FIVE BOOKS I Need to Return to Smiley Library (before I am tossed in the pokey)
- LIFE ITSELF: Roger Ebert- A memoir that catches his indomitable spirit
- THE CROWS WERE LAUGHING IN THEIR TREES: Peter Connors – Dense prose poetry teaming with human animals. Connected to many of my new songs.
- THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ROCK-A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible: Harold Bloom- He is stuffy but we agree on the monumental poetry therein… always my best source material.
- WHY JAZZ: Kevin Whitehead- The Elements of Style of Jazz primers. Asks all the best questions like, ‘What’s important about Thelonious Monk?’ You could spend the rest of your life answering.
- THE BELLS: Iris Murdoch- I forgot I have this because I give my copies away. Lives by the Yeats’ tenet ‘Wisdom is a butterfly and not a gloomy bird of prey.’ Dora’s wild, unfulfilled wandering is much like art itself.
—Chris LeRoy