"I first saw this movie when I was a little girl. I was so drawn to Amy Irving, her personal style in this film. I loved this story of a progressive, intelligent, Jewish New Yorker who was so bonded to her grandmother, but not necessarily to her cultural traditions. And what a great romance! There is nothing else like this movie."

"My all-time personal favorite. I love this book, all of it: the plot, the characters, the dialogue, much of which was lifted verbatim by John Huston for his screenplay for the beloved movie of the same name. The single best monologue in fiction appears toward the end, when Sam Spade tells Brigid O’Shaughnessy why he’s giving her to the police."

"This is a book that found me. I read it the summer after college, right before moving to NYC and starting out on my own personal legend. The Alchemist has found me every time I’m about to embark on a new path, or during a major transition. I’ve read it each time, and every time there are even more treasures to discover."

"Mabanckou is one of the greatest storytellers, famous for his book, Black Moses. Les Cigognes Sont Immortelles, which combines the personal and political; it shows the impact that history, violence and civil war has on a family, against the backdrop of colonization and decolonization. I was particularly struck by this recent quote of his: “The civilization of tomorrow is the sum of marginalities."

"I first discovered this movie, and director Samuel Fuller, more than fifteen years ago via A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. I’ve never been the same since! The first four minutes take your breath away, and it only gets better and stranger, almost hallucinatory, after that. Did anyone understand the grand beauty and horror in pulp like Samuel Fuller?"

"This is a brilliant essay film. It uses some of the tropes of documentary, unearthing and presenting archival footage that cracks history open, drawing connections between previously unconnected historical figures. It also goes beyond that, using other contemporaneous material – ads and cultural artifacts – leading to some trenchant personal reflections. That’s hard to pull off, and very satisfying and throbbing when it succeeds."