This week I’m on Kauai in a mytho-somatic immersion with Josh Schrei, creator of The Emerald Podcast, so instead of writing an essay, decided to offer you something fun and hopefully thought-provoking-a list of books that I love. (Also, if you aren’t listening to The Emerald yet, get on that. I’m not a big podcast listener since I prefer to read, but The Emerald is so good I actually listen to the episodes multiple times.
Here’s a link to one of my favorites:
After you’ve listened to every episode of The Emerald perhaps you’ll be longing for a book to read. Even if you’re not, or our tastes are totally different, I myself always find it interesting to read other writers’ book lists, so I hope you’ll enjoy this week’s offering while I’m myth-somatically engaged in the Kauai jungle.
Making this list made me realize that I like a lot of books, but that doesn’t mean I truly love them. The ones I love are the ones I live in so deeply they become a part of me. The ones that make me cry when reading them and cry even harder when I’m done. If I was a house, these books would be my foundation, the books I know so well I didn’t need to go look at my shelves when I thought up the idea of this list.
I’ve divided the list into three categories: poetry, fiction and non-fiction. After you’ve read the list I’d love to hear if you also love any of these books. Maybe you’ll even want to share your own list. Comments are always open and I’d love to hear from you.
Poetry
Chosen By The Lion, Linda Gregg, Graywolf Press.
All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems, Linda Gregg, Graywolf Press.
Rounding The Human Corners, Linda Hogan, Coffee House Press.
She Had Some Horses, Joy Harjo, Norton.
How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001, Norton.
My Heart Through Which Her Heart Has Passed, André Breton, trans. Mark Polizotti, Alyscamps Press
The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations, Robert Bly, Harper Collins.
Fiction
The Seven Ages, Eva Figes, Pantheon.
Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson, Bloomsbury Publishing.
The Passion, Jeanette Winterson, Grove Press.
Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko, The Viking Press.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Huston, J.B. Lippincott.
The Color Purple, Alice Walker, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon, Tom Spanbauer, Morgan Entrekin.
The Bone People, Keri Hulme, Penguin.
The Rainbow, D.H. Lawrence.
The English Patient, Michael Oondatje, Vintage Books.
Love Letter from a Stray Moon, Jay Griffiths, Little Toller Books.
The Sound of Waves, Yukio Mishima.
Heads by Harry, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Harper Collins.
Behold the Many, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, MacMillan.
Here on Earth, Alice Hoffman, Penguin Random House.
The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman, Simon and Schuster.
Kingfishes Catch Fire, Rumor Godden.
The Dark is Rising Sequence, Susan Cooper (Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, Silver on the Tree), Simon and Schuster.
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass), Scholastic.
The Book of Dust, Philip Pullman (La Belle Sauvage, The Secret Commonwealth), Random House.
The Earthsea Cycle, Ursula LeGuin (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea, The Other Wind).
Non-Fiction
Wolferland, Martin Shaw, Cista Mystica.
The Night Wages, Martin Shaw, Cista Mystica.
Wild, Jay Griffiths (Published as Savage Grace in the U.S.), Counterpoint.
Tracks, Robyn Davidson, Vintage.
Underland, Robert Macfarlane, W.W. Norton.
Stealing Benefacio’s Roses, Martín Prechtel, North Atlantic Books.
The Mare and the Mouse: Stories of My Horses, Vol. 1, Martín Prechtel, North Star Press of St. Cloud.
The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise, Martín Prechtel, North Atlantic Books.
The Ascent of Humanity: Civilization and the Human Sense of the Self, Charles Eisenstein.
I hope you enjoy this list and perhaps finding something to read or re-read. I can attest that all these books filled me with wonder, held me spellbound outside of time until they were finished, returning me to the “real world” with more vision, compassion, empathy and gratitude for the gift of words and the ability to read them.
I’ll be back next week, hopefully with even more wonder after my immersion with Josh Schrei. Now go listen to The Emerald and read a book!
Kō aloha la ea
Concentrate on love by way of the light