Category: Recommended Reading

My 2016 Reading List

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In regards to reading, I had two goals this year.  Actually, I’m going to refer to them as one goal and one hope.

The goal was to read one Shakespeare play each month.  The few I had read before this year were school assignments, which I mostly wasn’t prepared to read and didn’t get much out of.  I got a bit behind during the fall semester, but I managed to catch up just this week in order to complete my goal.

My hope was to read 100 books this year.  Why 100?  I don’t know.  It’s a fairly arbitrary number, but it’s nice and round, and I thought this was the year that I could do it.  Unfortunately, I’m a bit short, clocking in at only 91 books read this year (full list below).  I admit that almost half of those books were poetry books, which means that many were a bit short.  Still, 91 is a respectable number, or so I’m telling myself.

Here’s the full list.  FYI, a few of these books are unpublished manuscripts.  You won’t find them for purchase yet, but I hope you’ll find them one day soon.

  1. Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace
  2. Diane Cook – Man V. Nature
  3. Steven Pressfield – The War of Art
  4. David Daniel – Seven-Star Bird
  5. Charles Dodd White & Larry Smith – Appalachia Now
  6. William Trent Pancoast – Valley Real Estate
  7. William Shakespeare – Othello
  8. William Kelley Woolfitt – Beauty Strip
  9. William Kelley Woolfitt – Charles of the Desert
  10. Richie Hofmann – Second Empire
  11. Jill McCorkle – Creatures of Habit
  12. Junot Diaz – The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
  13. Michael Ondaatje – Divisadero
  14. William Shakespeare – The First Part of Henry VI
  15. Jeremy Jones – Bearwallow
  16. Elijah Burrell – The Skin of the River
  17. William Shakespeare – The Second Part of Henry VI
  18. Wesley Browne – Slice
  19. Pauletta Hansel – The Lives We Live in Houses
  20. Alex Taylor – The Name of the Nearest River
  21. Major Jackson – Holding Company
  22. Kyle McCord – You Are Indeed an Elk, But This is Not the Forest You Were Born to Graze
  23. Jodi Lynn Anderson – Tiger Lily
  24. Brent Martin – Hunting for Camellias at Horseshoe Bend
  25. William Shakespeare – The Third Part of Henry VI
  26. Robert Zubrin – The Case for Mars
  27. Rose McLarney – The Always Broken Plates of Mountains
  28. Rose McLarney – Its Day Being Gone
  29. Lee Smith – Cakewalk
  30. Amy Willoughby-Burle – Out Across the Nowhere
  31. Darnell Arnoult – Galaxie Wagon
  32. William Shakespeare – Richard III
  33. Pasture Art – Marlin Barton
  34. Barrett Warner – Why is it so hard to kill You?
  35. New Stories from the South 2008 – ZZ Packer
  36. A Fox Appears – Jennifer Stewart-Miller
  37. Larry Brown – Joe (June)
  38. Bob Shachohis – The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
  39. Geoff Dyer – Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It
  40. Theodore Wheeler – Bad Faith
  41. Joanne Proulx – We All Love the Beautiful Girls
  42. William Shakespeare – The Tempest
  43. Ross Gay – Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
  44. Jim Elledge – Tapping My Arm for a Vein
  45. William Shakespeare – Two Gentleman of Verona
  46. Keith Stewart – Bernadette Peters Hates Me
  47. Cassie Pruyn – Lena
  48. Nathan Hill – The Nix
  49. Erica Anderson-Senter – Seven Days Now
  50. J.K. Daniels – Wedding Pulls
  51. Sue Weaver Dunlap – Knead
  52. Lauren K. Alleyne – Difficult Fruit
  53. Major Jackson – Hoops
  54. Brandon Courtney – Rooms for Rent in the Burning City
  55. Henry Real Bird – Horse Tacks
  56. Jen Leija – Good Bones
  57. William Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  58. Lyrae Van Clief-Stafanon – Open Interval
  59. Ron Houchin – Death and the River
  60. David Armand – My Mother’s House
  61. William Shakespeare – The Merry Wives of Windsor
  62. Thomas Rain Crowe – Radiogenesis
  63. Dorianne Laux – The Book of Men
  64. Mark Eisner – The Essential Neruda – Selected Poems
  65. Richard Hague – Possible Debris
  66. Nathalie Handal – Poet in Andalucia
  67. Saeed Jones – Prelude to Bruise
  68. Joseph Bathanti – Anson County
  69. Jim Minick – Burning Heaven
  70. Jim Harrison – Letters to Yesenin
  71. Tim Peeler – Fresh Horses
  72. Mark Wagenaar – Body Distances
  73. Richard Hague – Alive in Hard Country
  74. Connie Jordan Green – Darwin’s Breath
  75. Grace Paley – Later the Same Day
  76. William Shakespeare – Measure for Measure
  77. TJ Jarrett – Zion
  78. Carrie Mullins – Night Garden
  79. William Shakespeare – Comedy of Errors
  80. William Shakespeare – Love’s Labour’s Lost
  81. -91. (11 poetry manuscripts I read for a contest)

