A running log of the books I finish reading each month.
Beginning in January of 2019, I committed to reading two books of poetry each week to work through the backlog of poetry on my TBR shelf. I expanded the scope in 2020 to tracking all books I finished reading, regardless of genre, updating the list monthly rather than weekly.
(Note: These are all print books, not audio- or e-books. Also, this is not a complete list; not everything I’ve read and finished is worth mentioning, and not everything is your business.)
❦ 2023
May
- Andrew J Angyal, Loren Eiseley (Twayne Publishers 1983)
- Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail (Bantam 1980) (reread)
- Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon (Penguin 2006) (reread)
March
- Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment (Harper Perennial 1994)
- Adriaen van der Donck (trns Diederik Willem Goedhuys), A Description of New Netherland (University of Nebraska Press 1655, 2008)
- Gregory Orr, A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry
- Richard Jeffrey Newman, The Silence of Men (CavanKerry Press 2006)
- Claire Wahmanholm, Meltwater (Milkweed 2023)
- rob mclennan, the book of smaller (University of Calgary 2022)
February
- Matthew Gabrielle & David M Perry, The Bright Ages (Harper Perennial 2021)
January
- Ai, Cruelty (Perseus 1973; Collected Poems Norton 2013)
- Mary Midgley, Science as Salvation (Routledge 1992) (reread)
❦ 2022
December
- Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising (Collier 1973) (reread)
November
Nothing. I’m in the middle of several long books, and also bouncing between lots of shorter things.
October
- Steven Mithen, After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000–5,000 BC (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2003)
- Diane Seuss, Frank: Sonnets (Graywolf 2021)
- Sara Eliza Johnson, Vapor (Milkweed 2022)
- Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh (Yale 2021)
September
- Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell (Bantam 1974) (reread)
- Grace Paley, Fidelity (FSG 2008)
- Robert Bly, Sleepers Joining Hands (Harper & Row, 1973; Norton, 2018)
- Henry David Thoreau, The Journal 1837–1861 (NYRB 2009)
August
- Lawrence Kilham, The American Crow and the Common Raven (Texas A&M 1989)
- Susanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (Harvard 1942, 1957)
- Adam Zagajewski, In Defense of Ardor (FSG 2004)
- Richard Nelson, The Island Within (Vintage 1989) (reread)
July
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed 2013)
- Lawrence Kilham, On Watching Birds (Chelsea Green 1988) (reread)
- Ann Zwinger, Beyond the Aspen Grove (University of Arizona Press 1970, 1988) (reread)
- John M Marzluff & Tony Angell, In the Company of Crows and Ravens (Yale 2005)
- Thoreau, Walden (Library of America 1989) (reread)
- Dana Levin, Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon 2022)
- Paul J Pastor, Bower Lodge (Fernwood 2021)
- Vaan Nguyen (trns Adriana X. Jacobs), The Truffle Eye (Zephyr Press 2021)
June
- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (Balantine 1970)
- Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks (FSG 2021)
- Edward Gorey, Thoughtful Alphabets (Pomegranate 2012)
- Philip Metres, Shrapnel Maps (Copper Canyon 2020)
- Claudia Serea, Writing on the Walls at Night (Unsolicited Press 2022)
May
- GK Chesterton, Manalive (John Lane 1912) (reread)
- GK Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday (Penguin Classics 1908, 2011)
March & April
Nothing. I bought a house. This has consumed all my energy. Reading? Ha. Maybe May? Maybe.
