Recommended Reading – Faculty Favorites

The following books are not “required” – simply our Faculty Favorites, in the categories of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and books on the writing life and writing craft. 

We also strongly recommend:

• A good dictionary
• A good thesaurus
• A good manual of style – Strunk & White, A Writer’s Reference, Chicago Manual of Style
  

Faculty and Guest books (see bibliography in Residency Guide.)

Fiction:
Acker, Kathy.  My Mother Demonology
Alexie, Sherman. Reservation Blues; The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven; The
Toughest Indian in the World
Allende, Isabel.  The House of the Spirits; Eva Luna; The Stories of Eva Luna
Allison, Dorothy.  Bastard out of Carolina
Anderson, Sherwood.  Winesburg, Ohio
Atwood, Margaret. Cat's Eye, Alias Grace
Austen, Jane.  Pride and Prejudice; Sense and Sensibility; Persuasion
Baker, Nicholson.  Mezzanine
Baldwin, James.  Go Tell It On The Mountain; Notes of a Native Son; The Fire Next Time;
Going to Meet the Man; Another Country
Banks, Russell.  The Sweet Hereafter; Affliction
Barnes, Djuna.  Nightwood
Barrett, Andrea.  Ship Fever
Barthelme, Donald.  60 Stories
Beckett, Samuel.  Murphy
Berger, John. To the Wedding
Bernhard, Thomas. Correction
Borges, Jorge Luis.  Collected Stories
Brodkey, Harold.  First Love and Other Sorrows
Bronte, Emily.  Wuthering Heights
Brown, Larry. Faye
Buck, Pearl.  The Good Earth
Burroughs, William.  Naked Lunch
Canin, Ethan.  The Palace Thief
Carver, Raymond.  Where I’m Calling From; So Much Water So Close To Home
Cather, Willa.  My Antonia; Death Comes For The Archbishop; A Lost Lady
Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote
Cheever, John.  The Collected Stories of John Cheever
Chekov, Anton. Collected Stories
Cisneros, Sandra.  Woman Hollering Creek; Carmelo
Colette.  Cheri
Collins, Wilkie.  The Moonstone
Cunningham, Michael.  The Hours
Crowley, John. Little, Big 
Delillo, Don. Underworld
Diaz, Junot.  Drown
Dickens, Charles.  Bleak House; any book
Dineson, Isak.  Collected Stories
Doctorow, EL.  Ragtime; The Book of Daniel; Loon Lake
Dostoyevsky, Feodor.  Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers Karamazov
Dreiser, Theodore. An American Tragedy
DuMaurier, Daphne. Rebecca
Dunn, Katherine. Geek Love
Duras, Marguerite.  The Lover
Eliot, George.  Middlemarch
Ellison, Ralph.  Invisible Man
Erdrich, Louise.  Tracks; Love Medicine
Faulkner, William.  Absalom, Absalom; As I Lay Dying; The Sound and the Fury; Light in
August
Fielding, Henry.  Tom Jones
Finney, Jack.  Time and Again
Fitzgerald, F. Scott.  Tender Is The Night; The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustav.  Madame Bovary; A Simple Heart
Grass, Gunter. The Danzig Trilogy
Greene, Graham.  The End of the Affair; The Heart of the Matter
Handke, Peter.  Repetition
Hardy, Thomas.  Tess of the d’Urbervilles; Jude the Obscure
Haruk, Kent.  Plainsong
Head, Bessie.  A Question of Power
Helprin, Mark.  A Winter's Tale
Hemingway, Ernest.  A Farewell To Arms; The Sun Also Rises
Hempel, Amy.  Reasons to Live
Hesse, Herman.  Damien; Siddhartha; Steppenwolf; The Glass Bead Game