I’d love to know what you read this year.  If you don’t want to include your full list, what were your favorite books of 2016?

Recommended Reading 12/12/2016

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I know most of us are thinking about how quickly Christmas is coming, but sometimes it’s good to take some time for ourselves by sinking into something good to read.  Here are some recommendations for your reading or listening pleasure.

Libby Flores was the guest on a recent episode of THE HOW THE WHY podcast: http://1888.center/the-how-the-why-152-libby-flores/.

Kate Jayroe has a new poem up at Ink Node: https://www.inknode.com/katejayroe/screen-door. Kate was also recently interviewed at NANO Fiction in anticipation of the fact that they will soon publish her story, “Jeep.” http://nanofiction.org/weekly-feature/interviews/2016/12/five-questions-with-kate-jayroe.

Cassie Pruyn has some beautiful new poems online at The Common http://www.thecommononline.org/closeted-duchess-county and at Liminal Stories http://liminalstoriesmag.com/issue2/aubade.

Barrett Warner is featured on a recent edition of The Speakeasy: https://soundcloud.com/fsuliteraryarts/the-speakeasy-ep-4-barrett-warner. Barrett’s book Why Is It So Hard to Kill You? was reviewed over at The Loch Raven Review: https://thelochravenreview.net/barrett-warner-why-is-it-so-hard-to-kill-you-reviewed-by-alan-c-reese/.  And because I know from personal experience that it’s impossible to get enough of Barrett, you’ll want to check out this video of Barrett reading at Why There Are Words: https://www.facebook.com/WhyThereAreWords/videos/10153872952201933/?autoplay_reason=all_page_organic_allowed&video_container_type=0&video_creator_product_type=2&app_id=2392950137&live_video_guests=0.

Finally, congrats to Megan Culhane Galbraith and Shawna Kay Rodenberg.  Both were included in Entropy‘s year-end list “Best of 2016: Best Online Articles and Essays.” Galbraith’s essay, “Sin Will Find You Out,” was originally published in Catapult. Shawna Kay Rodenberg’s “How Evangelical Women Found a False Savior in Trump,” was originally published in The Village Voice. Check out the whole list here: http://ow.ly/OA0x306UqD3.

My Review of Wheeler’s Bad Faith

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My review of Theodore Wheeler’s collection of short stories is live today at Ploughshares.

I met Theodore Wheeler back in 2012 at the Key West Literary Seminars.  He’s a fiction writer and legal reporter living in Omaha, Nebraska. His novel, Kings of Broken Things, will be published by Little A in August 2017. But his collection of short fiction, Bad Faith, is available NOW from Queen’s Ferry Press.

In addition to being a great collection of stories, Bad Faith wins all awards for the hands-down best cover image, maybe ever.

bad-faith-final-png

 

 

 

 

Recommended Reading 9/23/2016

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I’ve been reading some great stories, poems and essays in the past few weeks.  If you’re looking for something to hold your attention over the weekend, try one (or all) of these:

Barrett Warner’s poem, Oxon Run, was recently featured at Autumn Sky Poetry Daily: https://autumnskypoetrydaily.com/2016/09/08/oxon-run-by-barrett-warner/.