February
- Russell Hoban, The Mouse and His Child (Scholastic 1967, 2001)
- Russell Hoban, The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz (Bloomsbury 1973, 2000) (reread)
- Russell Hoban, Kleinzeit (Summit Books 1974) (reread)
January
- Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary (Yale 2009, 2019)
- AR Ammons, Sumerian Vistas (Norton 1987)
- Ellen Bass, Indigo (Copper Canyon 2020)
- Carolyn Forché, In the Lateness of the World (Penguin 2020)
- Rob Shouten (ed), Rinkeldekinkel (Milkweed 2021)
- Mark Scroggins, Elegaic Verses (above/ground 2020)
- JJ Rowan, a simple verb (Bloof 2019)
- Kristina Lugn (trns Elizabeth Clark Wessel), I Want You to Come Now! (Bloof 2021)
❦ 2021
December
- Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (Harper & Row 1977) (reread)
- Robert Karen, Becoming Attached (Oxford 1994)
- Walter J Ong, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (University of Chicago 1958, 2004)
November
- Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King (Mariner Books 2012) (reread)
October
- Nikki Wallschlaeger, Crawlspace (Bloof Books 2017)
- Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey (Wave Books 2012)
September
- Maria Dahvana Headley (trns), Beowulf (MCDxFSG 2020)
- Thoreau, Faith in a Seed: The Dispersion of Seeds (Island Press 1993)
- Dana Levin, Wedding Day (Copper Canyon 2005)
- Steve Martin, Born Standing Up (Scribner 2007) (reread)
- Goethe (Salm, trns), Faust (Bantam 1962, 1985)
August
- Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways (Penguin 2013)
- David Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel, and Language (Princeton 2007)
- Robyn Hitchcock, Somewhere Apart: Selected Lyrics 1977–1997 (Tiny Ghost Press 2021)
- Dorianne Laux & Kim Addonizio, A Poet’s Companion (Norton 1997)
July
- Danielle Pafunda, The Dead Girls Speak in Unison (Bloof Books 2017)
- HD, Trilogy (New Directions 1998)
- Charles Simic, The World Doesn’t End (Harvest 1989)
- Ada Limón, The Carrying (Milkweed 2018)
- Brian Hare & Vanessa Woods, Survival of the Friendliest (Random House 2020)
June
- Ursula Andjær Olsen (trns, Katrine Øgaard Jensen), Outgoing Vessel (Action Books 2021)
- JM Tyree, The Counterforce: Pynchon’s Inherent Vice (Fiction Advocate 2021)
- Olivia Laing, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency (Norton 2021)
- Marcus Aurelius (trns, Gregory Hays), Meditations (Random House 2003)
- Jean Daive (trns, Rosmarie Waldrop) Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan (City Lights 2020)
- Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score (Penguin 2015)
May
- CG Jung, Synchronicity (Princeton 1973, 2010)
- Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon 2021)
- Benjamin Dreyer, Dreyer’s English (Random House 2019)
April
- Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones (Shambhala 1986, 2016) (My first reread in maybe 33 years)
- Rainer Maria Rilke (Pike trns), The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Dalkey Archive 2008)
- Claudia Serea, Nothing Important Happened Today (Broadstone 2016)
- Craig Koslovsky, Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge 2011)
- Rainer Maria Rilke (M.D. Herder Norton trns), Letters to a Young Poet (Norton 1954)
- Don Paterson, Orpheus: A Version of Rilke’s Die Sonette an Orpheus (Faber & Faber 2006)
- Aase Berg (Göransson trns), Remainland: Selected Poems (Action Books 2005)
April Notes
- Evening’s Empire was a long time coming. I checked it out of the library in the spring of 2013, and read maybe the first quarter. I bought a copy a year later, starting over from the beginning. I set it down repeatedly over the next six years, and finally finished the last three chapters in a big push over several days. An absolutely excellent book.
- All this Rilke over the last month or so is because of a correspondence course called Rilke by Mail offered by the poet Mark Wunderlich. Rilke was an early and, I see now, extremely strong influence on me when I was a young poet starting out in college.
