Finished [Running the Light by Sam Tallent]. One of the best books I've read. Ever. Especially if you're a comedian.

I loved the Great Gatsby. I can’t believe they did it in 3D. What the fuck? Dahrma bums. these are just random. My Travels with Charlie. Grapes of Wrath. Crime and Punishment. Slaughterhouse 5. All vonugut when i was a youngster. Catcher in the Rye. 9 Stories. SOmething by Thomas Mann I can’t remember. Heart of Darkness. I claudius. The Golden Ass. Hercules my shipmate. Fire from Heaven. Persian boy. The chronicles of narnia when I was a kid and now my daughters. TR biography. lots others.

Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins Memory of Fire: Faces and Masks by Eduardo Galeano Ways of Seeing by John Berger Honey and Junk by Dana Goodyear

I like to read funny books. I said Confederacy already but Don Quixote is funny and Lolita is funny. Just read Richard Price The Whites (not funny) but it was great.

The Waste Lands. Blaine is a PAIN! That being said the entire series is an awe inspiring work of glory. At points it's like Stephen King had some kind of cosmic meltdown and left this mystical radiation all over the series.

Q: As a lover of Russian literature, who would you say your favorite Russian author is? Thoughts on Dostoevsky vs Tolstoy? A: Well, to say that Tolstoy Gogol and Dostovesky are the great novelists from Russia would be akin to say that William Faulkner, Mark Twain and Harold Robbins are the great American writers.

Right now, I'm reading a book called THE PEACE TO END ALL PEACE, by David Fromkin, which is a very thick book, about how the Middle East came to be, and why the Middle East is the way it is today. It's a very, very good and important piece of historical work. Another very important book to read, which I'm re-reading, is called WHY NATIONS FAIL. There are two books everyone should read: one is GUNS, GERMS & STEEL and the other is the rebuttal to that book, which is WHY NATIONS FAIL. Which will give you an understanding of why some nations are prosperous, while others are not. It's a very important book.

Most books back then were awful and most books now are awful. The classics stayed on. Reading modern books is like you went panning for gold and had to go through a bunch of rocks to find one single lump of coal. Or, the way I do it, you just go into the store and they give you big bars of gold from the old days and you read those.

As a young man, probably THE FOUNTAINHEAD. But now, I'm too old to be influenced. I know where I stand, and I know who I am.

The Nixon Tapes: 1973 Ed. by Douglas Brinkley & Luke Nichter Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

Most books back then were awful and most books now are awful. The classics stayed on. Reading modern books is like you went panning for gold and had to go through a bunch of rocks to find one single lump of coal. Or, the way I do it, you just go into the store and they give you big bars of gold from the old days and you read those.

There was a book in the early ’70s called “The Last Laugh,” by Phil Berger. That was the first book I ever found, and I think it’s the first book anybody ever did, about the world of stand-up comics.

Right now, I'm reading a book called THE PEACE TO END ALL PEACE, by David Fromkin, which is a very thick book, about how the Middle East came to be, and why the Middle East is the way it is today. It's a very, very good and important piece of historical work. Another very important book to read, which I'm re-reading, is called WHY NATIONS FAIL. There are two books everyone should read: one is GUNS, GERMS & STEEL and the other is the rebuttal to that book, which is WHY NATIONS FAIL. Which will give you an understanding of why some nations are prosperous, while others are not. It's a very important book.

I don’t like to read at night, because it puts you to sleep, which I don’t like. I like to get up in the morning, and before I get dressed and leave the bedroom, I like to take the book and just spend a half-hour to start my day. That’s how I like to start the day. It’s very comfortable, and you always have a lot of energy. I don’t know, I just enjoy it more in the morning.

I only have one book on the night stand at a time, because I’m a very slow reader and I really enjoy making a book last. If I’m going to bother to read a book I don’t want it to end quickly. I don’t binge. I like to sip. If I like the world, I want to stay in the world. And I don’t read a lot of books, honestly, but I have really turned to it during this virus time, because it’s cozy and I like it better than most shows — when I watch a show, I see script pages and I see acting. Having done what I’ve done, I find it harder to get into. So the book that’s on my stand right now that I’m really, really enjoying is called “Four of the Three Musketeers,” by Robert Bader, and it’s a very, very lon...[Read more]

The stack next to my bed is embarrassingly High. the one on my desk right now is "3 Ingredient Cocktails" by Robert Simonson. Great Read!

Well if you really want to read Russian novelists, you should learn to speak Russian, that's the best way. But if you don't want to do that, there are wonderful translators, a husband & wife team by the name of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, they are the greats. So even if you've already read Russian literature, you should reread. I would begin with a book of Tolstoy short stories, there's a book called the Death of Ivan Ilovitch and other stories, which is a jumping off point. And not ironically at all but it's very funny writing.

He turned me onto Don DeLillo. And he looked at us like we were all failing him....sweetly.