The List

I believe there's two ways to tell almost everything you need to know about a person: Inspect their bedroom or see what their ten favorite books are.

I know what you're asking.

Who the hell is this kid and what does he know about books and why should I give a shit?

I can't really answer any of that, except to say that at the very least you may notice something you might want to read one day. You can't see it, but I'm shrugging as I write this.

In no particular order:


If there has ever been a better storyteller than John Irving, I'd like to know who that person is.


At the Brandcenter, one of the running jokes is that Scott, our 50-year-old Visual Storytelling professor who doesn't look a day over 25, is rotting away in a picture somewhere. It's probably not true.


There are few books that display what real passion looks like written out on a page. This is one of them.


If I were to be left alone on a deserted island with one book, this is the one I'd grab. The ability to take a simple piece or moment of life and reflect on it insightfully is the most amazing gift in the world. To read Collins is to see everything more clearly; it's to see things the way you always saw them but could never articulate.


Before The Godfather was one of the best movies of all time, it was one of the best books of all time. Puzo owns the English language. It's his.


I've read it twice, and when I finish the massive shelf of unread material that is the product of my Amazon.com addiction, I'm going for a third. The guy is truly insane. There's an entire chapter written about which was the best Genesis album. Enough said.


Funny, inciteful, fantastical, and superbly-written. Barnes has a way of writing prose like only a Brit can. And I mean that in a complementary way, James.


My junior year of high school we went to States. Got to go to Syracuse, play in the Carrier Dome, and experience what losing feels like in the purest sense of the word. Bissinger nails it.


Life at a London ad agency written entirely in e-mails. The funniest book I've ever read. Hands down.


In 1922 F. Scott Fitzgerald told the world that he wanted to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." He over-delivered.

On deck for this summer, God-willing: The Fountainhead, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Chuck Klosterman IV, The World is Flat, The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, and This Side of Paradise.

Now you don't have to snoop around my bedroom.

dubs. out.