March
- Ursula Andjær Olsen (trns, Katrine Øgaard Jensen), Third-Millennium Heart (Action Books 2017)
- Danielle Pafunda, Spite (The Operating System 2020)
- Dakotah Jennifer, Fog (Bloof Books 2019)
- Rainer Maria Rilke (trns, Edward Snow), Duino Elegies (North Point Press 2001)
- Shirley Kaufman, Roots in the Air: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon 1996)
- Alex Dimitrov, Love and Other Poems (Copper Canyon 2021)
- Aase Berg (trns, Johannes Görensson & Joyelle McSweeney), Tsunami from Solaris: Essays on Poetry (Action Books 2019)
February
- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (Harper & Row 1989) (reread)
- Mark Wunderlich, God of Nothingness (Graywolf 2020)
- Erin Belieu, Come-Hither Honeycomb (Copper Canyon 2021)
- Erin Belieu, One Above and One Below (Copper Canyon 2000) (reread)
- Emma Jung & Marie-Louise von Franz (Andrea Dykes, trns), The Grail Legend (Sigo Press 1986)
- Shanna Compton, (Creature Sounds Fade) (Black Lawrence Press 2020)
- Rainer Maria Rilke (trns, Damion Searls), Letters to a Young Poet, with the Letters to Rilke from the “Young Poet” (Liveright 2021)
January
- Giusseppe Ungaretti (trns, Geoffrey Brock), Allegria (Archipelago Books 2020)
- Erin Belieu, Infanta (Copper Canyon 1995) (reread)
- Katie Manning, 28,065 Nights (River Glass Books, 2020)
- Alison Moncrieff, Cherrystem (Finishing Line Press, 2017)
- Jeff Parent, This Bygone Route (845 Press 2020)
❦ 2020 (everything, such that it is, not just poetry)
December
- Louise Glück, The Wild Iris (in Poems 1962–2012, FSG 2012)
- Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem (Copper Canyon 2020)
November
- Jennifer L Knox, Crushing It (Copper Canyon 2020)
- Vievee Francis, Forest Primeval (TriQuarterly 2016)
October
- Charles King, Gods of the Upper Air (Anchor 2019)
- James Longenbach, The Art of the Poetic Line (Graywolf 2008)
August
- Elaine Pagels & Karen L King, Reading Judas (Penguin 2007)
- CK Williams, Repair (FSG 2000)
- Arthur Sze, The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese (Copper Canyon 2001) (reread)
July
- Brenda Hillman, Pieces of Air in the Epic (Wesleyan 2005)
- Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (Vintage 2004)
- Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto (Picador, 2009)
- Colin Woodard, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood (Viking 2020)
- Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (Random House, 1995)
July Notes
The Origin of Satan: First reread since ’96. Short version: Satan was invented largely by the cononical gospels as an internal counterpoint to the external enemy of Rome. “Satan” ceased to be the impersonal adversary or debate opponent of the Hebrew scriptures and swiftly bloomed into the personification of the intimate enemy within the then-incipient community of the early Jesus cult: first Judas; then the scribes and Jewish elders; then all Jews; and finally (once it had fully broken away from the Jewish world) any Christian who disagreed with orthodoxy (literally “straight thinking”).
Satan is a textbook example of the narcissism of small differences. Or as Emo Phillips puts it:
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
“Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.
Also, Irenaeus is such an asshole.
Beyond Belief: I bounced off this one hard when I first read it in 2003. I have no idea why, considering how absolutely up my alley all of Elaine Pagels’ books had been up to that point. My guess is that it’s because Beyond Belief is, at times, much more personal than her previous books, which I don’t think I was in a position to appreciate at the time. This book feels different, too, as though she wanted to stay focused but kept taking in wider and wider vistas.
And Irenaeus? Yep, still an asshole.
Pieces of Air in the Epic: Holy shit, is that an actual book of poems? Pledging to finish all the half-finished, unfinished, and unstarted poetry that was lying around is what started this whole thing off, waaay back in January of 2019. And poetry has been thin on the ground for a very long time. Who knows, maybe I’m ready to get back into all that.
