"My favorite Alice Walker piece that tells the stories of black women in the South in the 1930s. If you’ve seen the movie, you will find the book to still be timely and relevant and painfully moving."

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the first book I read in the hospital. I had been having headaches and couldn’t read or focus properly for a while. It is a lovely book, and it was given to me by Gordon Brown — he sent me 25 books, and this was my favorite"

"Steinbeck is my favorite author. I own first editions of this book, as well as everything on this list. East of Eden has some of the finest prose and also op-eds buried deep in this beautiful novel."

"This is actually is fifteen of Edward Gorey’s illustrated masterpieces in one. My favorite is The Unstrung Harp, about a novelist writing his biennial book—the funniest and most accurate description of the creative process I’ve ever seen."