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
"Dear Committee Members" author Julie Schumacher recommends Portuguese Nobel Lauaureate José Saramago's retelling of a true tale.
Stanley Crouch bookmarks "Reasons of State" by Alejo Carpentier.
Junot Diaz recommends Samuel R. Delany's reverse-chronology novel that captures the tragic story of a closeted poet who struggles to reckon with his desires.
Jonathan Lethem bookmarks "Kafka Was the Rage" by Anatole Broyard....
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?