Good Books
6/6/2010
So many times I've been asked, "Reading anything good?"
I thought it would be great to share the reading list I've been working my way through for the UCLA class I took on Writing the Healing Journey. So here it is. Happy summer reading!
Memoir
Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: They feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship. - Anne Lamott
Abercrombie, Barbara. Writing Out the Storm, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002
Courage & Craft, Novato, California: New World Library, 2007
Allende, Isobel. The Sum of Our Days, New York: Harper Perennial, 2009
Alvarez, Julie. Something to Declare, New York: Algonquin, 2005
Angelou, Maya. Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now, N.Y.: Random House
Athill, Diana. Somewhere Towards the End, New York: W.W. Norton, 2009
Barrington, Judith. Writing the Memoir, Portland: The Eighth Mountain Press, 2002
Baszile, Jennifer. The Black Girl Next Door, New York: Touchstone, 2009
Beard, Jo Ann. The Boys of My Youth, New York: Little Brown and Co., 1998
Beck, Martha. Expecting Adam, New York: Berkley, 2000
Blunt, Judy. Breaking Clean, New York: Knopf, 2002
Bauby, Jean-Dominique. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, New York: Vintage Books, 1998
Casey, Nell, Ed. An Uncertain Inheritance, New York: William Morrow, 2007
Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street, New York: Vintage Books, 1991
Cooper, Bernard. The Bill From My Father, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006
Datcher, Michael. Raising Fences, New York: Riverhead Books, 2001
Didion, Joan. The White Album, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979
The Year of Magical Thinking, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005
Doty, Mark. Firebird, New York: Perennial, 1999,
Heaven's Coast, New York: Harper Collins, 1996,
Still Life With Oysters And Lemon, Boston: Beacon Press, 2001
Dog Years, New York: HarperCollins, 2007
Dubus, Andre. Broken Vessels. Boston: David R. Godine 1991
Dunn, Samantha. Not by Accident. New York: Henry Holt, 2002
Faith in Carlos Gomez, New York: Henry Holt 2005
Ephron, Nora. I Feel Bad About My Neck. New York: Knopf 2006
Finnamore, Suzanne. Split, New York: New American Library 2008
Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love, New York: Penguin Books, 2006
Ginzburg, Natalia. The Little Virtues, New York: Little Brown and Co., 1989
Gallman, Kuki. I Dreamed of Africa, New York: Viking, 1991
Gebauer, Phyllis. Hot Widow, McKinleyville, CA: Fithian Press, 2008
Gornick, Vivian. The Situation and the Story, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002
Grumbach, Doris. Life In a Day, Boston: Beacon Press, 1996
Hall, Donald. The Best Day the Worst Day, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005
Harrison, Kathryn. The Kiss, New York: Random House, 1997
Hathaway, Katharine Butler. The Little Locksmith, New York: The Feminist Press, 2000
Hendra, Tony. Father Joe, New York: Random House, 2004
Holloway, Monica. Driving With Dead People, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007
Cowboy & Wills, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2009
Jones, Daniel, Ed. Modern Love. New York, Three Rivers Press, 2007
Jurgensen, Genevieve. The Disappearance, New York: W.W. Norton, 1999
Khan, Mahvish Rukhsana. My Guantanamo Diary, New York: PublicAffairs, 2008
Kingston, Maxine Hong. To Be The Poet, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002
Kitchen & Jones, ed. In Brief, New York: W.W. Norton, 1999
Knize, Perri. Grand Obsession, New York: Scribner, 2008
Kooser, Ted. Local Wonders, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird, New York and San Francisco: Pantheon Books, 1994
Traveling Mercies, New York and San Francisco: Pantheon Books, 1999
Grace (Eventually), New York: Riverhead Books, 2007
Lindquist, Ulla-Carin. Rowing Without Oars, New York. Penguin Books, 2007
Lynch, Thomas. Bodies In Motion And At Rest, New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2000
Still Life in Milford (poems), New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1998
Lopez, Steve. The Soloist, New York: G.P.Putnam’s, 2008
Maclean, Norman. A River Runs Through It, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976
McKeithen, Madge. Blue Peninsula, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006
McBride, James. The Color of Water, New York: Riverhead Books 1996
Moehringer, J.R. The Tender Bar, New York: Hyperion 2005
Murdock, Maureen. Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory, New York: Seal Press, 2003
Nash, Jennie. The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming, New York: Scribner 2001
Norris, Kathleen. Dakota, New York: Mariner Books 2001
Obama, Barack. Dreams From My Father, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004
Oliver, Mary. Blue Pastures, New York: Harcourt, 1995
Long Life, Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2004
Perry, Michael. Population:485, New York: HarperCollins, 2002
Queller, Jessica. Pretty Is What Changes, New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2008
Raban, Jonathan. Bad Land, New York: Vintage Books, 1997
Rechy, John. About My Life and the Kept Woman, New York: Grove Press 2008
Richards, Susan. Chosen By a Horse, New York: Harcourt, 2006
Romm, Robin. The Mercy Papers, New York: Scribner, 2009
Sebold, Alice. Lucky. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1999
See, Carolyn. Making a Literary Life, New York: Random House, 2002
Dreaming, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996
Sheff, David. Beautiful Boy, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008
Snyder, Don J. The Cliff Walk, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1997
St. John, Linda. Even Dogs Go Home To Die, New York: HarperCollins, 2001
Tharp, Twyla. The Creative Habit, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003
Thomas, Abigail. A Three Dog Life, New York: Harcourt, 2006
Safekeeping, New York: Anchor Books, 2001
Thinking About Writing Memoir, New York: 2008
Villasenor, Victor. Crazy Loco Love, Houston, Arte Publico Press, 2008
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle, New York: Scribner, 2005
Wickersham, Joan. The Suicide Index, New York: Mariner Books, 2008
Yang, Kao Kalia. The Latehomecomer, Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2008
Zackheim, Victoria, Ed. The Other Woman, New York:Warner Books, 2007
For Keeps, Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2007
The Face in the Mirror, New York: Prometheus Books, 2009
Zinsser, William. Writing About Your Life, New York: Marlowe & Co., 2004
Poetry:
Carson, Anne. The Beauty of the Husband, New York: Vintage Books, 2002
Carver, Raymond. A New Path to the Waterfall. New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press
Clifton, Lucille. An Ordinary Woman, New York: Random House, 1974
Collins, Billy. Sailing Alone Around the Room, New York: Random House, 2001
Emerson, Claudia. Late Wife, Baton Rouge, Lousiana State University Press, 2005
Hall, Donald. Without, Boston: Beacon Press, 2002
Kenyon, Jane. Otherwise, St. Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 1996
Keillor, Garrison, ed. Good Poems for Hard Times, New York: Penguin Books, 2005
Kooser, Ted. Winter Morning Walks, Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon Press 2000
Oliver, Mary. New and Selected Poems. Boston: Beacon Press 1992
(and all subsequent collections of her poems)
I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my eyes were closed and all that surrounded me was a darkened room. I wrote because that was who I was at the core, and if I was too damaged to walk around the block, I was lucky all the same. Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.
- Alice Hoffman
I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.
- Joyce Carol Oates
|
| |
|
Posted 6/6/2010 in Misc | |
RSS Feed
