Michael Moore

Michael Moore, documentary filmmaker and author of Downsize This! chooses his favorite books.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (Henry Holt & Co., $16). No other book has come close to laying out the entire scope of the genocide committed against Native Americans.

Student as Nigger by Jerry Farber (out of print). I read this book in high school and it changed my life. A passionate screed on how young people are put through years of a totalitarian dictatorship—and then we expect them to go out in the “real world” and suddenly start participating as active citizens in a democracy? Ha! If you wonder why we live in an age of apathy, taking a look at our schools as the primary training ground for lifelong ignorance is a good start—and this book does that without mercy.

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Spike Lee’s Gotta Have It by Spike Lee (out of print). This book was my entire film school. I read it and then made my first movie. It was an inspiration to read how Spike made his first film on nothing, for nothing. Anyone who wants to create their own art but is still sitting around waiting for genius to strike or for that grant to come through should pick up this book and then get to work.

Spencer Mysteries by Robert B. Parker. These are just fun, fast reads-my literary popcorn movies.

Fire in the Lake by Frances Fitzgerald (Vintage, $17). A sweeping, sad, damning account of the U.S. aggression in Vietnam. (Also see the documentary, Hearts and Minds.)

Rules for Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky (Vintage $12). Common-sense ideas that anyone—yes, this means you!—can put into practice to achieve social change. The best citizen’s handbook I’ve read, and it should be required reading for anyone who believes in a free society.

Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective (Touchstone, $24). Guys should read this book. You will understand things a lot better about the other gender, and you won’t look like such a doofus with your first girlfriend.

Anything by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Regis Philbin.