Lee is a comic/political activist/author. He is perhaps best known for two things: his early support of the Occupy movement (he performed at more than a dozen protests in the U.S. and Canada) and his appearance on Fox News, where he went off script during a live broadcast. He has just turned his popular Moment of Clarity web series into a book of the same name. His edgy style has been compared to Bill Hicks and George Carlin by the Guardian and Time Out. He is an in-demand commentator and satirist who tours internationally.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller — Read it when I was 23, and it changed both my worldview and my comedy. I’m not sure any other book has had as much impact on my career and life.
Confessions of An Economic Hitman by John Perkins — Also changed my worldview.
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts — We’re only here for a second. Do something with that second.
Why Does E = mc2? by Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw — Just happen to be reading this right now. Never was good in math and science classes, but holy sh** the universe is magical!
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On by Jenny Slate & Dean Fleischer-Camp — The new children’s book my brother and his fiancé wrote. I marvel at the creativity.
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Have any books changed your worldview?
Zinn’s A People’s History.
I had just gotten out of the military, and was a little shaken on the whole was that right?…but not against it yet. That book really opened my head, did a complete 180 on my political views.
Lee,
Great to hear Catch-22 still has such impact. I was 19 at college during Vietnam when I first read it. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man? Weird–I knew it was a best-seller, but I thought I was the only person in the universe who’d read it. Maybe because our policies never change.
Ross Howell
Ross, After reading Joe Heller’s bio by his daughter, I reread 22. This time some stuff was annoying filler——the dialogues of Col Cathcart and Korn repeating each other got on my nerves, but the Milo Minderbinder schtick was good as ever and maybe better. After personally having lost large sums trying to play the stock market with options—— ‘…everybody has a share’ all right… but the Hedge Funds shares were a lot smarter than mine.
Watched PBS Ken Burns’ “Western Civilization” on Memorial Day then just happened to pick up The Diary of Anne Frank‘ while moving a box of books. Gandhi was correct: Western Civilization is a contradiction in terms.
Hey——for the subtitle crowd——we saw a really good French film last night, “The Untouchables” (think “Trading Places” with Eddie Murphy, sort of) and there is a reason it won all the film festival awards, is the second highest grossing film in France ever and the two actors will probably get Oscars too!
Just read that Harvey Weinstein may try to make an American version.
I don’t know; the only thing that comes to mind is that it would end up a “La Cage aux Folles” starring Donald Trump and Tracy Morgan.