OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE
by Michael Azerrad

AIR GUITAR
by Dave Hickey

ESSAYS ON THE BLURRING OF ART AND LIFE
by Allan Kaprow

MALLET EYES
by Jeremy Sigler

Currently Reading:

Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad.
It’s the perfect book to read on tour. I recently met Michael! I was so flattered and excited to chat with him about music!

Favorite Books (In No Particular Order):

Air Guitar by Dave Hickey
Not one of my all time favs, but a solid read!

Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life by Allan Kaprow
This book contains some of truest and most beautiful discoveries, which are essentially Kaprow’s entire body of work. So, so good.

Mallet Eyes by Jeremy Sigler.
A sophomore book of minimal poems by my mentor. Highly recommended!

TO SIBERIA
by Per Pettersen

DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES
by Jonathan Miles

HOTEL THEORY
by Wayne Koestenbaum

GREAT AMERICAN FIRES
by Jack Gilbert

Currently Reading:

To Siberia by Per Pettersen
I have only just started it, but I am a fan of his previous novels. His writing is simple, detailed, and emotionally compelling—he writes like someone who doesn’t have a choice.

Top Picks:

Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
Benny, the main character, tells his life story in the form of a letter of complaint to American Airlines while stranded at O’Hare International Airport. He embodies the essence of someone in collapse, where both insanity and complete vulnerability of character mix with rage and sorrow, to end in beauty. It sounds like something you have read before, but it is not.

Hotel Theory/Hotel Women by Wayne Koestenbaum
Physically, this is one of the most beautiful books I have seen. It contains two books in one. Hotel Theory is an essay on hotels using pop references, pop figures, classical composers and writers to describe the lives of hotels and the people who occupy them. Hotel Women is a short story told in dime-store fashion using fictitious versions of Lana Turner and Liberace who are watching their careers fade away from the roof top pool at Hotel Women. Hotel Theory and Hotel Women run on parallel vertical columns side by side on each page. It’s genius.

Great American Fires by Jack Gilbert
He is old now and he has done more traveling than he has done publishing, but his poems are completely true and beautiful. There is nothing I can say to do justice to his work.

All American Poem by Matthew Dickman
Apparently Dickman is a baker in Portland, Oregon. He makes civil war re-enactments and parking lots poetic. His way of referencing the stuff that most people wouldn’t consider poetic is refreshing.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND OTHER WRITINGS
by Benjamin Franklin

WHAT IS THE WHAT?
by Dave Eggers

COPYRIGHT’S PARADOX
by Neil Weinstock

THE LONG WALK
by Richard Bachman

Currently Reading:

Autobiography and Other Writings by Benjamin Franklin

Nick Krill: The great Mike Quinn from And the Moneynotes lent me this book for our latest tour. The language is sometimes an obstacle for me when getting into this book—especially when I’m reading it while bouncing in a bumpy van—but is a nice tour read.

Other Picks:

What is the What? by Dave Eggers

Jon Eaton: I pretty much enjoy everything Eggers has written, but I think this book is the best to recommend, as it seems to have way more of a point than any other novel or story of his. I think Eggers has an urge to try and bend the rules of conventional story creation, which as an anarchist, I support. Wait—can anarchists support things? 

Copyright’s Paradox by Neil Weinstock

Thomas Hughes: I first became interested in the ills of copyright with Lawrence Lessig’s brilliant Free Culture. The paradox of copyright, Weinstock argues, is that while originally designed as an “engine of free expression,” it is now being used as a tool to deprive others of their right to free speech. Weinstock successfully argues its wrongs but also offer solutions to how copyright law can be reformed.

The Long Walk by Richard Bachman

Sam Hughes: I heard about this one on the Internet. It’s basically like the movie Speed, but instead of Keanu and a bus, it involves teenage boys walking on a road. It’s like a post-apocalyptic sporting event where only one out of one hundred can survive. If you liked Bachman’s The Running Man, check it out.

The Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic by Pamela Weintraub

Joe Hobson: This book is an explanation of the gray areas of this serious disease. I was recently diagnosed with lyme disease, and I began reading it to find out about my crutch. It’s a pretty frightening reality plus an entertaining read.

WE TELL OURSELVES STORIES IN ORDER TO LIVE
by Joan Didion

GILEAD
by Marilynne Robinson

INDEPENDENT PEOPLE
by Halldor Laxness

THE BEARS’ FAMOUS INVASION OF SICILY
by Dino Buzzati

Reading Right Now:

We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live by Joan Didion
The collected nonfiction of Joan Didion with topics ranging from the nature of California  (never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can) to her brief time spent in El Salvador during the mid-eighties to Miami’s role in attempting to overthrow Castro since the early sixties. It’s brilliant, incisive writing.

Four Favorites:

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
This book glows. Try reading any one page at random and telling me otherwise. It’s amazing—my favorite book yet.

Independent People by Halldor Laxness
Follows an Icelandic crofter and his family during his battle to retain independence at all cost over forces supernatural, colonial, and, as always, financial. Interspersed are pages upon pages on sheep and their proper care, terrifying Celtic myths, and some pretty filthy humor from the late nineteenth century.

The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati
A morality tale for the kids that features some stunning, detail-mad illustrations.

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Maybe not the first but certainly the greatest work of self-affirmation published.

LOLITA
by Vladimir Nabokov

CONSTITUTION OF LIBERTY
by Friedrich Hayek

NIGHTS OF PASSED OVER
by Mark Kozelek

ON THE ROAD
by Jack Kerouac

SWAY
by Zachary Lazar

THE PARTNER
by John Grisham

Reading Right Now:
I have this habit from when I was young of juggling a couple books at a time, and it still continues to this day. It does get tricky when the storylines get crossed but, for the most part, it works for me. Currently I am going between Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek, and Nights of Passed Over by Mark Kozelek (a collection of his lyrics).
 
Current Favorites
 
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Great energy. When I finished it, I re-read it again.
 
Sway by Zachary Lazar
An eerie look at three iconic figures from the sixties: The Rolling Stones, Kenneth Anger, and Bobby Beausoleil. While it’s based on fact, a lot of the conversation between characters and references are fictional. Still, it gives an interesting look at these three stories and their parallels.
 
The Partner by John Grisham
Read it a long time ago but the story stuck with me. I don’t know what his best books are, but this was one of those random reads that I really enjoyed while on holiday.

THE ICE-SHIRT
by William T. Vollmann

SEX CRIMES OF THE FUTCHER
by Billy Childish

LONDON FIELDS
by Martin Amis

THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE
by Haruki Murakami

Reading Right Now:
The Ice-Shirt by William T. Vollmann.
Viking and Inuit magic, mythology and lore form the premise of this historical account, which covers the Norsemen’s arrival in Greenland.  Later in the book, when you start getting to the interviews with contemporary Greenlandic people, the confusion of not knowing the fiction from the facts sets in.

Recent Top picks:

Sex Crimes of the Futcher by Billy Childish
A memoir as a novel as a memoir centered on the co-dependant and masochistic relationship between William Loveday and his long-suffering girlfriend Karima, or as he calls her “The Troll.” Readers familiar with Childish’s biography and with the Young British Artists brat pack of the nineties can speculate that Karima is indeed Tracey Emin. It’s an interesting glimpse into the past private life of an art-world superstar.  

London Fields by Martin Amis
In London Fields, we follow a self-described “failed suicide” who seeks to orchestrate her own death to escape aging is befriended by a failed writer who decides to document her progress. Every single character in this book is loathsome and utterly repulsive. I love it! It’s a study in misanthropy.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Japan’s role in World War II and the inner life of an unemployed suburban cuckold are linked by the tumult of an unseen bird and a mysterious bruise. The protagonist’s relationship with his precocious teenaged neighbor is almost creepier than the WW II soldiers who take pleasure in having their enemies skinned alive.