Emily Mohn-Slate has two poems at Connotation Press: http://www.connotationpress.com/poetry/2862-emily-mohn-slate-poetry.

Linda Michel-Cassidy interviewed Tom McAllister and Mike Ingram, the creators of Book Fight!, over at Entropy: http://entropymag.org/book-fight-books-we-love-books-we-hate-books-that-inspire-us-baffle-us-infuriate-us/.

K.L. Browne’s fantastic story, Toucan, was published this week at Ascent: http://www.readthebestwriting.com/toucan-kelly-browne/.

Susan Pagani wrote this cool article about a cooperative grocery store in Minneapolis for Civil Eats, a national food justice mag: http://civileats.com/2016/09/20/this-minneapolis-cooperative-grocery-store-is-working-to-break-the-diversity-mold/.

Finally, I highly recommend you check out this essay by Jamie Zvirzdin in The Kenyon Review’s Poetics of Science issue: http://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2016-fall/selections/jamie-zvirzdin-656342/.  The essay is titled, “Observations of a Science Editor: If Romantic Scientists Pilfered Fiction’s Toolbox, You Can Too,” and it’s really fascinating.

Recommended Reading 9/9/2016

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If you’re looking for something good to read this weekend, here are several worthy options:

Poetry lovers should check out Cassie Pruyn‘s three poems that were included as part of CutBank’s “All Accounts and Mixture” online series: http://www.cutbankonline.org/cutbank-blog/2016/7/all-accounts-mixture-cassie-prurn.

And Tanya Grae has some beautiful new work online at Agni and at Fjords Review: http://www.bu.edu/agni/authors/T/Tanya-Grae.html and http://fjordsreview.com/featured/current_issue.html.

And be sure to read a new poem by Larry Thacker‘s in The Rappahannock Review: http://www.rappahannockreview.com/larry-thacker/.

If Creative Non-Fiction is more your style, you should read Elizabeth Glass’s essay “A Series of Almosts” online at The Manifest-Station: http://themanifeststation.net/2016/08/24/a-series-of-almosts/#more-16645.

And Susan Pagani has a wonderful essay, “On Living with Geese,” online at Switchback: https://www.swback.com/issues/2016/living-geese.html.

Corina Zappia wrote a fantastic review of Seattle restaurants in The Stranger:http://www.thestranger.com/food-and-drink/2016/08/26/24520833/seattles-downtown-evolution. I promise it’s a fun read, even if you won’t be in Seattle anytime soon.

the-nest-1-courtesy-of-nic-lehoux_mag

 

Erica Anderson-Senter’s “Seven Days Now”

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Erica - Seven Days Now

This morning, I sat down to read Erica Anderson-Senter‘s new chapbook, Seven Days Now, and it blew me away. I marked what I thought would be my favorite poems only to realize that I had marked over half of the collection. Anderson-Senter’s voice is strong. Her language is never dull; rather, line after line includes one subtle surprise after another. And so many poems take my breath away with their honesty. Click the link above to buy your own copy.  Until then, here is one of my favorites.

Saint Mary’s River Song

My mouth tastes like a river,
like I’m standing next to a river,
like I’m licking limestone.

I’ve made dinner with silt,
with silt and cattails,
cattails dressed with mallard feathers.

I will die on this rock-ribbed river-bed;
a rough river-bed will eat my flesh,
fresh like limestone, barefoot in this rill.

My body is fully-flooded, bloated
laying flat in the flood plain,
the night heron fishes in my hair.

 

Keith Stewart’s “Bernadette Peters Hates Me”

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Keith Stewart has been making me laugh ever since I met him, but this weekend, I laughed because of his fantastic book, Bernadette Peters Hates Me: True Tales of a Delusional Man.

