Joan Rivers - By the Book - NYTimes.com There are two books on my night stand. One is "The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson," by Robert A. Caro. It's fascinating that I'm not mentioned at all, considering the torrid affair I had with Mr. Johnson, or as I called him, Big Lyndy. The other book is "The Idiot's Guide to Osteoporosis." I don't read this one too often, as every time I pick it up my wrist snaps. Again, two choices. The first is a four-volume history of English kings by Thomas B. Costain. It includes "The Conquering Family," "The Three Edwards," "The Magnificent Century" and "The Last Plantagenets." I read this every 10 years. It sounds insane, but it's a real page turner. The second is a fantasy novel recommended to me by Paula Deen called "The Lord of the Onion Rings." My favorite literary genre, seriously, is European history, but only up until Napoleon. The minute Shorty comes on the scene, I'm not interested. My big guilty pleasure is Ann Rule, the queen of true crime. She tells a great story. Did you know that everyone who lives in a double-wide is beautiful? Who are the funniest writers you've ever read? Anyone incredibly funny in person but a bore on the page? Funniest? Besides Sylvia Plath? Well, I have to say (in no order) Steve Martin, Woody Allen and Robert Benchley (until I found out he was an anti-Semite). Also, Sarah Vowell - interesting, offbeat and funny. The funniest in person but rather boring on the page is, hands down, Leo Tolstoy. If I hear one more time: "How many czars does it take to change a light bulb? None; they didn't have them in those days," I think I'll scream! "Mary Poppins," "The Secret Garden" and one that I think has totally disappeared from the face of the earth but I adored - "The Middle Moffat." There is also a series of books called "Tales of the Wild West," by Rick Steber. They're almost pamphlets, and they contain true eyewitness accounts of all kinds of lives lived on the frontier - from the stories of Indians to settlers to mountain men. I've read them over and over again to my grandson. Of all the books you've written, which is your favorite? Any you wish you'd never written at all? I'm very proud of my first book, "Enter Talking." It really tells of my struggle to make it in the business, and I think somewhere in there is a good lesson for all young actors/comedians, which is, Just keep going. And of course, my latest book, "I Hate Everyone . . . Starting With Me," is my true favorite. What am I, crazy? This is The New York Times. . . . I'm not going to plug my book? Please! The book I wish I'd never written is "Joan Rivers's Pop-Up Guide to Gynecology." I use books totally for my pleasure. If I don't enjoy them, I don't finish them. They're not assignments. They're my happiness. I do have a bad habit, however, of scribbling in the margins (I've already ruined two perfectly good iPads). Stephen Hawking Explains Both the Universe and Bad Fashion Choices. Have you ever met an author and been bitterly disappointed? The writer I would love to meet the most is God. I've been a huge fan of his work since the Ten Commandments. I'd like to know what influenced his font choice and why he engraved in stone and not silver. Read any good Hollywood tell-alls lately? What book, in your opinion, really gets Hollywood right? Most of them are too soft and too phony. But one great, real Hollywood read is Nathanael West's "The Day of the Locust." There is also an amazing book by William Goldman called "Adventures in the Screen Trade," which tells the inside pain that even a most successful screenwriter goes through. Do you like to read about fashion? Yes, if there is an historical aspect to it. For example, I loved Caroline Weber's "Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution." It showed how fashion really can change history. And let's not forget Sacha Baron Cohen's "The Dictator," which is based on the Anna Wintour biography. Do you and your daughter, Melissa, have shared tastes in literature? Totally. We are constantly passing books back and forth. Our latest is "Destiny of the Republic," by Candice Millard. I really was never that interested in President James A. Garfield, but this turned out to be really fascinating. The other one we both fell in love with was Hölldobler and Wilson's "Journey to the Ants." We both are avid bookstore browsers, but more than that, we are bookstore buyers. Every Saturday night for years my husband and I would end up at the old Doubleday store on Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets. We would take Melissa, and the deal was, you could buy any book you wanted (don't look at the price) as long as you promised to read it. Other people went home loaded with drugs and booze. We went home loaded with shopping bags filled with books. I have three books waiting in the wings: "Life Itself," a memoir by Roger Ebert; "The Chaperone," by Laura Moriarty; and "Unbroken," by Laura Hillenbrand (I'm ashamed to say that I still haven't gotten around to this one, but I hear it's wonderful). And of course, the three pages of instructions from my proctologist on how to stop the itching.