RANDY NEWMAN'S AMERICAN DREAMS
by Kevin Courrier

BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES
by Tom Wolfe

BILLION DOLLAR BABIES
by Bob Greene

THE PAINTED BIRD
by Jerzy Kosinski

Reading Right Now:
Randy Newman’s American Dreams by Kevin Courrier

I just started reading this fairly academic book about Randy Newman’s life, and I’m afraid the author is going to overanalyze everything Randy does to the point where I’ll probably just give up and listen to his records. Little Criminals is my favorite.

Some of my favorite books:

Bonfire of the Vanities
By Tom Wolfe
The classic that everyone’s parents read in the late eighties. Now it’s our turn. Endlessly readable and utterly fascinating.

Billion Dollar Babies
By Bob Greene
A square journalist from the Midwest goes on tour with Alice Cooper during his 1973 U.S. tour. Hilarity ensues.

The Painted Bird
By Jerzy Kosinski
It’s a brutally graphic and sometimes cringe-inducing autobiographical tale of a young boy wandering around war-torn Eastern Europe during WWII.

DARWIN'S FOX AND MY COYOTE
by Holly Menino

CHRONICLES
by Bob Dylan

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA
by Mikhail Bulgakov

CAT'S CRADLE
by Kurt Vonnegut

I am currently reading Darwin’s Fox and My Coyote by Holly Menino. With endless reasons to escape reality right now, I was somehow drawn to reading this semi-scientific look at how canines in the wild (Chile, The Channel Islands) and the not-so wild (U.S. suburbs) are managing to hang on. There’s so much to learn by watching wild animals and I’m intrigued by how they continue to thrive, even in my home Los Angeles. We do everything we can to take ourselves out of competition with the rest of the food chain, but in reality, human social interactions are not far removed from the of the rest of the animal kingdom.

Top Three Books:

Chronicles, Volume 1
By Bob Dylan 
Reading the autobiography of the world’s most brilliant and elusive trickster certainly keeps your wheels turning. File under “Fiction”?

The Master and Margarita
By Mikhail Bulgakov
One of the most imaginative and creative books I’ve ever read, Bulgakov creates more vivid images in my mind than any other writer.

Cat’s Cradle
By Kurt Vonnegut  
Vonnegut’s playfully cynical storytelling rings true like the clever musings of an insightful ol’ friend. Vonnegut’s work makes me want to get my act together, and create.

HOT WATER MUSIC
by Charles Bukowski

MY FATHER’S DRAGON
by Ruth Stiles Gannett

1984
by George Orwell

THE ROAD
by Cormac McCarthy

Over the past week or so, I’ve just been in the habit of picking up whatever book of mine is closest. I am currently reading Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski, Atonement by Ian McEwan, and The Stranger by Albert Camus. I’m making progress, but slowly.

If I were to list my three favorite books tomorrow, or next week, I’m sure there would be some variation, but here they are as of right now. (I’ve listed them in chronological order of when I read them, and judging by the impact they’ve had on me.)

1. My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett - I haven’t read this book in probably eighteen years. But as a little kid, I remember being completely captivated by the imagery and illustrations. It was the book that I would beg my mom or sister or babysitter to read aloud to me. It sparked my imagination, and got me dreaming.

2. 1984 by George Orwell. Everybody should read this.

3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I finished this book recently. It has a profound clarity of vision. McCarthy imagines a post-apocalyptic world so thoroughly, and accomplishes so much by saying so little.

TWILIGHT
by Stephenie Meyer

GRANDFATHER TWILIGHT
by Barbara Helen Berger

DANTE’S INFERNO
by Dante Alighieri

THE BASKETBALL DIARIES
by Jim Carroll

I’m about to start reading the Twilight Series, the popular books about monsters that my sister got really into (she is smart and has good taste). We went to get the new one at the bookstore but they only had the hard cover, so we bought it. We think they are waiting to release the paperback after everyone buys the hard cover. And we got some dark chocolate in the checkout line.

