50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Original Essays

A Very Partial Reading List

by David Shields, December 18, 2013 10:34 AM

I recently heard someone say that if a writer doesn't investigate uncomfortable places within himself, why would he bother writing? All great books wind up with their authors getting their teeth bashed in. Here are 124 books (and other works) that place the writer/narrator/speaker overtly in harm's way and, in so doing, attempt to assuage human loneliness by making the reader feel less freakish (Lopate). We're all Bozos on this bus. Every man contains within himself the entire human condition (Montaigne).

1. The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

2. Speedboat by Renata Adler

3. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans

4. The Women by Hilton Als

5. A Certain World by W. H. Auden

6. Confessions by Augustine

7. A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker

8. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

9. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

10. S/Z by Roland Barthes

11. The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard

12. Proust by Samuel Beckett

13. Writing Home by Alan Bennett

14. Without You I'm Nothing by Sandra Bernhard

15. Concrete by Thomas Bernhard

16. The Dream Songs by John Berryman

17. The Balloonists by Eula Biss

18. The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier

19. Other Inquisitions by Jorge Luis Borges

20. I Remember by Joe Brainard

21. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan

22. Exquisite Pain by Sophie Calle

23. The Fall by Albert Camus

24. Awkward by Mary Cappello

25. Plainwater by Anne Carson

26. "My Heroin Christmas" (from The Professor and Other Writings) by Terry Castle

27. The Journals of John Cheever by John Cheever

28. Stop-Time by Frank Conroy

29. "On Sickness" (from The Fall into Time) by E. M. Cioran

30. Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee

31. The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins

32. Maps to Anywhere by Bernard Cooper

33. The Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly

34. Generation X by Douglas Coupland

35. About a Mountain by John D'Agata

36. On the Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin

37. In the Land of Pain by Alphonse Daudet

38. Curb Your Enthusiasm by Larry David

39. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

40. "Sentimental Journeys" (from After Henry) by Joan Didion

41. For the Time Being by Annie Dillard

42. The Lover by Marguerite Duras

43. Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer

44. Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann by Johann Peter Eckermann

45. Things Seen by Annie Ernaux

46. A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley

47. Cambodia by Brian Fawcett

48. The Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald

49. Commonplace Book by E. M. Forster

50. In the Dark by Joe Frank

51. The Pharmacist's Mate by Amy Fusselman

52. "Lost Cat" (featured in Granta 107) by Mary Gaitskill

53. The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano

54. The End of the Novel of Love by Vivian Gornick

55. The Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray

56. Morning, Noon and Night by Spalding Gray

57. Boomerang by Barry Hannah

58. Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick

59. The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison

60. I Am Not Jackson Pollock by John Haskell

61. "The Custom-House" (a preface to The Scarlet Letter in some editions) by Nathaniel Hawthorne

62. "Riding the Whip" (anthologized in 20 Under 30 by Debra Spark) by Robin Hemley

63. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

64. Letter to My Father by Frank Kafka

65. Girls by Nic Kelman

66. The House on Boulevard Street by David Kirby

67. The Queen's Throat by Wayne Koestenbaum

68. Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

69. The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin

70. Studies in Classic American Literature by D. H. Lawrence

71. No Cure for Cancer by Denis Leary

72. Manhood by Michel Leiris

73. Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

74. Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy

75. The Disappointment Artist by Jonathan Lethem

76. A History of Bombing by Sven Lindqvist

77. Sherman's March by Ross McElwee

78. Down the Nile by Rosemary Mahoney

79. The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm

80. My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan

81. The Guardians by Sarah Manguso

82. This Is Not a Novel by David Markson

83. The Art Lover by Carole Maso

84. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

85. The Elusive Embrace by Daniel Mendelsohn

86. Shuffle by Leonard Michaels

87. Essays by Michel de Montaigne

88. The Grey Album by Danger Mouse

89. Nikolai Gogol by Vladimir Nabokov

90. A Way in the World by V. S. Naipaul

91. Bluets by Maggie Nelson

92. Ecce Homo by Friederich Nietzsche

93. "Such, Such Were the Joys..." (included in A Collection of Essays) by George Orwell

94. Pensées by Blaise Pascal

95. Best Thought, Worst Thought by Don Paterson

96. The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

97. Dialogues of Socrates by Plato

98. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

99. For Love and Money by Jonathan Raban

100. Vectors by James Richardson

101. Ghosts in the Mirror by Alain Robbe-Grillet

102. Maxims by François de La Rochefoucauld

103. Only the Truth Is Funny by Rick Reynolds

104. Bring the Pain by Chris Rock

105. Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

106. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer

107. The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald

108. My Dinner with Andre by Wallace Shawn

109. Jesus Is Magic by Sarah Silverman

110. Lying by Lauren Slater

111. "The Moon in Its Flight" by Gilbert Sorrentino

112. Maus by Art Spiegelman

113. A Mother in History by Jean Stafford

114. On Love by Stendahl

115. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

116. Edie by Jean Stein

117. The Dead Girl by Melanie Thernstrom

118. Cane by Jean Toomer

119. The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

120. Within the Context of No Context by George W. S. Trow

121. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

122. Holy Land by D. J. Waldie

123. Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth

124. The Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff




{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Most Read

  1. Best Fiction of 2020 by Powell's Books
  2. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: 21st Century by Powell's Staff
  3. Midyear Roundup 2021: The Best Books of the Year (So Far) by Powell's Staff
  4. The 11 Best Places to Read by Will Schwalbe
  5. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: Pacific Northwest Edition by Powell's Staff

Blog Categories

  • Interviews
  • Original Essays
  • Lists
  • Q&As
  • Playlists
  • Portrait of a Bookseller
  • City of Readers
  • Required Reading
  • Powell's Picks Spotlight

Post a comment:

*Required Fields
Name*
Email*
  1. Please note:
  2. All comments require moderation by Powells.com staff.
  3. Comments submitted on weekends might take until Monday to appear.
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Sitemap
  • © 2022 POWELLS.COM Terms