Bob Odenkirk on Jack Kerouac, 'Moby Dick,' and the Book That Made Him Laugh Out Loud

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Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

Writing is nothing new to Bob Odenkirk. The Better Call Saul actor got his start penning sketches for Saturday Night Live in the late ‘80s, for which he won an Emmy in 1989 for Outstanding Writing. Now, one year after the release of his memoir Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama, he’s teamed up with his daughter Erin for Zilot & Other Important Rhymes (Hachette Book Group), out on October 10. Billed as being perfect for fans of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky, the book of over 70 poems was inspired by the tales Odenkirk used to tell his kids when they were little.

The Illinois-born multi-hyphenate is most known for his role as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and its subsequent spinoff Better Call Saul. He’s won two Emmy’s (the other for The Ben Stiller Show), and has been nominated for the award over 15 times. He’s also acted in Fargo, The Post, Little Women, and, most recently, The Bear. Top off your fall reading list with his book recommendations below.

The book that:

…kept me up way too late:

I am not much for genre writing, but The Day of The Jackal by Frederick Forsyth kept me in a (sad) hotel room in Galway for a day and a night and part of the next day. And it was a memorable time.

…I recommend over and over again:

Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. It is so great and, believe me, please, quite funny.

...shaped my worldview:

On The Road by Jack Kerouac inspired and bewitched me for many, many years, it is one of the reasons I took some chances as a young person and those risks turned into this (lucky) career I’ve had. Thanks, Jack!

...made me rethink a long-held belief:

I swear I’ll finish Herman Melville one day. I played a college professor and so the sets were jam packed with books upon books. I finally cracked Moby Dick and found it VERY readable and even funny… and I want to get back to it!

…I’d pass on to my kid:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers is everything its title promises and its personal and joyful deep inside, amidst the heartbreak. Not to mention it was on the forefront of the humorously self-critiquing modern style I have enjoyed in some of my favorite stand up comedian’s work.

…made me laugh out loud:

Recently I had the great pleasure of reading My Search For Warren Harding by Robert Plunket. It is funny on page one and gets funnier and funnier the more you read it and the more you know the main character’s petty, egotistical, spirited character.

…helped me become a better writer:

Robert Evans’ The Kid Stays In The Picture is genre-writing at its best. What genre? Action/Suspense! Cliffhanger moments abound—all ginned-up by the masterful writer (ghost writer? editor?). It’s SO damn entertaining throughout and made me think about this kind of dynamic construction.

…describes a house I’d want to live in:

Bill Bryson’s At Home is an expansive tome detailing the history of his own house in England, an old rectory, and tells the story of houses and the “invention” of various rooms of a house. Absolutely a delight to hang out in this easy-going, casual, lallygag through architecture and human proclivities, and the audiobook might be the best way to zone out since pot was invented… and you’ll end up smarter for it.

...I consider literary comfort food:

The Framley Examiner does this for me. A compilation from a comedy website that features the pages of an imagined local newspaper in a small town in England (Framley). FUNNY FUNNY FUNNY. On your worst day, with a sorrow in the pit of your stomach and worries collecting in a cloud over your head, cracking open this book will burst through all of that with a bright ray of sunshiney comic riffery and turn you into a gibbering, joyful, mess. Magic.

...I’d want signed by the author:

William Shakespeare’s First Folio.

...that holds the recipe to a favorite dish:

I will choose, again, my current favorite FUNNY book, My Search For Warren Harding by Robert Plunket which has recipes within it! One for potato salad. And even the recipes are FUNNY! So great.

...taught me this Jeopardy!-worthy bit of trivia:

Can I recommend my favorite Audiobooks? I, Partridge by Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) is unfathomably PACKED with laughs to a density that astounds. His very pronunciation is a deep delight. The Kid Stays In The Picture by Robert Evans (I’ve listened to it twice!). And, most recently, Maria Bamford’s Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult kept me smiling for hours.

Bonus question: If I could live in any library or bookstore in the world, it would be:

Come on, how could it be any place but Portland’s renowned POWELL’S?!! SO, SO many books, and place to hang out, and read them… and then a great, cloudy day so you don’t have to feel bad about being inside, your nose in a book!

The Day of the Jackal

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

On the Road

Moby Dick

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

My Search for Warren Harding

The Kid Stays in the Picture

At Home

First Folio

I, Partridge

Sure, I'll Join Your Cult

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