"This lyrical tale of two friends in cultural heyday New York City elicits nostalgia for a time I didn't even experience firsthand. As an artist, this story speaks to me on many levels and inspires me to be honest, shameless, and creative."

"This is a nuanced and powerful novel about growing up, the mother-daughter relationship, female identity, sexuality, cultural dissonance, privilege, poverty and the pernicious legacy of colonialism. Kincaid’s style is both immediate and headily intense. A glinting, multifaceted work within relatively so few pages."

"The master of the haiku wrote this travelogue of his journey through northern Japan in the 17th century. Everywhere he went he composed a poem and connected his work to his cultural heritage, his spiritual life and, most of all, nature. A riveting meditation."

"Baldwin is one of my favorite writers and cultural critics. His work always feels both relevant and revelatory. This book-long essay on film and moviegoing is part memoir, part homage to cinema, and also an exploration of the ways corrosive ideas seep into the collective imagination."

"This extraordinary masterwork could only have been written by someone with an academic’s patience and sense of history and tradition. Vastly detailed and rich with anthropological, historical, and cultural information, I refer to this book first anytime I want to learn or better understand anything about Latin cuisine."

"Jean-Luc Godard ‘s film (starring Jean-Paul Belmondo) showed a definite journey, a cultural move in time and space. I remember when I came home from the cinema: I could not tell you the story but was sure it was an experience that would never leave me."

"Forget rock and roll, this is one of the greatest biographies I’ve ever read on any subject. Guralnick makes us feel Elvis Presley’s dizzying rise to superstardom as the unprecedented cultural phenomenon it was—Elvis didn’t know what he was trying to be, because nothing like Elvis had ever existed before."