"Basically the fines essay I've ever read. It's technically two essays but it feels like one. Baldwin refused to hold anyone's hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you."

"The man who wrote many Marx Brothers movies was the greatest wordsmith America has ever produced. This collection brings together his comic essays, most of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. You have to read him with a dictionary, but it’s worth it."

"She is my patron saint, and this collection of essays helped me understand the world I was not around for but that still shaped my life. Her truths are tiny knives, piercing the surface and bleeding out the illusions of life, especially life in California."

"The brothers Maysles offer up two of their most stunning documentaries, and, frankly, I can’t choose between them. Beautiful essays on what it is to be American and, more importantly, human; visually hypnotic and oddly life affirming. Did I mention that they’re also, by turns, hilarious and heartbreaking?"

"The brothers Maysles offer up two of their most stunning documentaries, and, frankly, I can’t choose between them. Beautiful essays on what it is to be American and, more importantly, human; visually hypnotic and oddly life affirming. Did I mention that they’re also, by turns, hilarious and heartbreaking?"

"I was really late to getting around to this. It wasn’t until a journalist related my art sensibility and writing to her that I finally stopped rebelling and started reading! I love her asexual voice, writing in a man’s world. Her essays about California are like no one else’s"

"I would love for my younger fans to read What Will It Take to Make a Woman President? by Marianne Schnall. It's a collection of interviews and essays by great women, including Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, and Melissa Etheridge. They will inspire you to become a better leader"