A list of people, dead or alive, I would invite to the ultimate dinner party so that I could pick their brains:

• John Steinbeck
• Abigail Adams
• Vladimir Lenin
• Ayn Rand
• William Faulkner
• Terry Pratchett
• Bob Dylan
• W.E.B. DuBois
• FDR
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Daniel Day Lewis
• Jon Krakauer
• Janis Joplin
• Eartha Kitt
• Andrea Gibson
• Benazir Bhutto
• Annie Dillard
• Ray Bradbury
• Kurt Vonnegut
• John Locke
• Thomas Jefferson
• George W. Bush
• Barack Obama
• JRR Tolkein
• Michio Kaku
• Jane Lynch