Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.)

What book is on your nightstand right now?
Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, and I just concluded and need to re-read the last…chapters of The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

What magazines do you regularly read?
I read The Economist, The New Republic. I read the National Journal, and I try to read the Sunday magazine section of The New York Times. I don’t have a subscription to it, but I like to read The New Yorker. It may sound funny, but I read O, The Oprah Magazine also. I consider myself a greedy reader.

What’s your guilty-pleasure read?
I would think O, The Oprah Magazine, and this is going to sound even funnier, but I can’t start my day without reading [the comic strip] “Get Fuzzy.”

Which books have influenced your political philosophy?
I would think Plato and Socrates … as a college student, I spent a considerable amount of time reading those writers.

What book about Washington must every member read?
I would think [Newt] Gingrich’s Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works.

What are your favorite novels of all time?
Moby Dick and Wuthering Heights. I love Gone With the Wind as a book, but the movie eclipsed it so much.

Which author do you most often reference?
Probably Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, because I’m always speaking on the floor and referring to Jeffersonian matters.