"Two films that prove that we all have our costumes and we all find our drag. As films they couldn’t be more different, but as examinations of the hopelessness of rigid social hierarchies they couldn’t be more the same."

"I was older - a college student - when I read the Gunter Grass novel The Tin Drum. The 19-century novel was the model of the form, for me; here was 19th-century storytelling about 20th-century social behavior, sexuality, and politics."

"With all of its inevitable sins of omission and generalization, this great compilation of Western philosophical ideas and currents from pre-Socratic times until the middle of the 20th century is an invaluable and accessible guide to our shared social history."

"Giovanni’s Room is one of my all-time favorites by James Baldwin, a master of deconstructing the American character and social temperature during an era in which novels that explored race and queer love were few and far between, at best."

"This Town by Mark Leibovich is a smart, hilarious, dishy, inside-baseball look at the current DC political scene and social structure. If Margaret Mead, Richard Ben Cramer and Jon Stewart had a three-way, Leibovich would be their love child."

"Director: Malgorzata Szumowska. This one just took me by surprise. I was enveloped by the atmosphere and the setting. I was thrown into a whole fresh set of ideas to contemplate. I like comedy in the midst of social realism."

"I’ve read this book at a few different times in my life, and each time it makes a slightly different impression on me. It’s about love and ambition and social class and envy. It’s very American, in the best way."