"This novel about a young man’s seven years in a sanitarium for tuberculosis is quite possibly my favorite book of all time. A new translation from the German by John E. Woods in 1996 makes this marvelous read more beautiful than ever."

"It is difficult to pick one Dickens novel, but this one has everything for me — a plot with multiple twists, unforgettable characters that are as alive today as when it was written and a deeply emotional core. It is also tremendously funny."

"Hitchcock’s great mystery includes a wonderful character called Mr. Memory, not present in the novel by John Buchan. He was based on a drop-out know-it-all autodidact named W.J.M. Bottle, who was billed in vaudeville as Datas, The Memory Man."

"The main character of this novel is an adult man who lives with his mother, and who fancies himself too intelligent to participate in mainstream society or to hold down a normal job. Don’t we all have relatives like this? Well, I do!"