"Buñuel is my first deep love in cinema. He is the adult that pulled the plug on the human art of pretending. He blazes through the hypocrisy at the heart of our bourgeois lives mercilessly—no one is sacred, no ideal or moral is spared. He is perfectly modern, bold, and clear. I found myself laughing in joy and amazement. He understands human nature while refusing to sentimentalize it."

"I think it’s the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. It was supposedly shot in Hattenfield, IL and I lived in a small town in Illinois. I just found it just horrifying. I still, to this day, find it incredibly horrifying; the music gives me the chills. The actual street, though is here in Hollywood right by our Blockbuster. So I always look down there. “I don’t see Michael Myers…”"

"This is the first book that has literally taken my breath away. I kept having to close it and breathe deeply, again and again. I read The Book of Longings right after my own book Untamed made its way into the world, and found Ana of Sue Monk Kidd's masterpiece to be a breathtakingly Untamed woman. This book—on women’s longing and silencing and awakening—is a true and beautiful masterpiece."

"One of the books I found in the bookshelves flanking the fireplace in our living room. I was 12 and interested in the world of adults and the secrets they kept from children. I still remember a steamy scene involving an eagle, one I must have read hundreds of times. Fortunately, my parents placed no restrictions on what books I could read. In our house reading was a good thing."

"I don’t know if you know this but I’ve found that if you sat at a table with eight or nine of the worlds best chefs — from France, Brazil, America, wherever — and you asked them where they’d choose if they had to eat in one, and only one country, for the rest of their lives, they would ALL of them pick Japan without hesitation. We both know why."

"I mean, Jesus Christ, it’s Madame Bovary. This is a novel that I adored when I read it. It was beautiful, scandalous, tortured and sympathetic. Then, while I was researching Guy de Maupassant for my first novel, The Clasp, I wound up reading a good deal about Flaubert as well. It’s impossible not to— the latter was the former’s mentor. So I have found myself revisiting Emma Bovary in recent years."

"Found my Dad’s old copy in the basement when I was in seventh grade. I’ve read it many times since. It’s always a pleasure spending a few days learning from brother Malcolm. You can feel the depth of his care and his sincere hope for your survival in every page. If he wasn’t a friend and a hero before you started reading, you’ll have to make some room for him."

While I was stimulated by the Communist Manifesto, I was exhausted by Das Kapital. But I found myself strongly drawn to the idea of a classless society, which, to my mind, was similar to traditional African culture where life was shared and communal. I subscribed to Marx’s basic dictum, which has the simplicity and generosity of the Golden Rule: “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs.

"I was working at a funeral home when I found this novel. Being 14, I did a lot of thinking about death, and, conversely, how to live. Love in the Time of Cholera made me feel as if I were walking next to the characters as they laughed, loved, lived and died in a world filled with spirits. Márquez raised my consciousness by taking me gently into other realms."