Over the last few years, I’ve posted mega-lists of works I’m either just starting to chew on or digesting. I’ve tried to write about this more frequently this year. I decided I’d also do a set of mid-year lists of favorites so far.

General Favorites 2017–So Far

Books that left traces.

Fiction

Einstein’s Dreams: Alan Lightman
Hamlet: William Shakespeare
Labyrinths: Jorge Luis Borges
Marigold: Troy James Weaver
The Marriage Plot: Jeffrey Eugenides
My Antonia: Willa Cather
Oliver Twist: Charles Dickens
One Hundred Years of Solitude: Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Pickwick Papers: Charles Dickens
The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories: Bruno Schulz
Too Loud a Solitude: Bohumil Hrabal
The Underground Railroad: Colson Whitehead
Visions: Troy James Weaver
Witchita Stories: Troy James Weaver

Nonfiction

Auto/Biography
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man: James Weldon Johnson
Jim Henson: The Biography: Brian Jay Jones
Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America: Natalie Goldberg

Psychology/Philosophy/Education
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business: Neil Postman
Beyond Freedom and Dignity: BF Skinner
Embedded Formative Assessment: Dylan Wiliam
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays: Albert Camus
Practicing Peace in Times of War: Pema Chödrön
The Story of Philosophy: Will Durant
The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults: Frances E. Jensen
A Whole New Mind: Dan Pink

Essays/Criticism
Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Essays, 1979-1985: Adrienne Rich
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays: Zadie Smith

Film
The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film: Michael Ondaatje
Halloween (Devil’s Advocates): Murray J.D. Leeder
Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film: Carol J. Clover

Art/Comics

The Best American Comics 2014
The Cage: Martin Vaughn-James
Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic: Alison Bechdel
Paper Girls, Vol 1: Brian K. Vaughn, Cliff Chiang, Matthew Wilson
Paul in the Country: Michel Rabagliati
Set to Sea: Drew Weing
The Worst Breakfast: China Miéville and Zak Smith

Poetry

All the Poems: Muriel Spark
Dark City: Charles Bernstein
Magic City Gospel: Ashley M. Jones
Off Message: Joel Brouwer
Selected Poems, 1954-1986: Tomas Tranströmer
Short Talks: Brick Books Classics I: Anne Carson
The White Stones: J. H. Prynne
A Woman of Property: Robyn Schiff

Categories: Lists Poetry Reading Summer Reading and Writing

Tagged as: art books culture life Lists reading

Stephen McClurg

I like red peppers and Jan Švankmajer movies.

1. Current Listening: Lots of soul from Muscle Shoals

2. Current Viewing: A Hard Day's Night (1964).

3. Current Reading: H.G. Wells: In the Days of the Comet