"Okay, so this book is really so very important. And its arguments ask to be revisited on multiple occasions. You might recall the title if you read “Between the World and Me.” This book is not personal like Ta-Nehisi Coates’s; it is objective and rigorous. Scholars Barbara J. Fields and Karen E. Fields explain what race is, and what it isn’t. I feel I waited my whole life to read their primer, in chapter four, on ideology—what it is, and how it works. Now I know."

"Truly, anything Roald Dahl. We read them all the time growing up. Just the right mix of absurdity and sweetness. Right now, as a father I’m feeling Danny, Champion of the World as it is a lovely insight into the father/son relationship."

"I read every night. I do the Kindle thing. My wife bought it for me, and at first, I wouldn't use it because I'm such a book guy. I had to hide that I wasn't using it. After four or five months, she asked me what the deal was, so I tried it and now I read on it. Actually, I read the book on Kindle and then I also have a library in Seattle. So, I just finished Caroline Alexander's The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. It's really good. The Bounty was a merchant ship when merchant ships were not at all glamorous. War was glamorous. The story had a bunch of scarred-up dudes, and it was just interesting overall."

"Right now I'm reading Pimp by Iceberg Slim. It's got me wanting to put my foot in a hoe's ass for real. I read it before but not very thoroughly so I'm reading it now because I've just got a Kindle. I grew up in Oakland where a lot of pimping and underage prostitution went on so I can relate. I can put myself in that position, but as a pimp. It's a fantasy."