2014's reading list...

Highlighted in orange are the top 10% that blew my mind. While there were many more than that I found fantastic, to give you my top 39 favorites is a little ridiculous (how many I initially highlighted). Top-3-go-read-now: Shane McCrae's Forgiveness, Forgiveness, Ariana Reine's Coeur de Lion, and Anne Carson's The Albertine Workout, in that order. McCrae's book hit me so hard I read it in one sitting, and then read it again in that same sitting. I'm leaving off a few obvious ones that everyone is already talking about. Those are good too. 

A handful of books were re-readings and of course I love those, but didn't include them in my so excited count. Also, I read Ariel for the first time ever and can kind of see why a few people have cited Plath as something of an influence in my work. Because while I hadn't ever read it until now, I'm pretty clearly influenced by some writers who are pretty clearly influenced by her. In sum: I liked it, this book I've been hearing so much about.

Though I maintain that genre is mostly a useless distinction, last year I read 47 nonfiction books, 22 fiction, 130 poetry. 38 books from 2014, 23 books from 2013, 14 books from 2012. This is the best year I've ever had for reading what's happening Now. I blame/thank AWP being in Seattle for that, though I still have more I picked up there that I haven't yet gotten to. This year (2015) so far I've only "read" one book, Richard McGuire's Here. I mention it now because I don't want to wait until next January to tell you to go out and get it. It's in my top 5 favorite things with pages ever. 

Here's to an excellent year in reading, 2014:

1. New Year Letter - W.H. Auden (Faber and Faber, 1965)

2. Eating in the Underworld – Rachel Zucker (Wesleyan, 2003)

3. Apocalypse Theory: A Reader – Kristy Bowen (SFSU Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange, 2013)

4. The Fall – Albert Camus (1956; Vintage Reissue, 1991)

5. Quipu – Arthur Sze (Copper Canyon, 2005)

6. Slouching Towards Bethlehem – Joan Didion (1968; FSG Classics, 2008)

7. Stories That Listen – Priscilla Becker (Four Way, 2010)

8. A Coney Island of the Mind – Lawrence Ferlinghetti (New Directions, 1968)

9. Sayonara Michelangelo – Waldemar Januszczak (Addison-Wesley, 1990)

10. The Book of Frank – CA Conrad (Wave Books, 2010)

11. Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality – Jacob Tomsky (Anchor, 2013)

12. My Lorenzo– Sebastien Smirou, trans. Andrew Zawaki (Burning Deck, 2012)

13. Impossible Princess – Kevin Killian (City Lights, 2009)

14. Madness – Marya Hornbacher (Mariner, 2009)

15. The Monarchs – Melanie Noel (Stockport Flats, 2013)

16. –The Vital System – CM Burroughs (Tupelo, 2012)

17. Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History – Eduardo Galeano (Nation Books, 2013)

18. On Ghosts – Elizabeth Robinson (Solid Objects, 2013)

19. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute – Grace Paley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1985)

20. Both Flesh and Not – David Foster Wallace (Little Brown, 2012)

21. When My Brother Was an Aztec – Natalie Diaz (Copper Canyon, 2012)

22. The Next Monsters – Julie Doxsee (Black Ocean, 2013)

23. --Herman Hesse: Pictorial Biography (FSG, 1975)

24. Drift – Rachel Maddow (Broadway Books, 2013)

25. Make Me a Mother – Susanne Antonetta (Norton, 2014)

26. We Come Elemental – Tamiko Beyer (Alice James, 2013)

27. The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald (New Directions, 1999)

28. Pact-Blood, Fever Grass – Miriam Bird Greenberg (Ricochet Editions, 2014)

29. MxT – Sina Queyras (Coach House, 2014)

30. Dark Sky Question – Larissa Szporluk (Beacon Press, 1998)

31. Spectacle – Susan Steinberg (Graywolf, 2013)

32. The White Album – Joan Didion (Simon & Schuster, 1979)

33. All You Do Is Perceive – Joy Katz (Four Way, 2013)

34. Whip Smart – Melissa Febos (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010)

35. --Ark – Ronald Johnson (Flood Editions reissue, 2013, of early 1980s)