Hurston, Zora Neale.  Their Eyes Were Watching God
Ishiguro, Kazuo.  The Remains of the Day
Jackson, Shirley.  The Haunting of Hill House
James, Henry.  Washington Square; The Wings of the Dove
Johnson, Charles.  Middle Passage
Johnson, Denis.  Jesus’ Son
Joyce, James.  Dubliners; Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Ulysses
Kazantzakis, Niko.  Zorba the Greek; The Greek Passion
Kingsolver, Barbara.  The Bean Trees; Animal Dreams
Kingston, Maxine Hong.  The Woman Warrior
Lawrence, DH.  Sons and Lovers
Lee, Harper.  To Kill a Mockingbird
LeGuin, Ursula K.  The Left Hand of Darkness; The Lathe of Heaven; The Wind’s Twelve
Quarters
Lessing, Doris.  The Children of Violence; The Golden Notebook; The Marriages Between Zones
Three, Four, and Five
Lively, Penelope.  Moon tiger
Mann, Thomas.  Death in Venice; The Magic Mountain
Marias, Javier.  Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me
Martin, Valerie.  Mary Reilly
McCarthy, Cormac.  All the Pretty Horses
McCullers, Carson.  Member of the Wedding; The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Momady, Scott.  The House Made of Dawn
Morales, Rodney, The Speed of Darkness
Morris, Wright. The Works of Love
Morrison, Toni.  Sula; Song of Solomon; Beloved; The Bluest Eye
Munro, Alice.  Friend of My Youth
Myles, Eileen.  Cool for You
Nabokov, Vladimir.  Lolita; The Real Life of Sebastian Knight; Pale Fire; Speak, Memory
Oates, Joyce Carol.  Them; any collection of short stories
O’Brien, Tim.  The Things They Carried
O’Connor, Flannery.  The Complete Stories; A Good Man Is Hard To Find; Wise Blood
Olsen, Tillie.  The Collected Stories
Ondaatje, Michael. Coming Through Slaughter; In the Skin o f a Lion
Plath, Sylvia.  The Bell Jar
Potok, Chaim.  My Name is Asher Lev
Pynchon, Thomas.  Gravity’s Rainbow
Rabe, Claire.  Sicily Enough
Richardson, Samuel.  Clarissa (epistolary novel)
Robbe-Grillet, Alain.  Jealousy
Robinson, Marilyn.   Housekeeping
Salinger, J.D. Catcher in the Rye; Franny and Zoe; Nine Stories
Saramago, Jose.  The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Sebald, W.G.. The Rings of Saturn
Sendak, Maurice.  Where The Wild Things Are; In The Night Kitchen
Shelley, Mary.  Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie.  Ceremony; The Almanac of the Dead
Singer, Isaac B. The Isaac Singer Reader
Smith, Mark.  Death of the Detective
Sterne, Laurence.  Tristram Shandy
Stoker, Bram.  Dracula
Styron, William.  Sophie’s Choice; The Confessions of Nat Turner
Swift, Graham.  Waterland
Turgenev, Ivan. First Love
Updike, John.  Rabbit is Rich
Walker, Alice.  The Color Purple; The Temple of My Familiar
Welty, Eudora.  Collected Stories
Wharton, Edith.  The House of Mirth
Williams, Joy.  The Quick and the Dead
Winterson, Jeannette.  The Passion; Sexing the Cherry; Written on the Body
Woiwode, Larry.  Beyond the Bedroom Wall
Woolf, Tobias, ed:  The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Fiction
Woolf, Virginia; To the Lighthouse; The Waves; Mrs. Dalloway
Wright, Richard.  Native Son
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann. Blu's Hanging
Yates, Richard.  A Good School
Zola, Emile.  Germinal

