I’ll give two answers. I bought a new electric teakettle. I used to have all the stovetop kettles. Even though I knew it was vastly better, I underestimated how much better my life would be by having an electric tea kettle so I can have tea actually quickly and more or less on demand with very little fuss.

We’ve already got it. It’s the Frisbees, for sure. I was hanging out with my two brothers and my dad. We decided to drive up the coast and my two brothers and me, we’ve played Frisbee golf our whole lives so we love it, and my dad, not so much. But we got a bunch of discs and then we went really high up on Highway 1 and threw them out into the ocean.

Probably the biggest impact for something less than $100.00 would be a mole skin diary. I’ve got them all lined up for every year. I’ve had them since 1986. So, in there, in a very tactile way, I have like lists in the back, movies, books. And then, I write in the back the name of the book and then who recommended the book.

I have the question ready right here. I bought a skateboard about two months ago, which has a funny story in itself. ... I used to skateboard back when I was a kid, but literally had not skateboarded in 20 years. But I happen to live right now out here in California, where I’m just the perfect distance away from lunch that a skateboard is just what I need.

I was a reporter for many years at the Washington Post. Although I loved every minute, I don’t think I was a very good reporter.

I didn’t want to be anything because I don’t look ahead. Even as a kid I thought it was pointless.

There’s one book I’ve given the most in my life, which is a book called – well, there are several now that I think about it. There’s a book by Timothy Wilson called Strangers to Ourselves , which is one of the loveliest, most insightful books about social psychology that I ever read. And I give that a lot to people. And every time I meet, and really, I’m always meeting people who work in retail, particularly I always send them, particularly if they’re Jewish, I send them a book called The Merchant Princes . It’s a book about the great Jewish retail families of America. So in the 19th century, all of these people come over from Europe who have experience in the garment trade or retailing. And an extraordinary number of the early 20th century/late 19th century department stores pop up around America are founded by Jewish immigrants from Europe from, literally, you go to any town in America, the traditional department store is from one of those families. Well, a guy, and I’ve forgotten his name, wrote a book about those families, and it’s called The Merchant Princes , and it’s fantastic.

As a writer who took cheering up his listeners seriously.

Kiss And Say Goodbye by the Manhattans.