What are the best books about music you’ve read?

At the top of my list remains Greil Marcus’s “Mystery Train,” followed closely by Peter Guralnick’s “Last Train to Memphis.” I’d include Dylan’s “Chronicles” and a recent book by Daniel Lanois, “Soul Mining,” that gives insights into the making of music I found unique from any other book out there. “Sonata for Jukebox,” by Geoffrey O’Brien, has some lovely chapters in it, particularly its opening discussions of Burt Bacharach’s career.

What’s the last book you read that made you laugh?

Richard Ford’s “The Lay of the Land.”

The last book that made you cry?

Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.”

The last book that made you furious?

“Too Big to Fail,” by Andrew Ross Sorkin; Michael Lewis’s “The Big Short”; and “Someplace Like America,” by Dale Maharidge, with photographs by Michael S. Williamson. These are a few of the books I read on the recent financial collapse, and I contributed the foreword to “Someplace Like America.” The criminal outrage and recklessness described in these books led directly to my “Wrecking Ball” album.

What kind of reader were you as a child?

The first book I read was “The Wizard of Oz,” one lazy summer on my front porch on Randolph Street in New Jersey. I remember being thrilled by the book and the act of reading. Over time my most beloved character became the great and powerful Oz himself. He’s summed up by that great quote that’s in the film, but not in the book: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” He’s a carny phony, in way over his head, who manages to pull it off anyway. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” One of the great quotes in American literature.

If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?

One would be difficult, but the short stories of Flannery O’Connor landed hard on me. You could feel within them the unknowability of God, the intangible mysteries of life that confounded her characters, and which I find by my side every day. They contained the dark Gothicness of my childhood and yet made me feel fortunate to sit at the center of this swirling black puzzle, stars reeling overhead, the earth barely beneath us.

You’re hosting a literary dinner with three writers. Who’s invited?

Philip Roth, Keith Richards, Tolstoy — and one extra, Bob Dylan. A lot of life experience there, and the babbling in different tongues would be wonderful.

What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?

I don’t read many books twice, but Jim Thompson novels — due to their concise, dirty power, their relentless violence and purity — can always draw me in for a second time. Some of the most psychological crime writing ever done. I love James M. Cain and Elmore Leonard, but Jim Thompson holds a special place in my heart.