Creative Nonfiction:

Ackerman, Diane.  A Natural History of the Senses
Agee, John. Let us Now Praise Famous Men
Allison, Dorothy.  Skin
Angier, Natalie. Woman: An Intimate Geography
Baldwin, James.  Notes of a Native Son; The Fire Next Time
Beard, JoAnn.  The Boys of My Youth
Canetti, Elias. Crowds and Power
Capote, Truman.  In Cold Blood
Carson, Anne.  Plainwater
Carver, Raymond.   Fires
Chatwin, Bruce. In Patagoinia
Colette.  Earthly Paradise
Conroy, Frakn.  Stop-Time
Cooper, Bernard. Truth Serum; Maps to Anywhere
D’Agata, John (ed) The Next American Essay
D’Agata, John.  Halls of Fame
Didion, Joan. Slouching Toward Bethlehem
Dillard, Anne. For the Time Being; Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Dinnerstein, Dorothy.   The Mermaid and the Minotaur
Doig, Ivan.  This House of Sky
Doty, Mark.  Heaven’s Coast; Still Life With Oysters and Lemon
Dubus, Andre. Broken Vessels
Duncan, David James.  River Teeth
Dyer, Geoff.  Out of Sheer Rage
Erhlich, Gretel.   Match to the Heart
Ernaux, Annie.  A Man’s Place; A Woman’s Story
Exley, Frederick.  A Fan’s Notes
Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Feibleman, Peter.  Lilly:  Reminiscences of Lillian Hellman
Fisher, MFK.  The Art of Eating; Sister Age
Gilmore, Mikal. Shot in the Heart
Goldbarth, Albert.  Many Circles
Gornick, Vivian.  Approaching Eye Level
Hemon, Aleksandr.  The Question of Bruno
Hofstadter, Douglas.  Godel, Escher and Bach
Hyde, Lewis. Trickster Makes This World
Hyde, Lewis. The Gift
Johnson, Denis.  Seek
Johnson, Mark.  The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason
Karr, Mary. The Liar's Club
Kingsolver, Barbara.   High Tide in Tucson
Kitchen, Judith. Only the Dance
Lamott, Anne.  Traveling Mercies
Langewiesche, William.  American Ground
Lopate, Phillip. (ed)  The Art of the Personal Essay
Lopez, Barry. Desert Notes
Lorde, Audre.   Zami
Lynch, Thomas.  The Undertaking
Malcolm, Janet.  Reading Chekhov
Mariani, Paul.  William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked; Dream Song
McClanahan, Rebecca.  The Riddle Song
McPhee, John.  Coming into the Country; The Control of Nature
Middlebrook, Diane.   The Collected Letters of Anne Sexton
Mitchell, Joseph. Up at the Old Hotel
Morabito, Fabio.  Toolbox
Nin, Anais.  Incest
Orwell, George. Down and Out in London and Paris
Pekar, Harvey and Brabner, Joyce.  My Cancer Year
Plath, Sylvia.  Letters Home 
Rekdal, Paisley.  The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee
Rich, Adrienne.   Of Woman Born
Rios, Albert.  Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir (poet’s memoir)
Salzman, Mark.  True Notebooks
Sanders, Scott Russell.  Writing From The Center
Sebald, Rings of Saturn and The Emigrants
Sebold, Alice.  Lucky
Shattuck, Roger.  Forbidden Knowledge
Shields, David.  Remote
Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust
Spiegelman, Art.  Maus
Staples, Brent.  Parallel Times
Steinman, Louise. The Souvenir
Sutin, Lawrence.  A Postcard Memoir
Thomas, Abigail.  Safekeeping
Thurber, James.  A Thurber Carnival
Urrea, Luis Alberto. Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border
Wallace, David Foster.  A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
Weschler, Lawrence.  Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder
White, E.B.  Collected Essays
Williams, Terry Tempest. Refuge
Willis, Ellen.  Beginning to See the Light
Wolfe, Tom. The Kandy-Kolored Streamline Tangerine Flake Baby
Woolf, Virginia.  A  Room of One’s Own; Professions for Women; Three Guineas
Zimmer, H.  The King and the Corpse (myth)

Poetry:

