BOOKS
Curator Reviews
Michael Stipe
His humor and grasp of humanity and language thrill.
View Michael Stipe's Top 10 Favorite BooksEdmund White
This book would probably be shunned today. Even though Humbert Humbert is clearly a villain, the very subject of pedophilia is now considered too transgressive. But Nabokov had to reach far in order to redeem the romantic novel, which had become trite.
View Edmund White's Top 10 Favorite BooksLena Dunham
This book is unusual in many ways, and gets lots of credit for changing the face of modern fiction—but not enough credit for how fully realized a character Lolita is, despite the fact that we are seeing her through the lens of her stalker. The use of language is just impossibly great.
View Lena Dunham's Top 10 Favorite BooksRobert Longo
This is simply brilliant writing, especially the way in which he makes the reader complicit. Classically painted, pure American perversion.
View Robert Longo's Top 10 Favorite BooksMichael Stipe
His humor and grasp of humanity and language thrill.
View Michael Stipe's Top 10 Favorite BooksJo Nesbø
How do you make the reader sympathize, or at least tolerate reading about, a man who is lusting for a child? I don’t know. You have to be good. And it’s probably a good idea to start the novel with the potential child molester declaring his love in a passionate and honest way, so you can always retreat to that later, when you want to flee: he actually loves her.
View Jo Nesbø's Top 10 Favorite BooksChip Kidd
As a brilliantly merciless portrait of mid-20th century middle America alone, this book is a masterpiece. But we all know it is much more than that. I tend to see it as an intriguingly fiendish parody of “Moby Dick.”
View Chip Kidd's Top 10 Favorite Books