Susan Lucci on "Find Your Glow, Feed Your Soul" || Books That Changed My Life
Release Date: 04/09/2026
Margaret Cho (and dog) on "I'm With The Band: Confessions of a Groupie" | Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
On this episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris "Bulldog" Collins is joined by Margaret Cho to discuss I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie by Pamela Des Barres — the 1987 memoir Margaret first read as a teenager growing up in her family's San Francisco bookstore. Pamela is a longtime friend and mentor who edited Margaret's writing, and Margaret returns to the book with the perspective of someone shaped by it: not for its catalog of famous lovers, but for its portrait of a young woman bubbling over with vitality, wit, and creative energy. The conversation moves through...
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Caitlin Peluffo on "Screw Everyone" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
This week, Chris "Bulldog" Collins sits down with stand-up comedian Caitlin Peluffo to discuss the Book That Changed Her Life, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy by Ophira Eisenberg. Peluffo grew up in San Bruno, California, moved east for a master's at Pratt Institute in photography and video performance art, and has been in Brooklyn for close to two decades. She first came across the book in a humor writing class where the infamous "Garfield chapter" was on the syllabus. Reading it sent her down an Eisenberg rabbit hole, and, she says, is what convinced her she could do stand-up...
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Harry Hamlin on "A Course in Miracles" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
In this episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris "Bulldog" Collins is joined by actor Harry Hamlin to discuss A Course in Miracles. Best known for L.A. Law, Clash of the Titans, and currently AMC's Mayfair Witches, Hamlin is also a Yale-educated Jungian, a Shakespearean actor, and the founder of Tri-Alpha Energy — the first private fusion company in the world. He keeps 350 books on his phone and has spent six decades trying to figure out, in his words, "how to live." The conversation moves from a dysfunctional Pasadena childhood and a teenage Jesus-freak phase through a head-on...
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Patton Oswalt on "This Paradise" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
In this episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris "Bulldog" Collins sits down with actor and comedian Patton Oswalt to discuss This Paradise, a short story collection by Ruby Cowling. Check out Patton's new special, "Tea & Scotch" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRFgLNxygC4 Oswalt, an evangel for the book, has bought and given away dozens of copies since discovering Cowling's short fiction through a Canadian publisher's Christmas advent calendar of stories. Oswalt traces his relationship with books back to reading Stephen King's The Stand at age 10, and talks about raising...
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JORDY on "I Let You Go" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
In this episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris "Bulldog" Collins sits down with singer-songwriter Jordy to dive into I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh. Jordy opens up about rediscovering reading during a hard stretch in late 2023, and how this psychological thriller became the book that turned him into a two-books-a-week reader for good. He walks through the novel's now-legendary Part One twist — and the strange full-circle moment when Mackintosh herself saw his reaction video online, reached out, and sent him an early copy of her latest book with a handwritten note. The...
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Justin Halpern on "Lord of the Flies" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
This week on Books That Changed My Life, host Chris "Bulldog" Collins sits down with writer and executive producer Justin Halpern (Abbott Elementary, Harley Quinn, S**t My Dad Says) to talk about Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Justin opens up about growing up as an only child in San Diego, spending countless after-school hours in a VA cancer ward where his father worked, developing a love of sitcoms as a latchkey kid, and finally discovering reading through the shortest book on his father's shelf. He and Chris dig into Golding's examination of power, tribalism, and masculinity, tracing...
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Joan Lunden on "Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
On this episode of Books That Changed My Life, Chris "Bulldog" Collins sits down with broadcast journalism icon Joan Lunden to talk about the book that changed her life: Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water by Brian Luke Seaward. Lunden traces the book back to a pivotal moment at 40, when she found herself facing the end of her marriage and, for the first time in decades, looking inward instead of outward. After years spent racing through a career that had her up at 3:30 a.m. and living at "180 miles an hour," she made a conscious decision to get physically strong — and discovered, almost by...
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Emily Silva on "The Wild Edge of Sorrow" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
In this episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris Collins is joined by author and mindfulness coach Emily Silva. Emily opens up about growing up in a strict fundamentalist Baptist household in the San Francisco Bay Area, the anxiety and panic attacks that pushed her out of a banking career and into therapy, coaching, and eventually writing, and the Book That Changed Her Life: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller. She and Chris go deep on why grief and gratitude are inseparable rather than opposites, the case for becoming "an advocate for grief" instead of tidying it away, the...
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Hayley Kiyoko on "The Four Agreements" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
In this episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris Collins is joined by singer-songwriter and filmmaker Hayley Kiyoko. Hayley opens up about the decade-long journey of turning Girls Like Girls from a song into a music video, a novel, and now her directorial debut film, growing up in a chaotic artistic household with a World Hall of Fame ice-skating choreographer for a mother and a stand-up comedian for a father, and the Book That Changed Her Life: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. She and Chris go deep on the book's four principles — being impeccable with your word, not taking...
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Kal Penn on "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" || Books That Changed My Life
Books That Changed My Life
In this episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris Collins is joined by actor and author Kal Penn. Kal opens up about his two years as a presidential aide in the Obama White House, landing a role in Superman Returns after an hour spent geeking out over comic-book history with the writers, and the Book That Changed His Life: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. He and Chris go deep on the novel's big themes — family and belonging, identity and persecution, escape and acceptance, and the role of art as a weapon — alongside the emptiness of revenge, his...
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In this special New York episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris "Bulldog" Collins is joined by legendary actress Susan Lucci.
Susan opens up about the tremendous difficulty of losing her husband, Helmut, after 52 years of marriage and the book that helped her heal: Find Your Glow, Feed Your Soul by
Emily Silva. In the course of their heartfelt conversation, Chris and Susan talk authenticity, gratitude, daily rituals, careers, Emily Silva's catalog, and more.
Susan shares poignant stories about her time with Helmut, her unparalleled soap opera career, her experience on stage, and rediscovering her glow after grief.
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