffman. God, he’s wonderful director."

"I first read this book ten years ago and was so taken with the fluidity of the prose that I read it a second time, and then a third. And then to my surprise, I listened to it several times as an audio book. I could not and did not want to escape that place at the bend in the river. It is a total experience of a place and a time, and a thrilling read."