Bernie Peters

It’s hard to imagine that all of these incidents could have happened to one man.  Let’s start with the time he was attacked by a bird in a supermarket.  Here’s an excerpt:

“Why be scared of such a tiny bird? Why be so bitter towards a poor, struggling animal? Perhaps I am overreacting, you say? I beg to differ. A couple of years ago, I was accosted by an angry, terrified bird in a Kroger MegaGrand Store. I honestly can say I will never be the same, and neither will that dumb bird. Here’s how it went down:

“I ran into the grocery after work to pick up a few items. For convenience, I stopped at the store that was closer to work, so it was not my home Kroger. All the produce was placed in completely different places, and I walked around aimlessly trying to find the organic section, in particular, the celery. I was standing in front of a large display of carefully pyramided cantaloupe when out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something dark and ominous. It was a bird, maybe a sparrow, flying at what appeared to be the speed of a fully engrossed Indy car. I stood there and thought to myself, “Huh, that bird looks like it’s flying directly toward me.” The next thing I know I feel something repeatedly beating me about the head and ear, and I hear the FLAP FLAP FLAP of bird wings. “OH GOD! HELP ME!” I yelled, flailing both arms up in the air trying to fight off the crazed bird. I was feeling around for a celery stalk to use as a sword, and in my panic, I jumped back directly into the large display of cantaloupe. At this point, the bird had tired of terrorizing me and had flown away to target its next victim over in the dairy section, but I was still flailing my arms, rolling in the floor with about fifty cantaloupes.” Read the whole piece at humoroutcasts.com.

There’s also the time he rubbed jalapeno pepper juice in a place he especially should NOT have.  There’s the time he and his cousins brawled with another family at a funeral.  There’s the title piece about why Broadway legend Bernadette Peters really does hate him.  I’m just tipping the ice berg here.  You’ll have to read the book for yourself.  In the meantime, you can follow Keith’s latest exploits online on Facebook or at www.astrongmanscupoftea.com.

Cathy Cultice Lentes’ “Ten Years”

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I was so happy yesterday to receive this beautiful new chapbook, Getting the Mail, by Cathy Cultice Lentes.  I met Cathy a couple of years ago at a weekend retreat at the Hindman Settlement School.  In addition to writing poetry, Cathy is also an essayist and children’s writer.  But it’s her poetry that is on full display in this collection, published by Finishing Line Press.  So many of Cathy’s poems explore everyday magic.  Pasted below is one of my favorites, “Ten Years.”  I hope you’ll read it and then buy the book.

340Lentes_Cathy_COV

Ten Years

Ten years this house stood vacant.
The woods never forgave us
for trying to take it back.
Birds insist the porch is theirs, nest
after nest, egg after egg. Uneven
floorboards sink toward soil, rotting
slowly back to earth.
Maple trees spread arms to block
our view of cars and people passing by
so even we forget to which world we belong.

Long ago we lost our fear of spiders,
bats, and other creatures that creep and claw.
We painted all the walls forest green, and it
is hard to tell where inside ends and outside
starts. Soon all semblance of civility will
be gone—
we’ll fail to dress, eat only what
presents itself, live hairy and howling
under a roof of stars.

Jim Elledge’s “Theotokos”

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Elledge_BW_500

The writer Jim Elledge has moved into my community, and I recently bumped into him at our local coffee house.  Jim has received multiple Lambda Literary Awards and also won the Georgia Author of the Year Award in biography.  I’ve been reading and enjoying his collection of poems, “Tapping My Arm for a Vein.”  One of my favorites so far is the prose poem “Theotokos.” I’ve pasted the short poem below, but you can see it and four other poems in the online journal LocusPoint.

THEOTOKOS

Photosynthesis: digestion in midair, kisses sun and plant share, prayer aglitter. Light hovers when gulls zigzag then wheel. Light skims surf, a frieze of epiphany. As he creates other worlds, God hums to himself melodies we’re lucky to overhear. Thus: shadows crow beneath leaves, clocks snicker locked up indoors, herds of spiders weave webs they string in triangles littered with flies’ wings that flutter in dank breezes.