Books I’ve read and recommend
Essential Reading (My favorites):
Toni Morrison: Master of the Southern Gothic; advanced the American metaphor like no other. Read: The Bluest Eye -> Jazz
Thomas Pynchon: Incomparable prose stylist; you discover his novels and feel recognized. Read: The Crying of Lot 49 -> Mason & Dixon
José Donoso: In the words of Luis Bunuel, “the Godfather of the Latin Boom.” Read: The Obscene Bird of Night, Hell Has No Limits, A House in the Country
John Keene: Eminent translator, scholar, and writer; sea change in 21st-century American fiction. Read: Counternarratives, Annotations
Sergio De La Pava: Public defender by day, 21st-century Dostoevsky by night. Read: A Naked Singularity, Personae
Diamela Eltit: Once you read Eltit’s work, you can accurately identify a perfect novella. Read: The Fourth World, Sacred Cow, The Fire Next Time, Custody of the Eyes
Guillermo Cabrera Infante: Translated Joyce into Cuban Spanish, then became the Joyce of Havana. Read: Three Trapped Tigers, Holy Smoke, Infante’s Inferno
Evan Dara: “The best kept secret in American Fiction,” and a really nice person. Read: The Lost Scrapbook, The Easy Chain, Flee
Agota Kristof: Read her trilogy in one sitting and remember it with horror for the rest of your life. Read: Trilogy
Deborah Eisenberg: America’s greatest living short story writer. Read: The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg
John Hawkes: A curator and sampler of all Gothic strains on earth. Hilarious, sensual, terrifying. Read: The Lime Twig, The Cannibal, Second Skin
James Joyce: No explanation needed! Read: Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses
William Faulkner: See Above! Read: The Sound & The Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, Absalom Absalom
2023:
Hallucinated City by Mário de Andrade
Neon South by Marko Pogcar
The Red & The Black by Stendahl
The Cannibal by Terese Svoboda
Septology by Jon Fosse
The Houseguest by Amparo Davila
The Forgery by Ave Barrera
Unclay by T.F. Powys
South by Babak Lakghomi
The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier
Impossible Object by Nicholas Mosley
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
We Are A Haunting by Tyriek White
The Black Cathedral by Marciel Gala
Call Me Cassandra by Marcial Gala
The Jewish Son by Daniel Guebel
Tours of the Black Clock by Steve Erickson
Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
The Nature Book by Tom Comitta
Dawn by Sevgi Soysal
Distant Light by Antonio Moresco
The Jewish Son by Daniel Guebel
Beach Birds by Severo Sarduy
Cane by Jean Toomer
Grimmish by Michael Winkler
Small Lives by Pierre Michon
Conversations in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa
The Enlightenmen of Katzuo Nakamatsu by Augusto Higa Oshiro
The Light at the End of the World by Siddhartha Deb
Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi
The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick
Compass by Mathias Enard
Carpenteria by Alexis Wright
Corey Fah Does Social Mobility by Isabel Waidner
Hole by Jose Revueltas
Mild Vertigo by Mieko Kanai
The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
I, Tituba by Maryse Conde
Bound to Violence by Yambo Ouologuem
A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley
Death in Spring by Merce Rodoreda
Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante
Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
Count Julian by Juan Goytisolo
2024:
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright
Rubicon Beach by Steve Erickson
River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit
Wonderful, Wonderful Times by Elfriede Jelinek
Underground River and Other Stories by Ines Arredondo
The Aesthetics of Resistance (Vol I) by Peter Weiss
The Children’s Crusade by Marcel Schwob
Imaginary Lives by Marcel Schwob
Indigo by Clemens Setz
2022:
Yesterday by Juan Emar
Chinatown by Thuân
The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
The Doloriad by Missouri Williams
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
The Taiga Syndrome by Christine Rivera Garza
The Deer by Dashiel Carrera
Saint Sebastian’s Abyss by Mark Haber
State of Grace by Joy Williams
Dance Move by Wendy Erskine
Brother Alive by Zain Khalid
Doom Town by Gabriel Blackwell
Green Girl by Kate Zambreno
Trilogy by Jon Fosse
The Garden Next Door by Jose Donoso
The Guyana Quartet by Wilson Harris
The Plains by Gerald Murnane
Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes
Divine Days by Leon Forrest
The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq
Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Conde
The Flanders Road by Claude Simon
Wild At Heart by Barry Gifford
The Logos by Mark de Silva
The Longcut by Emily Hall
The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick
The Activist by Renee Gladman
Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars
The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargos Llosa
Zone by Matthias Enard
View of Dawn in the Tropics by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo
Entering Fire by Rikki Ducornet
The Fountains of Neptune by Rikki Ducornet
Xstabeth by David Keenan
Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner
Count Luna by Alexander Lernet-Holenia
Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze
Before I started recording… (to be continued)
Steps by Jerzy Kosinski
Lanark by Alasdair Gray
The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Slumberland by Paul Beatty
Big Machine by Victor LaValle
The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Tales from the Town of Widows by James Canon
The Changeling by Joy Williams
The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus
The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus
Lost Empress by Sergio De La Pava
Witz by Joshua Cohen
The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
Moving Kings by Joshua Cohen
Other Letters to Milena by Reina María Rodríguez
Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas
Breakfast at Midnight by Louis Armand
Menudo by Louis Armand
Berg by Ann Quinn
Monument Maker by David Keenan
Lost Illusions by Honore De Balzac
Encyclopedia of the Dead by Danilo Kiš
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kiš
Paradise by Toni Morrison
The Drama of Nommo by Paul Carter Harrison
The Inquisitor’s Manual by António Lobo Antunes
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Shadow & Act by Ralph Ellison
Three Days Before The Shooting by Ralph Ellison
Days Between Stations by Steve Erickson
Zeroville by Steve Erickson
Maldoror by Lautreamont
Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya
The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas
Agape, Agape by William Gaddis
Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
The Berlin Chronicles by Christopher Isherwood
The Ravickians by Renee Gladman
Event Factory by Renee Gladman
Prose Architectures by Renee Gladman
House of Ravicka by Renee Gladman
Ana Patova Crosses a Bridge by Renee Gladman
Blow-Up by Julio Cortazar
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño
By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
Herzog by Saul Bellow
The Collected Stories by Saul Bellow
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Europe Central by William T. Vollmann
Whores for Gloria by William T. Vollmann
The Last Story & Other Stories by William T. Vollmann
The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William Gass
On Being Blue by William Gass
The Halfway House by Guillermo Rosales
Leapfrog & Other Stories by Guillermo Rosales
Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Kangaroo by Yuz Aleshkovsky
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West
Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes
Women & Men by Joseph McElroy
Plus by Joseph McElroy
Smuggler’s Bible by Joseph McElroy
Night Song & Other Stories by Joseph McElroy
How German Is It? by Walter Abish