"My daughter Jenn recommended that I read this novel, which tells the story of a black couple in the South whose marriage gets torn apart by a horrible incident of injustice. Jones is such a good writer that she manages to make you empathize with both of her main characters, even after one makes a difficult decision. The subject matter is heavy but thought-provoking, and I got sucked into Roy and Celestial’s tragic love story."

"I came from a small town, with parents whose only wish for my future was a factory job, so this film, and the novel it was based on, felt close to home. My only desire was to somehow escape my surroundings, so when I first watched this movie in my early teens, I found the ending truly agonizing. Beautifully shot in black and white by Denys Coop, who also shot This Sporting Life for Lindsay Anderson that same year."

"“Parasite” starts as a novel of manners that relentlessly metamorphoses into a black comedy, ghost story, psychological thriller, horror movie, and ends in an unexpected but inevitable tragedy. It was a unanimous Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival this year and I will never forget the faces and enthusiasm of all the jury members after we had the privilege to see it being presented to the world for the first time at the Palais…"

"The plot of the novel is woven invisibly under you, and pulled out just as you are settling in. It is one of the best novels about a young woman that I’ve ever read. These moments of transformation and epiphany go by unnoticed by the outside world, but we have the privilege of being in Portia’s mind with her as she’s trying to figure out exactly how the world is put together and why people do what they do."

"This is a novel, but it's all basically the true story of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. It describes the LSD experience as well as its cultural implications in a way that anyone can grasp and feel. It's also a contemporary novelist at the height of his powers. It was crucial for my own development, showing me how to find and chronicle a seemingly esoteric movement. It was my model for my first real book, Cyberia."

"In turns moving and funny, Backman’s novel ventures into the life of Ove, a man in late middle age who has adapted to his lonely new world by becoming, frankly, a crabby old fart. But I wager that you’ll soon fall in love with Ove and be deeply moved by his situation, and after spending time with him, may perhaps gaze at the world around you with a little more empathy than when you turned the first page."

"In the Robertson Davies novel Fifth Business, that first-chapter snowball gave me the idea for the baseball in A Prayer for Owen Meany, whose initials (O.M.) are modeled on the Grass hero of The Tin Drum (Oskar Matzerath). When I was married in Toronto, Davies read from the Bible at the wedding. "There is something of Byron about John Irving," Davies once wrote about me. Yes, I suppose so, and something of Dickens about Robertson Davies."

"This delicious novel is part war story, part love story. Set in the beginning of World War II, it tells the story of Italian Captain Antonio Corelli of Mussolini’s Army as they invaded Greece. On the island lives Pelagia, the daughter of a Greek doctor with whom Captain Corelli begins an affair, despite her engagement to a fisherman who is headed to join Greek forces. It is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read."

"It’d be good to be reminded, as I pass my days sitting on a beach under a coconut tree, of all the life, all the beauty and sorrow, all the mystery; all that can be contained within a relatively modest number of pages. It’d be good to be continually reminded, as I grew older, about how much rampant life, how much emotion and conflict and joy and disappointment, can be conveyed in a novel so perfectly, symmetrically structured."

"Growing up, we had a set of hardback classics my parents had probably sent away for. I picked this one up when I was about 14. It was the first “grown up” novel I ever read. I hadn’t expected to understand or even get to the end of it. I was so proud of myself. It was a bit like finishing an entire can of cola all by myself for the first time, but less gassy, obviously."