The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee
Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett
Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
Never Tell Our Business to Strangers by Jennifer Mascia
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Our bookless Stacked Up episode was thwarted in the months that passed before the actual interview. Jenny 8. had accumulated some books from colleagues and friends. (Math whiz that she is, maybe Jenny can calculate how many books on average a former New York Times reporter receives each month.)

So while the video includes some beauty shots of bookcovers, we weren’t able to show you our Japanese KitKat tasting (the soy sauce and wasabi flavors stood out) or the complete collection of Star Wars figures that came with Jenny’s furnished apartment (including the elusive Boba Fett).

Instead we got a glimpse of the eBook lifestyle. No cramped bookshelves, but also no reading in the bathtub. Lots of free sample chapters, but no subway conversation-starters without bookcovers to attract strangers. (Although perhaps right now a developer is putting the finishing touches on a Kindle case that shows a digital cover image of the last book open on the device.)

Jenny also talked about how she buys more books than before with her Kindle. This puts her in good company, given Amazon’s big news this week that eBooks are outselling hardcovers.

As Jenny says, “Books are big. And they’re heavy.” To that we would add that they are not a prerequisite for a great episode of Stacked Up.

American Subversive by David Goodwillie
Radical Walking Tours of New York City by Bruce Kayton
Whip Smart by Melissa Febos
Report From Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time by David Goodwillie

Agit-prop from Paris, 1968 hangs above David Goodwillie's desk.

As a newcomer to the book media scene, Stacked Up TV has learned that the best way to persuade authors to be on our show is to approach them as a fan. In turn, it was a pleasant surprise when we met David Goodwillie at a book party and he told us that he was a huge fan of Stacked Up.

We were at Rebecca Skloot’s celebration for her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. (By the way, Skloot is another author we’d love to interview.) David asked us if we would consider letting him show off his shelves and talk about his new novel, American Subversive. He promised a wall-to-wall book collection. And while he humbly stated that his Chelsea apartment wasn’t exactly “Cribs” material, he said it was nice.

We spent over two hours with David as he showed us hundreds of his favorite books, including his collection of first editions. As a journalist and a reader he’s unashamedly New-York-centric in his tastes. Some of his favorite books include writing about the City, from the work of Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe and Jay McInerney. Not surprising for a young journalist, he has an affinity for the New Journalism movement of the 60’s and 70’s. Besides Talese and Wolfe, his shelves are filled with the likes of Joan Didion, Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson.

He also showed us books about domestic terrorism that he read as research for American Subversive. Too numerous to mention in our episode, the shelf included Eat the Document, Direct Action and Fugitive Days.

By the end of the afternoon, we learned that not only does David have a great book collection, he doesn’t shy from research. Admittedly, he’s a former private investigator, so he’s good at finding things that others might have difficulty tracking down. But when it comes to literature, his advice is straightforward: “There are tons of novels being written. It’s up to readers to find them.”

Don’t Cry by Mary Gaitskill
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White, Garth Williams and Rosemary Wells
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry and Richard Howard
Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolaño
The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
Drown by Junot Díaz
The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth

Lost and Found: Stories from New York edited by Thomas Beller
It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs edited by Smith Magazine
Love Is a Four-Letter Word edited by Michael Taeckens
Flight Patterns: A Century of Stories about Flying edited by Dorothy Spears
Granta 91: Wish You Were Here: The Magazine of New Writing edited by Ian Jack
State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey
The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey
Before & After: Stories from New York edited by Thomas Beller

When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir of a Political Childhood by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh

The Crowned Cannibals: Writings on Repression in Iran by Reza Baraheni

The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir by Laurie Sandell

Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary by Bertrand M. Patenaude

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung by Mao Tse-Tung

Essential Works of Marxism edited by Arthur Mendel

Webster’s New World Vest Pocket Dictionary

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family by Kathryn Harrison

Jack the Ripper: Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural by Terry Lynch

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean

Lazy Little Loafers by Susan Orlean

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell

Great Plains by Ian Frazier

Avian Medicine by by Branson Ritchie, Greg J. Harrison, Don Zantrop and Linda Harrison

Extra Extraordinary Chickens Stephen Green-Armytage

Keeping Pet Chickens by Johannes Paul

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider

Joe Gould’s Secret by Joseph Mitchell

Sweet and Low by Rich Cohen

Negotiate This!: By Caring, But Not T-H-A-T Much by Herb Cohen

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer

Bellow: A Biography by James Atlas

Israel Is Real by Rich Cohen