In the Q&A section of Criterion's Down by Law DVD, Jarmusch was asked to name some of his favorite books. He mentioned these:
"Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Sterne.
"Madame Bovary" and "Sentimental Education" by Gustave Flaubert.
Honoré de Balzac.
Marcel Proust.
"Orlando Furioso" by Ariosto.
"The Inferno" by Dante.
"Hamlet" by Shakeapeare.
William Blake.
"Illuminations" and "The Drunken Boat" by Rimbaud.
New York school of poets, such as Frank O'Hara, John Ahsbery, James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, David Shapiro, Ron Padgett and Frank Lima.
"Impressions of Africa" by Raymond Roussel.
Rilke.
Pablo Neruda.
Pierre Reverdy.
Stéphane Mallarmé.
Georges Bataille.
Blaise Cendrars.
"The Woman Chaser" by Charles Willeford.
"Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett.
"Serenade" by James M Cain.
"The Diaries of Adam and Eve" by Mark Twain.
"The Factory of Facts" and "Low Life" by Luc Sante.
"The Gangs of New York" by Herbert Ashbury.
"Coming through Slaughter" by Michael Ondaatje.
Samuel Beckett ("novels rather than plays").