June
- Daryl Sanders, That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound (Chicago Review Press, 2019)
- Italo Calvino (Brock, trns), Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Mariner, 2016)
- Colin Woodard, American Character (Penguin, 2016)
- Matthew Zapruder, Why Poetry (Ecco, 2018)
- Valerie Hansen, The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World and Globalization Began (Scribner, 2020)
- Robert M Thorson, The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau’s River Years (Harvard, 2017)
- CG Jung (R&C Winston, trns), Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Vintage, 1963)
- Ursula K Le Guin (with David Naimon) Conversations on Writing (Tin House, 2018)
May
- James Clear, Atomic Habits (Avery, 2018)
- James C Scott, Against the Grain (Yale University Press, 2017)
March
- Robertson Davies: Fifth Business (Penguin 1970), The Manticore (Penguin 1972), and World of Wonders (Penguin 1975) (comfort food rereads)
- Mary Ann Mattoon: Jungian Psychology after Jung (Round Table Press 1992)
- Luis Sagasti (Petch, trns): Fireflies (Charco Press, 2017)
- Clarice Lispector (Entrekin, trns): Near to the Wild Heart (New Directions, 2017)
February
- Anna Burns: Milkman (Graywolf, 2018)
- Ariana Harwicz (Moses & Orloff, trns): Die, My Love (Charco Press, 2017)
- Ann Quin: Berg (And Other Stories, 1964/2019)
- Su Hwang: Bodega (Milkweed, 2018)
- Antonio Damasio: Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Harcourt, 2003)
- Claire Wahmanholm: Redmouth (Tinderbox, 2019)
February Notes
Burns: Riveting, with a delicious gallows humor. Perfect voice, perfectly sustained.
Harwicz: My god, how brutal. But tonally flawless.
Quin: A wonderful balance of experimental writing and slapstick comedy. It actually seemed a bit Pythonesque at times — which is appropriate, considering it originally came out during the great British absurdist fever of the mid 60s. Berg was my first Quin, and I hope her others are as fun and as wicked.
Hwang: She has said that she turned to poetry only in recent years, after working at fiction for most of her adult life. It shows. Many (though not all) of the poems have a strong narrative propulsion to them, often reading like sharp moments from a short story. The best poems do something truly powerful and compelling with this hybrid, the weaker ones fall between two chairs.
Wahmanholm: Absolutely unerring choices. Always surprising and inevitable. Lucid nightmares. And much the same could be said for the other volumes I read last spring.
January
- James C Scott: Seeing Like a State (Yale, 1998)
- Anna Kavan: Ice (Penguin, 1967)
- Keith Thomas: Religion and the Decline of Magic (Penguin, 1971)
- Elaine Pagels: Revelations (Penguin, 2012)
- Clarice Lispector: The Hour of the Star (Benjamin Moser, trns; New Directions, 2011)
- Ishmael Reed: Mumbo Jumbo (Scribner, 1972)
- Jenny Odell: How to Do Nothing (Melville House, 2019)
❦ 2019 (poetry only)
35/ Week of 26 August
- Reginald Shepherd: Red Clay Weather (Pittsburgh, 2011)
34/ Week of 19 August
- Ken Babstock: On Malice (Coach House, 2014)
- Tracy K Smith: Wade in the Water (Graywolf, 2018)
31/ Week of 29 July
- Robert Bly: The Light Around the Body (Harper & Row, 1967; Norton, 2018)
- Laura (Riding) Jackson: Selected Poems in Five Sets (Persea, 1993)
30/ Week of 22 July