Favorite Three Books:

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll. It makes me wonder if my life may have been like that if I had continued living in NYC, though it’s pretty obvious it wouldn’t have been. I think I moved to Missouri at the age he started writing in his journals. Plus, I’ve always liked to keep journals.

Another all time fave is Dante’s Inferno. I love the format it’s written in, and the images it creates are really like no other book. I’ve always had an interest in hell, and to hear it in almost beautiful, poem-like fashion is genius.

My last favorite is Grandfather Twilight. It’s a children’s book about an old man with a long white beard and a wolf dog who goes to a chest every night and picks out a pearl. Then he takes his nightly walk and, with every step he takes, the pearl grows bigger, until finally he reaches his destination and then he lets it go and it floats up and becomes the moon. The colors are totally awesome.

THE REST IS NOISE
by Alex Ross

THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE
by Phillip K. Dick

WHAT IT TAKES
by Richard Ben Cramer

NEUROMANCER
by William Gibson

READING NOW:
The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross
I spent much of my childhood trying not to listen to classical music; now I can’t get enough of it. This book starts with the late-Romantic composers and works its way around the story of modern classical music. Right now I’m up to Schoenberg. There is a lot in there and a lot of music to listen to. I feel like Ross has written awesome liner notes for 20th century music.

Three books that I have read recently:

The Man In The High Castle by D Phillip K. Dick
A beautiful mind fuck.

What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer
Best political-campaign book ever. It’s a chronicle of the 1988 Presidential race.

Neuromancer by William Gibson
One day soon I think we will all live in a William Gibson book. This one is my favorite.

ACTUAL AIR
by David Berman

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
by Mark Haddon

COSMOS
by Carl Sagan

THE SIRENS OF TITAN
by Kurt Vonnegut

PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE - LEGACY EDITION (LINER NOTES)
by Dennis Wilson

POST OFFICE: A NOVEL
by Charles Bukowski

DRUGS ARE NICE: A POST-PUNK MEMOIR
by Lisa Crystal Carver

A CRACK UP AT THE RACE RIOTS
by Harmony Korine

YOU DON’T LOVE ME YET
by Jonathan Lethem

BLACK SWAN GREEN
by David Mitchell

THE SUMMER HE DIDN’T DIE
by Jim Harrison

ALL THE SAD YOUNG LITERARY MEN
by Keith Gessen

I just finished Jonathan Lethem’s You Don’t Love Me Yet. I did not hate it, nor did I love it. He is too “cute” sometimes for my tastes, trying to top Chabon in the out-there metaphor game. I just started reading two books, and I am not sure which to keep on my nightstand first. Maybe you or someone over there can help. First, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. It’s his first novel, and it is getting great reviews. Second, I’ve got The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who just kicked it, and whom I know very little about, but I love some Soviet-era depression.  

Three books that I have read recently and love:

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Mitchell is amazing. Four books, four home runs. Black Swan Green is a bit of a departure from the Murakaminess of his other works but just as touching and just as beautiful.  

The Summer He Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison
I want to be Jim Harrison when I grow up. He’s possibly the greatest living American writer in my humble opinion (kudos to Bret Ellis, Annie Prouxl, Cormac, that Irvin guy, and Don Delillo, though). This book of novellas (an art seemingly lost to all but Harrison) is so raw and open. Feeling him switch his point of view from novella to novella is like watching ballet. It’s just gorgeous.

All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen
This kid (he is about my age, so I think I can say that) kind of nailed it. As Kunkel says on the back cover (I noticed you guys reviewed Indecision, which I kind of thought was a mess, but we can talk about that later), I see myself in it somewhere. I think many would, but especially kids of a certain age and area. Since he went to school in the northeast and was surrounded by the characters in this book, it hit rather close to home.

DEADEYE DICK
by Kurt Vonnegut

MIDDLESEX
by Jeffrey Eugenides

THE YELLOW PAPER-WALL
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

BLANKETS
by Craig Thompson