36. All Movies Love the Moon – Gregory Robinson (Rose Metal Press, 2014)

37. My Daughter La Chola – Farik Matuk (Ahsahta, 2013)

38. The World of Rae English – Lucy Rosenthal (Black Lawrence Press, 2014)

39. Lines the Quarry – Robin Clarke (Omnidawn, 2013)

40. Purgatory – Raul Zurita, trans. Anna Deeny (University of California Press, 2009)

41. Viper Rum – Mary Karr (New Directions, 1998)

42. The Ada Poems – Cynthia Zarin (Knopf, 2010)

43. Gnomic Verses – Robert Creeley (Zasterle Press, 1991)

44. As Long As Trees Last – Hoa Nguyen (Wave Books, 2012)

45. Science & Steepleflower – Forrest Gander (New Directions, 1998)

46. Dark Seasons – Georg Trakl, trans. Robin Skelton (Broken Jaw Press, 1994)

47. Chromosomory – Layli Long Soldier (Q Ave Press, 2010)

48. Quarantine – Malachi Black (Argos Books, 2012)

49. Prose Poems – Pierre Reverdy, trans. Ron Padgett (Black Square Editions, 2007)

50. The Absent Father in Dumbo – Charles Bernstein (Zasterle Press, 1990)

51. from Unincorporated Territories [Saina] – Craig Santos Perez (Omnidawn, 2010)

52. Lake Superior – Lorine Niedecker (Wave Books, 2013)

53. Sea Ice – Stephen Berg (The Cummington Press, 1988)

54. Overtakelessness – Dan Beachy-Quick (Spork Press)

55. Eye Against Eye – Forrest Gander (New Directions, 2005)

56. Wayfare – Pattiann Rogers (Penguin, 2008)

57. Poker – Tomaz Salamun (Ugly Duckling, 2004)

58. Inner China – Eva Sjodin (Litmus Press, 2005)

59. O New York – Trey Sager (Ugly Duckling)

60. King Me – Roger Reeves (Copper Canyon, 2013)

61. The Pedestrians – Rachel Zucker (Wave Books, 2014)

62. One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana – Deborah Luster & C.D. Wright (Twin Palms Publishers, 2003)

63. The Address Book – Sophie Calle (siglio, 2012)

64. Several Gravities – Keith Waldrop (siglio, 2009)

65. Going Back to the River – Marilyn Hacker (Vintage, 1990)

66. Factory of Tears – Valzhyna Mort (Copper Canyon, 2008)

67. Another Water (The River Thames, for Example) – Roni Horn (Scalo, 2000)

68. The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time – David L. Ulin (Sasquatch, 2010)

69. Heavy Jars – Anselm Hollo (Toothpaste Press, 1977)

70. Little Mysteries – Ken Mikolowski (Toothpaste Press, 1979)

71. Cadaver, Speak – Marianne Boruch (Copper Canyon, 2014)

72. It – Inger Christensen, trans. Susanna Nied (New Directions, 2006)

73. One With Others: [a little book of her days] – C.D. Wright (Copper Canyon, 2011)

74. Romey’s Order – Atsuro Riley (University Of Chicago Press, 2010)

75. Meditations in an Emergency – Frank O’Hara (Grove Press, 1957)

76. Torn Awake – Forrest Gander (New Directions, 2001)

77. pool [5 choruses] – Endi Bogue Hartigan (Omnidawn, 2014)

78. The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings – Djuna Barnes (Sun & Moon Press, 1994)

79. The South is Only a Home – Daniela Olszewska (Small Monster Press, 2011)

80. I Want to Make You Safe – Amy King (Litmus Press, 2011)

81. The Not Forever – Keith Waldrop (Omnidawn, 2013)

82. The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot’s Contemporary Prose – T.S. Eliot (edited, with annotations and introduction, by Lawrence Rainey) (Yale University Press, 2006)

83. --Go Find Your Father / A Famous Blues – Harmony Holiday (Ricochet Editions, 2014)

84. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) – Mindy Kaling (Three Rivers Press, 2012)

85. Eros the Bittersweet – Anne Carson (Dalkey Archive, 1986)

86. Two Memoirs – Amanda Montei (Jaded Ibis Press, 2015)

87. Call – Liz Waldner (Meow Press, 2000)

88. The Plot Genie – Gillian Conoley (Omnidawn, 2009)

89. Aunt Pig of Puglia – Patricia Catto (Jaded Ibis, 2009)

90. Sorrow Arrow – Emily Kendal Frey (Octopus Books, 2014)

91. Roget’s Illusion – Linda Bierds (Putnam, 2014)

92. Arkansas: Three Novellas – David Leavitt (Houghton Mifflin, 1997)

93. Work Together – Christine Deavel & John Marshall (Cash Machine, 2014)

94. Trace – Simone Muench (Black Lawrence, 2014)

95. –Drinking Coffee Elsewhere – ZZ Packer (Riverhead Books, 2003)

