"I know it’s kind of cheating but oh well. There is something special about Patsy and I don’t know that anyone can quite put their finger on it; I definitely can’t. But listening to this collection is a beautiful way to spend an evening with a cocktail and your favourite person."

"Criterion has produced various Buñuel editions, and they’re all terrific. What I adore about The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is Buñuel’s rapier thrusts at the establishment, allied to an anarchic fury and surrealist imagination. I doubt that there’s a film in the collection that makes me laugh quite so much."

"This was the book that made my John Updike collection pretty much superfluous. In one big, sprawling, ambitious novel, DeLillo captures the soul of white America at its most optimistic, soaring and sad — an amazing achievement. You can read this and look at what the country is now and cry tears."

"If every U.S. citizen could have the benefit of knowing Zinn’s collection of historical texts from a wide range of relatively known and unknown people throughout our country’s history, there would be a lot better quality in our current political class and in the style and substance of our governance."

"A collection of memos to employees by the chairman of the now defunct investment bank Bear Stearns. In his memos, Greenberg is constantly restating the bank’s core values, especially modesty and frugality. His repetition of wisdom from a fictional philosopher presages Amazon’s annual recycling of its original 1997 letter to shareholders."