Clay Risen

Clay Risen is a reporter at the New York Times and the author of Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America. His previous books include The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders and the Dawn of the American Century, The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act, and A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination and American Whiskey, Bourbon and Rye: A Guide to the Nation’s Favorite Spirit. He lives in New York City.

Ten Things I Can’t Do Without

1. Townes Van Zandt
2. Black coffee
3. Russell’s Reserve Bourbon
4. My cat
5. The New York Times Crossword
6. The Wire
7. Days of Heaven
8. Thomas Mann
9. Fried catfish
10. Pilot Tough Wash pens