"Island Records put out these samplers that cost the price of a single that basically had whatever was cool: King Crimson, Nick Drake, Blodwyn Pig, Quintessence, the original Nirvana. There’s a point sometimes when an independent label will just have everything, and you follow everything they do because they have the best stuff. That’s how I learned about King Crimson. In the period before I was living in London, I saw King Crimson more than any other band, and they had the biggest effect on me. They were so serious. “21st Century Schizoid Man” is just get it out, put it on the table, and deal with that. The combination of heaviness, technical brilliance, and sheer bonkers arrangements was unbelievable. You don’t know whether to be petrified or burst out laughing."

"By 1972, I’ve finished up in art schools, hitchhiked around the country, and I moved to Providence, Rhode Island. In the mid-’70s, I was in a band with Chris Frantz from Talking Heads, and I wrote a couple songs that stuck during that period, including “Psycho Killer.” We also did a lot of cover songs—Al Green, Velvet Underground, the Sonics, the Troggs. The Velvet Underground were a big revelation. I realized, Oh, look at the subject of their songs: There’s a tune and a melody, but the sound is either completely abrasive or really pretty. They swing from one extreme to the other. “White Light/White Heat” is just this noise, and then “Candy Says” is incredibly pretty but really kind of dark. As a young person, you go, What is this about?"

"I cite this book as the cookbook that most influenced me as a young cook. First published in the United States in 1974, but long out of print, Fernand Point’s page-turner cookbook was republished in 2008, and I was honored to contribute a foreword to that edition. The book is half recipes, half stories, and the stories about Point himself are remarkable and beautifully told. I recall the day I learned about this book very clearly. I was working at the Dunes Club in Narragansett, Rhode Island when my mentor Roland Henin loaned me his copy. He said it was a special book—his favorite. I found it extraordinary. I took it everywhere with me for two years throughout France and read it whenever I had a moment to spare"

"As counterweight to the weird and eerie elements in many of the books I have selected I propose the sweet and kind Summer Book. Tove Jansson’s fictionalized memoir about the summers she spent as a girl with her grandmother on a tiny island in the archipelago off Finland’s south coast is a wonderful ode to the curiosity of childhood and the wisdom of old age. In a precise, lyrical language that never gives in to easy sentiments Jansson allows us to take part in the summer days with the girl and the grandmother as one is discovering nature for the first time and the other is contemplating its vulnerability. It is sunshine in the shape of a book — for the shadowy part of Jansson’s oeuvre one must look to her children stories about the Moomins."