96. Like Oysters Observing the Sun – Brenda Sieczkowski (Black Lawrence, 2014)

97. Lilies Without – Laura Kasischke (Ausable Press, 2007)

98. All About Lulu – Jonathan Evison (Soft Skull, 2008)

99. The Professor of Desire – Philip Roth (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1977)

100. In Orbit – Kim-An Lieberman (Blue Begonia Press, 2014)

101. School – Jen Currin (Coach House Books, 2014)

102. Seam – Tarfia Faizullah (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014)

103. A Handbook for Drowning – David Shields (HarperPerennial, 1993)

104. The Albertine Workout – Anne Carson (New Directions, 2014)

105. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman – Haruki Murakami (Knopf, 2006)

106. Two and Two – Denise Duhamel (Pittsburgh, 2005)

107. ---How to Feel Confident With Your Special Talents – Carol Guess & Daniela Olzewska (Black Lawrence Press, 2014)

108. Top – Sandra Yannone

109. A Rainbow in the Night: The Tumultuous Birth of South Africa – Dominique Lapierre (De Capo Press, 2009)

110. The Tulip-Flame – Chloe Honum (Cleveland, 2014)

111. Not Nothing - Ray Johnson (Siglio, 2014)

112. red doc> - Anne Carson (Knopf, 2013)

113. Coeur de Lion – Ariana Reines (Fence, 2011)

114. Trances of the Blast – Mary Ruefle (Wave, 2013)

115. The Other Hand – CD Wright (Horse Less Press, 2012)

116. Patriot – Laurie Saurborn Young (Forklift, Ohio, 2013)

117. Loud Mouth – Jay Nebel (Steel Bridge Publishing Co., 2012)

118. Mercury – Ariana Reines (Fence, 2013)

119. The Unfolding Center – Arthur Sze & Susan York (Radius Books, 2013)

120. Figment – Rebecca Wolff (Norton, 2004)

121. The Paper Snake – Ray Johnson (Siglio, 2014; 1965 reissue)

122. The Dance of No Hard Feelings – Mark Bibbins (Copper Canyon, 2009)

123. Ithaca: Little Summer in Winter – Olga Broumas & T Begley (Radiolarian Press, 1996)

124. X= Stephen Berg (University of Illinois Press, 2002)

125. Deeds of Utmost Kindness - Forrest Gander (Wesleyan, 1994)

126. The Waste Land and Other Poems – John Beer (Canarium, 2010)

127. Glamorous Freak: how I taught my dress to act – Roxanne Carter (Jaded Ibis Press, 2012)

128. Kamastone – Pamela Mills (Jaded Ibis Press, 2015)

129, His Days Go By the Way Her Years – Ye Mimi, trans. by Steve Bradbury (Anomalous Press, 2014)

130. Work from Memory: In Response to In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust – Dan Beachy-Quick & Matthew Goulish (Ahsahta Press, 2012)

131. Letters from a Seducer – Hilda Hilst, trans. by John Keene (Nightboat, 2014)

132. Falling in Love Falling in Love With You Syntax – Sheila E. Murphy (Potes & Poets Press, 1997)

133. Black Box – Erin Belieu (Copper Canyon, 2006)

134. The Wisdom of the Desert – Thomas Merton (New Directions, 1970)

135. ---The Cow – Ariana Reines (Fence, 2011)

136. The Divine Comedy – Dante Alighieri

137. Illness and its Metaphors – Susan Sontag

138. Vital Signs – ed. Richard Canning (Carroll & Graf, 2007)

139. What Silence Equals – Tory Dent (Persea, 1993)

140. Poets for Life: Seventy-Six Poets Respond to AIDS – ed. Michael Klein (Persea, 1992)

141. 7 Miles a Second – David Wojnarowicz (Fantagraphics Books, 2012)

142. Catastrophe Practice – Nicholas Mosley (Dalkey Archive, 1979)

143. Reader’s Block – David Markson (Dalkey Archive, 1996)

144. --253 – Geoff Ryman (St. Martin’s, 1996)

145. Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories – James Thomas, Denise Thomas, & Tom Hazuka, eds. (Norton, 1992)

