![\"john-palfrey-reading-recommendation\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/john-palfrey-headshot-1751296665361.jpeg\"\/)
John Palfrey. Image courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation.<\/p>\n
John\u00a0Palfrey, President\u00a0of\u00a0the John\u00a0D. and\u00a0Catherine\u00a0T. MacArthur\u00a0Foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n Describe the type of reader you are in three words.<\/strong> If you could press one great book into someone\u2019s hands, what would it be?<\/strong> One book you return to when you\u2019re starved for inspiration?<\/strong> One book that helped you understand the world we live in right now?<\/strong> One book that ruined you, in the best possible way?<\/strong> One book your childhood self loved?<\/strong> Sam\u00a0Fragoso,\u00a0Writer, Filmmaker, and\u00a0Host\u00a0of\u00a0Talk\u00a0Easy\u00a0with\u00a0Sam\u00a0Fragoso\u00a0Podcast<\/strong><\/p>\n Describe the type of reader you are in three words.<\/strong> What\u2019s one book that helped you understand the world we live in right now?<\/strong> One book that ruined you, in the best possible way?<\/strong> One book you reference often in your work?<\/strong> How do you find your next book?<\/strong> One book you return to when you\u2019re starved for inspiration?<\/strong> Heidi\u00a0Erwin, Senior Game Designer at The New York Times<\/strong><\/p>\n If you could press one great book into someone\u2019s hands, what would it be?<\/strong> What\u2019s one book your childhood self loved?<\/strong> How do you find your next book?<\/strong> Describe the type of reader you are in three words.<\/strong> Nora Lawrence,\u00a0Artistic\u00a0Director and\u00a0Chief\u00a0Curator of\u00a0Storm\u00a0King\u00a0Art\u00a0Center<\/strong><\/p>\n Describe the type of reader you are in three words.<\/strong> How do you figure out whether or not you like a book?<\/strong> What\u2019s one book that helped you understand the world we live in right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n Hellen Phillips’s\u00a0<\/strong>Hum,<\/a> a terrifying but extremely readable book about parenting, A.I.<\/a>, and our potential (and devastating) near-future.<\/p>\n One book that taught you something new about your own industry?<\/strong> One book you return to when you\u2019re starved for inspiration?<\/strong> One book you stopped reading in the middle and never finished?<\/strong> Yana Peel,\u00a0President of\u00a0Arts, Culture\u00a0& Heritage at\u00a0Chanel<\/strong><\/p>\n Describe the type of reader you are in three words.<\/strong> What\u2019s one book that helped you understand the world we live in right now?<\/strong> One book that ruined you, in the best possible way?<\/strong> One book that taught you something new about your own industry?<\/strong> One trashy book to wedge in your vacation bag?<\/strong> One book you stopped reading in the middle and never finished?<\/strong>
Eager. Overly ambitious.<\/p>\n
I think everyone needs to read Timothy Snyder’s\u00a0On Tyranny<\/a> if they haven\u2019t already.<\/p>\n
Any biography<\/a>\u00a0of Winston Churchill. I read at least one Churchill book a year, and I look forward to it.<\/p>\n
The last few years have given rise to many options, but I\u2019ll give the \u201chighest impact\u201d award to Isabel Wilkerson for Caste<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Brothers Karamazov<\/a>. It rocked my\u00a0world, so much so that I tried taking Russian in college so that I could read it in the original and not in translation. That goal still eludes me.<\/p>\n
I can still hear Kenneth Grahame\u2019s\u00a0The Wind in the Willows<\/a> read by one of my parents.<\/p>\n![\"sam-fragoso-talk-easy\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sam-fragoso-headshot-1751297240704.jpg\"\/)
Portrait of Sam Fragoso by Jenna Jones.<\/p>\n
Purposeful, animated, amused.<\/p>\n
Has right now ever changed more frequently than it is right now? On protest\u00a0and polarization, I turn to Citizen<\/a> by Claudia Rankine<\/a> and Why We\u2019re Polarized<\/a> by Ezra Klein.<\/p>\n
My mother lent me The Sense of an Ending<\/a> by Julian Barnes in college. When she asked for it back, I had to go to the bookstore to get her a new copy that wasn\u2019t water-damaged.<\/p>\n
Life Itself<\/a>\u00a0by Roger Ebert.<\/p>\n
I make a weekly podcast,\u00a0Talk Easy<\/a>, that tends to feature authors. The next book finds me.<\/p>\n
This has become a favorite of most artists I know\u2014A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders.<\/p>\n![\"heidi-erwin-reading-recommendation\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/heidi-erwin-headshot-1751297765513.jpg\"\/)
Heidi Erwin. Image courtesy of Webby. <\/p>\n
The Little Prince<\/a>. It spits such facts. Something from this book comes up at least once a month in my mind. Most recently: the idea of loving one rose the most despite the many roses that look identical to it. Because that\u2019s your rose.<\/p>\n
Matilda<\/a>. There\u2019s something real about the idea that your creative energy can trouble you if you don\u2019t find an outlet for it, and how that same energy can be magical when you do.<\/p>\n
When there\u2019s a topic plaguing me, I search the Internet for books that I hope will shift how I\u2019m thinking about it. I trust books to bring new ways of\u00a0thinking into my life\u2014and I have faith that those new ways of thinking can be everything.<\/p>\n
Save me, perspective.<\/p>\n![\"nora-lawrence-reading-recommendation\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/nora-lawrence-portrait-1751298737118.jpg\"\/)
Portrait of Nora Lawrence by Erin Baiano. Image courtesy of Storm King Art Center.<\/p>\n
First, anxious and distracted. Once I get immersed in something, obsessive.<\/p>\n
I just start. I also never read reviews until I\u2019m done, but I read many after I finish.<\/p>\n
Svetlana Alpers\u2019s The Art of Describing<\/a> was formative for me.<\/p>\n
I turn to poetry in those moments<\/a>: Ones that come to mind right away include Seamus Heaney\u2019s \u201cOysters<\/a>,\u201d Edna St. Vincent Millay\u2019s \u201cDirge without Music<\/a>,\u201d and Marie Howe\u2019s \u201cWhat the Living Do<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am not a completionist about reading\u2014there are so many good books out there that I really don\u2019t feel bad about putting one down if it doesn\u2019t move me.<\/p>\n![\"yana-peel-reading-recommendation\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/yana-peel-portrait-1751298960741.jpeg\"\/)
Yana Peel. Image courtesy of Chanel.<\/p>\n
Adventurous. Demanding. Eclectic.<\/p>\n
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right<\/a> by Arlie Russell Hochschild made clear a politic that was both far removed from my life in London and simultaneously urgent around the world.<\/p>\n
At nearly 150 years old, Tolstoy\u2019s Anna Karenina<\/a>\u2014about a woman who wants, but cannot have\u2014is a timeless tragedy. Night<\/a> by Elie Wiesel must also be mentioned. No explanation needed.<\/p>\n
William Middleton\u2019s biographies of Karl Lagerfeld<\/a> (Paradise Now<\/a>) and the de Menils (Double Vision<\/a>). Both are incredible stories about art, culture and creation.<\/p>\n
Anything by Truman Capote\u2014or about him: Swan Song<\/a>, Capote\u2019s Women<\/a>, Party of the Century<\/a>… Read them all.<\/p>\n
Virginia Woolf<\/a>\u2019s The Waves<\/a>, because of its unconventional narrative structure\u2014but Mrs. Dalloway, annotated by Merve Emre, is a favorite.<\/p>\n