Portrait of the Musician as a Young Reader The drummer Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, a co-founder of the Roots, has written many times about the formative music in his life. Now that he's an author - of the recently published memoir "Mo" Meta Blues" - I was curious about what reading material shaped his childhood. "I was obsessed with magazines, periodicals, anything to do with music," he told me, recounting childhood days spent in Philadelphia libraries poring over the work of Lester Bangs in back issues of Creem magazine. Biographies of Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye also left an impression, but he credits the lengthy booklet of liner notes that accompanied Stevie Wonder's 1976 album "Songs in the Key of Life" with making the biggest impact. The last page was always the template of every Roots liner note that I've ever written: just a bunch of non sequiturs. It's a list of the quotes most heard in that studio. These days, he said, "I probably have more self-help and psychology books than anything." The Story of "Doctor K" The Mets pitcher Matt Harvey has been stellar this season, but the bar for New York pitching phenoms will forever be set where Dwight Gooden placed it. Gooden was 19 when he made his big-league debut in 1984, and his 1985 season was one of the best by any pitcher in the postwar era. On a recent Tuesday night, Gooden was in Manhattan to celebrate his memoir, "Doc," published this month, which chronicles his early brilliance and the ensuing drug abuse that brought him low. The crowd seemed enthusiastic but, aside from the retired slugger Gary Sheffield, decidedly unathletic. "My doctor is here, my dentist," Gooden said. Asked why the time was right for a memoir, he said: "I was tired of holding on to things. I would tell half the story, not the whole story. I had to say, "Look, these are things I did. But that's not who I am today." " Podcast Highlights This week on "Inside The New York Times Book Review," Andrew O'Hehir discusses the legacy of Tolkien and Andrew Delbanco talks about the future of higher education.