146. The Murder of King Tut – James Patterson (Grand Central Publishing, 2010)

147. Incarnadine – Mary Szybist (Graywolf, 2013)

148. No Shelter: Selected Poems (trans. Forrest Gander) – Pura Lopez-Colome (Graywolf, 1989)

149. The Transformation – Juliana Spahr (Atelos, 2007)

150. Post Subject: A Fable – Oliver de la Paz (Akron, 2014)

151. Put Your Hands In – Chris Hosea (Louisiana State University, 2014)

152. Powerless: Selected Poems 1973-1990 – Tim Dlugos (Serpent’s Tail, 1996)

153. f2f – Janet Holmes (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006)

154. Oh Baby: Flash Fictions & Prose Poems – Kim Chinquee (Ravenna Press Books, 2007)

155. Time Is a Toy: The Selected Poems of Michael Benedikt – ed. John Gallaher & Laura Boss (Akron, 2014)

156. The Big Smoke – Adrian Matejka (Penguin, 2013)

157. Particle and Wave – Benjamin Landry (The University of Chicago Press, 2014)

158. Palm-of-the-Hand Stories – Yasunari Kawabata, trans. Lane Dunlop & J. Martin Holman (North Point Press, 1988)

159. Beyond the Chainlink – Rusty Morrison (Ahsahta, 2014)

160. On the Cave You Live In – Philip Jenks (Flood Editions, 2002)

161. Sweethearts – Jayne Anne Phillips (Wingbow / Truck Press, 1982)

162. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy (Vintage, 1992)

163. The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination – Carl Phillips (Graywolf, 2014)

164. My first painting will be “The Accuser” – Philip Jenks (Zephyr, 2005)

165. –Letters to Kelly Clarkson – Julia Bloch (Sidebrow, 2012)

166. HIV, Mon Amour – Tory Dent (Sheep Meadow, 1997)

167. The Balloonists – Eula Biss (Hanging Loose, 2002)

168. --To Keep Time – Joseph Massey (Omnidawn, 2014)

169. Not That Kind of Girl – Lena Dunham (Random House, 2014)

170. --Beautiful Signor – Cyrus Cassells (Copper Canyon, 1997)

171. My Brother – Jamaica Kincaid (Macmillan, 1997)

172. Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus, trans. Brooks Haxton (Viking, 2001)

173. The Inside of a Dog – Alexandra Horowitz (Scribner, 2009)

174. Citizen – Claudia Rankine (Graywolf, 2014)

175. Forgiveness, Forgiveness – Shane McCrae (Factory Hollow Press, 2014)

176. The Book of Beginnings and Endings – Jenny Boully (Sarabande, 2007)

177. Salvinia Molesta – Victoria Chang (Georgia, 2008)

178. Figure Studies – Claudia Emerson (Louisiana State University Press, 2008)

179. The Book of Accident – Beckian Fritz Goldberg (Akron, 2006)

180. Night Scenes - Lisa Jarnot (Flood Editions, 2008)

181. Dream Machine – Sade Murphy (co-im-press, 2014)

182. --Head Off & Split – Nikky Finney (TriQuarterly Books, 2011) (won National Book Award)

183. Shakespeare Wrote for Money – Nick Hornby (McSweeney’s, 2008)

184. The Paradise of Forms: Selected Poems – Aaron Shurin (Talisman House, 1999)

185. Stone Butch Blues – Leslie Feinberg (Firebrand, 1993)

186. And For Example – Ann Lauterbach (Penguin, 1994)

187. If the Tabloids are True What Are You? (2014)

188. The Nine Senses – Melissa Kwasny (Milkweed Editions, 2011)

189. And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks – Jack Kerouac & William S. Burroughs (Grove Press, 2008; 1945)

190. Enduring Freedom – Laura Mullen (Otis Books | Seismicity Editions, 2012)

191. The Boys I Borrow – Heather Sellers (New Issues, 2007)

192. The Garden Room – Joy Katz (Tupelo Press, 2006)

193. In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic – Ed. Marie Howe & Michael Klein (Persea, 1995)

194. History of Collage: An anthology of collage, assemblage and event structures – Eddie Wolfram (Macmillan, 1975)

195. Glass, Irony & God – Anne Carson (New Directions, 1992)

196. I Remember – Joe Brainard (Grainary Books, 2001)

197. Dear Apocalypse – K.A. Hays (Carnegie Mellon, 2009)

198. Ariel: The Restored Edition – Sylvia Plath (Harper Perennial, 2005)

199. The Descent of Alette – Alice Notley (Penguin, 1992)