- Reginald Shepherd: Otherhood (Pittsburgh, 2003)
- James Lenfestey: The Marriage Book (Milkweed, 2017)
29/ Week of 15 July
- Robert Bly: Silence in the Snowy Fields (Wesleyan, 1962; Norton, 2018)
- Philip Levine: What Work Is (Knopf, 1991)
- Tom Clark: Easter Sunday (Coffee House, 1987)
28/ Week of 7 July
- Frank O’Hara: Meditations in an Emergency (Grove, 1957)
- CD Wright: The Poet, the Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, a Wedding in St. Roch, the Big Box Store, the Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All (Copper Canyon, 2016)
25/ Week of 17 June
- Harryette Mullen: Urban Tumbleweed (Graywolf, 2013)
24/ Week of 10 June
- Tomas Tranströmer (Bly, trns): The Half-Finished Heaven (Graywolf, 2001, 2017)
- Jenny George: The Dream of Reason (Copper Canyon, 2018)
23/ Week of 3 June
- Tomas Tranströmer (various translators): For the Living and the Dead (Ecco, 1995)
20/ Week of 13 May
- Melissa Stein: Terrible Blooms (Copper Canyon, 2018)
- Ada Limón: Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015):
19/ Week of 6 May
- Whitman: Leaves of Grass (1855 Edition) (Penguin Classics, 1986)
- Ron Padgett: Big Cabin (Coffee House, 2019)
- Todd Boss: Closer than Home (self-published, 1993)
18/ Week of 29 April
- Christopher Logue: War Music (FSG, 2015)
14–17/ Finished in April
- JH Prynne: The White Stones (NYRB, 2016)
- Claire Wahmanholm: Night Vision (New Michigan Press, 2017)
- Claire Wahmanholm: Wilder (Milkweed Editions, 2018)
- Ronald Johnson: ARK (Flood, 2013)
- John Matthias: Collected Longer Poems (Shearsman, 2012)
- Jim Harrison: Dead Man’s Float (Copper Canyon, 2016)
13/ Week of 25 Mar
- AR Ammons: Selected Poems (Library of America, 2006)
- Ursula Le Guin: So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014–2018 (Copper Canyon, 2018)
12/ Week of 18 Mar
- Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Oceanic (Copper Canyon, 2018)
- Rosemary Tonks: Bedouin of the London Evening (Bloodaxe, 2014)
10/ Week of 4 Mar
- Tracy K Smith: Life on Mars (Graywolf, 2011)
- CK Williams: The Vigil (FSG, 1997)
9/ Week of 25 Feb
- Paisley Rekdal: Imaginary Vessels (Copper Canyon, 2016)
8/ Week of 18 Feb
- Basho (Corman, trns): Backroads to Far Towns (White Pine, 2004)
7/ Week of 11 Feb
- John Taggart: Is Music (Copper Canyon, 2010)
6/ Week of 4 Feb
- WS Merwin: The Lice (Atheneum, 1967; Copper Canyon, 2017)
- Anslem Hollo: Guests of Space (Coffee House, 2007)
5/ Week of 28 Jan
- Galway Kinnell: Three Books (Mariner, 2002)
- Tomas Tranströmer (Fulton, trns): The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems (New Directions, 2006)
- Nicola Stӑnescu (Cotter, trns): Wheel with a Single Spoke (Archipelago, 2012)
4/ Week of 21 Jan
- Harryette Mullen: Recyclopedia (Graywolf, 2006)
- Linda Gregg: In the Middle Distance (Graywolf, 2006)
3/ Week of 14 Jan
- Paul Celan (Joris, trns): Breathturn (Green Integer, 2006)
- GS Giscombe: Prairie Style (Dalkey, 2008)
- Rimbaud (Ashbery, trns): Illuminations (Norton, 2011)
2/ Week of 7 Jan
- Larry Levis: The Widening Spell of the Leaves (Pittsburgh, 1991)
- Erin Belieu: Slant Six (Copper Canyon, 2014)
- Mary Ann Caws (ed): Pierre Reverdy (NYRB, 2013)
1/ Week of 31 Dec
- Ken Babstock: Days Into Flatspin (House of Anansi, 2001)
- Ursula Le Guin: Wild Angels (Copper Canyon, 1975/2018)
- Shirley Kaufman: From One Life to Another (Pittsburgh, 1979)