Chaka Fattah

Quotation to live by:

"Life-changing opportunities change and transform lives."

- Chaka Fattah, Nov. 18, 2006

Favorite author, fiction: Solomon Jones.

Favorite author, nonfiction: Salome Thomas-El.

Favorite poet: Sonia Sanchez.

Favorite beach reading: Robert Ludlum.

Book or author other people praise but I never liked: Rick Santorum.

A book that influenced how I live my life: The King James Version of the Holy Bible.

TV show I'm not ashamed to admit I watch: Grey's Anatomy, on ABC.

TV show I hate to admit I like: 24, on Fox.

Favorite comic strip: The Boondocks, by Aaron McGruder.

Movies I love so much I've watched them more than twice: Invincible and Pride.

Web sites I visit regularly: Philly.com (www.philly.com) and Young Philly Politics (www.youngphillypolitics.com).

If you turned my car radio on right now, it would be tuned to: WURD-AM (900), WRNB-FM (107.9) or WUSL-FM (98.9, "Power 99").

Magazines I read regularly: Black Enterprise and Time.

Favorite type of music: Jazz.

Last concert attended: Alicia Keys at the Liacouras Center.

Recording I play when my soul needs a lift: Anything by Yolanda Adams.

Person in my field I most admire: William H. Gray III.

Living person I'd most like to join for dinner and conversation: Tiger Woods.

Hero from history: Stephen Biko.

If I had the power to order all of the Philadelphia region to read one book, it would be: The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, by Jonathan Kozol.

And here's why: Because educational disparity is the number-one civil-rights issue of our time.