I Believe That Nothing Comes Of Nothing,

One Of My Favorite Writers Is Michel De Montaigne. My Wife Gave Me A Beautiful 17th-century Edition Of Montaigne's Essays Translated By John Florio. That's Probably My Most Precious Possession.

I Believe That Nothing Comes Of Nothing, Even In Shakespeare. I Wanted To Know Where He Got The Matter He Was Working With And What He Did With That Matter.

A Couple Of Years Ago I Picked Up New Yorker Writer Alma Guillermoprieto's "the Heart That Bleeds," Which Is Reportage From Latin America In The 1990s. You Can Predict That Some Books Will Give You A Thrill, But You Can't Predict The Books That Will Hit You Hard. It Is A Little Bit Like Falling In Love.

There's A Huge Amount Of Work On Adam And Eve, From The Ancient World To The Present. Saint Augustine Was Obsessed With Them.i Don't Know If It Helps My Research, But I Get A Big Kick Out Of Mark Twain, Who Wrote "the Diaries Of Adam And Eve." He Wrote Very Funny Stuff On Them. I Sometimes Read Things That Are Loosely Related To What I'm Thinking And Writing About.

But I Never Listen To Music While I'm Writing.