Dick Cavett's Reading List

The author of “Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks” is a great fan of rereading. “We’d all have been better off to have read half as many books. Twice.”

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By the Book: Dick Cavett (2014)

NYT By the Book column (2014-12-18).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

John Lahr · Buy on Amazon

"John Lahr's stellar biography of Tennessee Williams."

Zen in the Art of Archery

Unknown · Buy on Amazon

"The great "Zen in the Art of Archery"."

Act One

Moss Hart · Buy on Amazon

"Hands down, Moss Hart's "Act One.""

Jed Harris: The Curse of Genius

Martin Gottfried · Buy on Amazon

"Also best is Martin Gottfried's "Jed Harris: The Curse of Genius.""

Harpo Speaks!

Harpo Marx · Buy on Amazon

"Also best is "Harpo Speaks!""

Tasteful Nudes

Dave Hill · Buy on Amazon

"My friend Dave Hill's "Tasteful Nudes." You too will laugh. Just a fact, not an opinion."

Lucky Jim

Kingsley Amis · Buy on Amazon

"When being reread, perhaps my all-time favorite comic novel, Kingsley Amis's "Lucky Jim," provides that most recent laugh."

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain · 1884 · Buy on Amazon

"Easy. "Huckleberry Finn." The book Hemingway said all American literature after it descends from."

Treasure Island

Robert Louis Stevenson · Buy on Amazon

"When I was a tiny boy, my dad read to me, and year after year I demanded "Treasure Island.""

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Arthur Conan Doyle · Buy on Amazon

"The tales still make great reading at night by a fireplace."

War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy · Buy on Amazon

"I raced through the complete tales, from morn until "lights out," as fast as I did years later with "War and Peace," laid up with the measles."

Rufus M.

Eleanor Estes · Buy on Amazon

"By the age of 3, I was reading to myself and adored "Rufus M.," by Eleanor Estes. Rufus was a hilarious kid. The book lives, and you can get it."

Favorite books (2020)

Favorite books recommended by Dick Cavett, as compiled by radicalreads.com. Source article: https://radicalreads.com/dick-cavett-favorite-books/.

Source: radicalreads.com

Act One

Moss Hart · Buy on Amazon

"Hart rose from grinding poverty in Brooklyn to the heights of Broadway success in writing and directing. Act One is easily the best show — business autobiography — a riveting story that risks promoting the foolish idea that if you chase your dream and never give in, you will succeed. Bull. A few will. Hart did."

Zen in the Art of Archery

Eugen Herrigel · Buy on Amazon

"Herrigel, a German philosopher-teacher, goes to Japan for instruction, intrigued by tales of an archer who hits his target without aiming or caring and the swordsman whose discipline allows him in combat to dismiss from his mind both his opponent and his opponent’s sword. Sound crazy? There’s much to learn here about learning."

Houdini’s Escapes and Magic

Walter B. Gibson · Buy on Amazon

"Reading Houdini’s Escapes led to many other books on magic and launched an all-consuming pursuit of the art of conjuring. The resulting act earned me as much as $30 a show — in the 1950s! — and I played enough church basements, etc., that I was able to lend my schoolteacher parents $700 for a new car."

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle · Buy on Amazon

"Hooray! — school canceled by a Nebraska snowstorm! As flakes softly fell all day, I read The Hound without, I think, ever looking up. I then feverishly read the collected tales, which provided hours and hours of some of the most enjoyable reading of my life."

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain (also rec’d by Dick Cavett & Stephen King ) · Buy on Amazon

"This was the start of a lifelong addiction to Twain. A must-read, at least annually, for every man, woman, and bright child. To flaming hell with any idiot who wants to bowdlerize this towering masterpiece."

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