The Graybar Hotel (short stories) by Curtis Dawkins
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate by Kai Bird
Flights (fragments) by Olga Tokarczuk
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
The Diamond Dog (poems) by Diane Wakowski
Bowie’s Bookshelf: a Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie’s Life by John O’Connell
Realms of Gold: The Letters and Poems of John Keats selected by Penny Keelyside
Last Stories (short stories) by William Trevor
Too Much Happiness (short stories) by Alice Munro
Don’t Save Anything (essays, articles, profiles) by James Salter
Say You’d Be One of Them (stories) by Uwem Akpan
The Trip to Echo Springs: On writing and drinking by Olivia Laing
Love from Boy; Roald Dahl’s Letters to his Mother by Donald Sturrock
The Boys of my Youth (stories) by Jo Ann Beard
Stone’s Fall by Ian Pears
Unfinished Business: Notes of a chronic re-reader by Vivian Gornick
Mother’s and Sons by Colm Toibin
Florida (short stories) by Lauren Groff
An Unrestored Woman (stories) by Shobha Rao
Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
The Short Stories of D.H. Lawrence
Antiquities by Cynthia Ozick
John Steinbeck FROM MAN AND MICE, absolute favorite
Thomas Hardy JUDE THE OBSCURE
Some world literature seem to have passed their sell by date like KAFKA
What did you enjoyed the most?
I don’t think any literature has a sell-by date. I think one either likes or doesn’t, relates or doesn’t …. But thank you, Giselle, for passing on your thoughts. What do you think?
As a host I liked to entertain guests with a lyric competition
Someone would pick six letters at random from a book and use them to write a poem. With six friends writing poems with given words folding there original in a new context.
It didn’t take long to turn to Dada lyricism. A scrap of newspaper three inches long taken at random would
give us the words to fold them and add meaning to confusion.
Your poetry is more demanding and at first I didn’t understand. You choose lines that already have a meaning.
phrases but a given sentiment waiting to be linked and make sense. Their words touch me. Now they mean something – well, art always does. But still not half demanding. Ideal for high school students. As a teacher you can entertain a class and pupils will go home with a sense of achievement and with their heads held high.
Dear Alison, you asked me what I think …
Much to chew on. Thanks Giselle for adding your comments. They’re never black or white. Always something in between.
Help! Would anyone please replace ‘letters’ (first sentence) with ‘words’? Perhaps you, dear Alison?
Ōdī et amō. Quārē id faciam fortasse requīris. Nesciŏ, sed fierī sentiō et excrucior. Roman poet Catullus for his lover Lesbia
(I hate and I love. You ask why. I d0n’t know but I feel and I suffer)
(Meditation on nothingness in the middle)