Ahmatova.  Requiem
Aizenberg, Susan and Belieu, Erin (eds): The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American
 Women
Ali, Agha Shadid. Ravishing DisUnities Real Ghazals in English 
Barnstone, Aliki. Wild With It
Benedikt, Michael. The Prose Poem: an International Anthology 
Berryman, John.  The Dream Songs
Bishop, Elizabeth.  The Collected Poems
Blake, William. Songs of Innocence & Experience; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Boland, Eavan.  Outside History
Bosselaar, Laure-Anne. Outsiders: Poems about Rebels, Exiles and Renegades; Urban Nature 
Brown & Bosselaar. Night Out: Poems About Bars, Restaurants and Hotels; Verse and
Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics
Brooks, Gwendolyn. The Complete Poems
Byer, Kathryn Stripling. Black Shawl; Catching Light; Wake (in the wake of 911)
Carson, Anne. Glass, Irony & God
Castellanos, Rosario.  Meditation on the Threshold
Cavafy, C.P.. Collected Poems
Clifton, Lucille.  Blessing The Boats: New and Selected Poems
Coleman, Wanda.  Mad Dog Black Lady
Collier, Michael. The New American Poets: A Breadloaf Anthology  
Collins, Billy. Picnic Lightning, Questions About Angels; Sailing Alone Around the Room
Cummins, James. The Whole Truth (book-length poem/novel composed of sestinas based on
Perry Mason characters)
Dacy & Jauss. Strong Measures
Davis, Olena Kalytiank. And Her Soul Out of Nothing
Dickinson, Emily.   The Collected Poems
Doty, Mark    Bethlehem in Broad Daylight; My Alexandria
Dove, Rita.  Thomas and Beulah
Finch & Varnes. An Exaltation of Forms
Finch, Annie. A Formal Feeling Comes (formal poems by women)
Forche, Carolyn.  The Country Between Us
French, Phillip. The Faber Book of Movie Verse
Frieber & Young. Models of The Universe 
Gann & Herbert. A Fine Excess: Contemporary Literature at Play
Gaspar, Frank. Field Guide to the Heavens
Gerstler, Amy.  Crown of Weeds or any other
Gilbert, Sandra. Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies
Ginsberg, Allen.  Howl
Gorham & Skinner. Last Call (on substance abuse)
Grahn, Judy. The Common Woman Poems; The Queen of Wands; The Queen of Swords
Hacker, Marilyn. Love, Death & The Changing Of The Seasons
Halliday, Mark. Jab
Harrison, Jeffrey. Feeding the Fire
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)  Trilogy
Heaney, Seamus.  North
Hinton, David (trans). The Selected Poems of Po Chu-I
Hirsch, Edward. Lay Back the Darkness
Hoagland, Tony.  What Narcissism Means To Me
Holden, Jonathan. Leverage
Homer.  The Iliad (trans. Lattimore); The Odyssey
Howe, Susan.  My Emily Dickinson
Hughes, Langston.  Selected Poems
Hull, Linda.  Star Ledger
Inada, Lawson Fusao.  Drawing The Line
Jarman, Mark. Rebel Angels 
Jeffers, Robinson.  Selected Poems
Jones, Rodney. The Kingdom of the Instant
Keats, John. Poems
Kelly, Brigit Pegeen. Song
Kerney, Meg. An Unkindness of Ravens
Komunyakaa, Yusef.  Neon Vernacular
Lee, Li-Young. Book of My Nights
Lehman, David. Great American Prose Poems
Levertov, Denise.  Here and Now; Relearning the Alphabet
Levine, Phillip.  The Mercy; Selected Poems
Levis, Larry. The Selected Levis
Lorca, Garcia Federico.  The Poet in New York; Lament for Death of a Bullfighter; In Search of
Duende
Lorde, Audre.   The Black Unicorn
McHugh & Voight. Hammer and Blaze: a Gathering of Contemporary American Poets
Merwin, W. S. Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment
Mistral, Gabriela.  Sonnets of Death; Lagar
Mitchell, Susan. Erotican; Rapture
Norton. Anthology of Modern Poetry
Neruda, Pablo.  The Captain’s Verses; The Heights of Macchu Picchu; Fully Empowered;
Selected Poems
Olds, Sharon. The Gold Cell; The Dead and The Living
Oliver, Mary.  House of Light; New and Selected Poems
Parker, Alan Michael. The Vandals; Love Song with Motor Vehicles
Piercy, Marge.  To Be Of Use
Plath, Sylvia.  Ariel; Winter Trees
Ras, Barbara. Bite Every Sorrow
Rich, Adrienne.  The Dream of a Common Language; Diving into the Wreck
Rilke, Ranier Marie. Collected Poems
Rios, Alberto. The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body
Rogers, Pattiann. Fire Keeper, The Dream of the Marsh Wren
Ruefle, Mary. Post Meridian; Among the Musk Ox People
Rukeyser, Muriel. The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser
Sappho.  Fragments (Anne Carson)
Scalapino, Leslie.  The Woman Who Could Read The Mind of Dogs
Schwartz, Howard. Imperial Messages: One Hundred Modern Parables 
Sexton, Anne.  Live or Die; 45 Mercy Street; Transformations
Shange, Ntozake.  For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf
Simic, Charles.  Return to a Place Lit By A Glass of Milk; Charon’s Cosmology
Stafford, William.  Stories That Could Be True
Stein, Gertrude.  Tender Buttons
Strand & Simic. Another Republic (translation)
Swenson, May. The Love Poems of May Swenson; New & Selected Things Taking Place
Tate, James. Selected Poems
Walker, Alice.  Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth
Watson, Ellen.  We Live In Bodies
Webb, Charles. Tulip Farms and Leper Colonies
Weingarten & Higgerson. Poets of the New Century
Whitman, Walt.  Leaves of Grass  (1855 ed.)
Wright, James.  Collected Poems
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann. Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater
Young, Dean.   Skid; Strike Anywhere; Design with X
The Old and New Testament (King James)

Books on Writing, the Writing Life, the Writing Craft

Baxter, Charles.  Burning Down the House
Bauer, Doug.  The Stuff of Fiction
Eagleton, Terry.  Literary Theory, An Introduction
Forster, EM.  Aspects of the Novel
Gardner, John.  The Art of Fiction
James, Henry.  The Art of Fiction
Levine, Phillip. Don't Ask; So Ask
O'Connor, Flannery. Mystery and Manners
Orr, Gregory   Poetry As Survival
Orr &Voigt Poets Teaching Poets
Ostriker, Alicia.  Stealing The Language: The Emergence of Women's Poetry In America
Pound, Ezra. Guide To Culture
Rich, Adrienne.  On Lies, Secrets, and Silence
Sontag, Kate, and Graham, David (eds.) After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography
Stein, Gertrude.  How Writing Is Written