Reading List

______________________________________________________________________________2011
May

• James Michener, Tales of the South Pacific
• Noelle Kocot, The Bigger World
• William Wordsworth, The Prelude

April

• James Galvin, X
• Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
• David Berman, Actual Air †
• Samuel Starkweather, The Heart is Green from so much Waiting
• D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

March

• Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy †ß
• Kurt Vonnegut Jr., The Sirens of Titan √
• Matthew Rohrer, Destroyer and Preserver 
• Mark Levine, Debt
• Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists Vol. 1, "Michelangelo" section œ
• Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country 

February

• Matthew Rohrer, Satellite √+
• Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida
• Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy**

January

• Plato, The Republic √ß
• Ted Berrigan, The Sonnets √++
• Gospel of Matthew ß
• CAConrad, The Book of Frank √
• Dara Weir, Selected Poems ∑
• Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma †ß
• Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March†

____________________________________________________________________Notation Guide
* = unfinished
√ = enjoyable to read
∑ = found the work distasteful for some reason
+ = [that thing] but more
π = ideas expressed in this book were somehow stifling to creative productivity
∆ = strongly dislike despite various, obvious merits
≈ = felt awkward reading
¬ = sloppiness in writing that seems incongruous with reputation
µ = radical change from my opinion at age 17
ç = selection provided/read was inadequate to evaluate
ß = probably essential to being well read
Ω = profound pleasure in reading the author's 'development' over time.
œ = hilariously inspiring
† = my highest recommendation. buy, borrow, or rent this book.

______________________________________________________________________________2010
December

• J. C. Polkinghorne, The Quantum World √
• Mary Oliver, Red Bird
• Dorothea Lasky, Black Life (again) √
• Gustave Flaubert, Sentimental Education †

November

• Charles Simic, The Book of Gods and Devils √
• Gino Segrè, Faust in Copenhagen √
• Basho, Buson & Issa, ed. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku  √+ (again)
• Joshua Beckman, Your Time Has Come √+ (again)
• Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams ß
• Luna Miguel, Poetry is not dead

October

• John Berger, Ways of Seeing ∑ π
• Lawrence Weschler, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees √ π
• Tao Lin, Richard Yates √
• Steve Roggenbuck, i am like october when i am dead √
• Kenneth Rexroth, 100 Poems from the Japanese †

September

• Richard Fariña, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me √
• Joshua Beckman, Shake (again)
• Matthew Rohrer, A Green Light (again, again)
• Sophokles, Oedipus Tyrannus (again, again, again)
• Seneca, Medea ß
• Tales from the Arabian Nights ß
• Aristotle, Poetics ß

August

• James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name √
• Haruki Murakami, After the Quake √

July

• Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero √
• Kenneth Koch, Thank You and Other Poems †
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism
• William S. Burroughs, Junky √
• James Schuyler, Freely Espousing √+
• Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes √+

June

• Peter Richards, Nude Siren
• John Ashbery, The Tennis Court Oath Ω
• James Tate, Worshipful Company of Fletchers
• Chelsea Minnis, Bad Bad √+
• Richard Yates, 11 Kinds of Loneliness √+

May

• Dorothea Lasky, Awe, Black Life †
  
• Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
• Joshua Beckman, Shake †
  
• Rachel Zucker, Museum of Accidents
• Kenneth Rexroth, 100 Poems from the Chinese †
  

April:

• T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland and Other Poems ∑≈ µ
• Thomas Hardy, Selected Poems*ç
• D. H. Lawrence, Selected Poems √
• D. H. Lawrence, Birds, Beasts and Flowers †
• Geoffrey Nutter, Christopher Sunset †
• James Joyce, Dubliners *
• Dorthea Lasky, Poetry is Not a Project ç or √

March:

• Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises √≈
• Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep √
• Michel de Montaigne, Selected Essays*√
• Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book* √
• Darin Strauss, More than It Hurts You
• Andrew Weatherhead, The Blueprint 3 √

February:

• Heather Christle, The Difficult Farm √
• Dobby Gibson, Skirmish ∑
• Joshua Beckman, Take It √
• Matthew Rohrer, Satellite, A Green Light, Rise Up and A Plate of Chicken √ Ω
• Henry James, "The Beast in the Jungle," "An International Episode," "The Aspern Papers" √ Ω
• Catherine Mansfield, Collected Stories* †
• Basho, Buso & Issa, The Essential Haiku ç
• Willa Cather, A Lost Lady √¬
• Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway ∆

January:

• John Ashbery, Some Trees †
• Tao Lin, You Are a Little Bit Happier than I Am, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy √
• Michael Earl Craig, Can You Relax in My House √
• Lorrie Moore, Self-Help √
• Joy Williams, Honored Guest †
• Geoffrey Nutter, A Summer Evening √
• Wells Tower, Everything Ravage Everything Burned √
• Joseph Conrad, The Shadow-Line √

Notation Guide:

* = unfinished

√ = enjoyable to read

∑ = found the work distasteful for some reason

π = ideas expressed in this book were somehow stifling to creative productivity
∆ = strongly dislike despite various, obvious merits

≈ = felt awkward reading

¬ = sloppiness in writing that seems incongruous with reputation
µ = radical change from my opinion at age 17

ç = selection provided/read was inadequate to evaluate
ß = probably essential to being well read

Ω = profound pleasure in reading the author's 'development' over time.

† = my highest recommendation. buy, borrow, or rent this book.

I will add forgotten books and notations as they occur to me.