Bookmarks are stories mined from our secret lives as readers. Stories of intimate relationships and life-changing encounters with books. Stories about the books we can’t forget.
In this weekly podcast, Anne and the producers at "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" ask writers and creators to share what they’ve read and how it shaped them.
Alice Walker recommends Richard Yates' novel following an advertising executive whose seemingly successful life quietly fractures under the pressure of mundanity, alcoholism, anger, and recklessness. She says she was drawn to the book because Yates' world was so different from hers.More
Tommy Orange — author of 2019 PEN/Hemingway Award winner “There, There” — says he wasn't much of a reader in his early years. But a chance encounter with an absurd, experimental novel by John Kennedy Toole showed him a path to writing a novel that was truly his own.More
New York Times film critic A.O. Scott recommends the collected writings of film critic Otis Ferguson, a pioneer of the language of film criticism and advocate for all the types of labor that go into filmmaking.
What do you do when your buddy in high school turns out to be the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer?
Writer David Morris explains why "Solo Faces" by James Salter is one of his favorite books.
Israel Story radio host Mishy Harman recommends "A Tale of Love and Darkness" by Amos Oz.
When and how did American get so polarized? For answers, Jonathan Chait recommends reading "What Hath God Wrought," a history of American politics from 1815-1848 by the Pulitzer prize-winning historian Daniel Walker Howe.
Alex Abramovich recommends "Blues People: Negro Music in White America" by Leroi Jones, who later changed his name to Amiri Baraka.
Alissa Quart recommends Elena Ferrante's "Days of Abandonment" and Elizabeth Hardwick's "Sleepless Nights."
Choreogapher Bill T. Jones recommends Lawrence Weschler's biography of Robert Irwin, an artist who spent his career attempting to capture the subjectivity of the act of experiencing the world around us.
What was a favorite childhood story? What do you think it reveals about you?
Has a book ever precipitated a life-changing realization, about yourself or someone else?
Is there a book you’ve hated – but can’t stop thinking about?
Is there a book that’s shaped your spiritual life — that opened a door to a new reality?
Has a book ever sparked a personal passion or obsession?
Is there a book that introduced you to sex? A book that shaped or stretched your erotic imagination?
What book have you reread more than any other? Why?
Is there a book you consider a talisman, or a sacred object?