#essays

kennychaffin@diasp.org

After thirty-five years, The Gettysburg Review, Gettysburg College’s quarterly literary magazine, is ceasing publication. We encourage everyone to continue to read and SUBSCRIBE to literary magazines and journals, where you can find great pieces like this essay on time in life and in fiction (The Gettysburg Review), an essay on passing in America (New England Review), Héctor Tobar on California smog (ZYZZYVA), a piece on personal and environmental grief (Conjunctions), a story by Morgan Tatly (TriQuarterly), a conversation between Margaret Atwood and Rebecca Solnit (Orion), fiction from Christine Schutt (NOON), and this essay on whale dildos (The Common). SUPPORT LIT MAGS, SUPPORT LITERARY CULTURE!

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#poems #poetry #writing #authors #stories #essays #flash #literature

escheche@diasp.org
kennychaffin@diasp.org

Looking for something to read? I posted some of this yesterday (stories) but just did a quick scan/update/combine of lists.

Here’s my current full recommended reading list of all types (with the exception of romance, sorry not for me)

Here’s my favorite novels list:

The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
Foundation Trilogy - Issac Asimov
Dune - Frank Herbert
Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler
Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien
City - Clifford D. Simak
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Top 10 SF:
In no particular order after the first two.

Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
Foundation Trilogy - Issac Asimov
Dune - Frank Herbert
City - Clifford D. Simak
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Ringworld - Larry Niven
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin
The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood
Time Enough for Love - Robert A. Heinlein
Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban

My favorite Short Story Anthologies

"You Must Read This"
"The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: 50 North American Stories Since 1970"
"The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories" ed. Tobias Wolff
The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories ed. Ben Marcus

Nonfiction:

The Immense Journey - Loren Eiseley
The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
The Lives of a Cell - Lewis Thomas

My Favorite Essays
(can be found in various books and collections)
Many in:
Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction
Or -
In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction

The Brown Wasps - Loren Eiseley
The Dream Animal - Loren Eiseley
The Slit - Loren Eiseley
The Judgment of the Birds - Loren Eiseley
The Star Thrower - Loren Eiseley
Lives of a Cell - Lewis Thomas
Suspended - Joy Harjo
The Deck - Yusef Komunyakaa
The Fourth State of Matter - Jo Ann Beard
Three Spheres - Lauren Slater
The White Album - Joan Didion
Moving Water, Tucson - Peggy Shumaker
Heaven and Nature - Edward Hoagland
Embalming Mom - Janet Burroway
Visitor - Michael W. Cox
Leap - Brian Doyle
Small Rooms in Time - Ted Kooser
Enough Jam for a Lifetime - Maxine Kumin
Remembering I was not there - Anne Panning
Fury and Grace - Pattiann Rogers
The Indian Dog - N. Scott Momaday
Dogged - Barrie Jean Borich
Work - Kim Barnes

Short story list (sort of in favorite order ???)
available in various collections, anthologies or single author books:

The Prophet from Jupiter - Tony Earley
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - Ursala K LeGuin (Incredible Story)
The Story of Your Life - Ted Chiang (also Hell is the Absence of God…and others he is an excellent short story writer)
Wild Horses - Rick Bass
Frost and Fire - Ray Bradbury
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall - Katherine Anne Porter
Rescue Party - Arthur C Clarke
The Star - Issac Asimov
A Rose for Ecclesiastes - Roger Zelazny
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cathedral - Raymond Carver
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes.
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allen Poe
A Boy and His Dog - Harlan Ellison
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce
The Hills Like White Elephants - Ernest Hemingway
The End of Something - Ernest Hemingway
A Clean Well Lighted Place - Hemingway
A Rose for Emily - Faulkner
Chicxulub - T.C. Boyle
Bullet in the Brain - Tobias Wolff
Where are you Going, Where Have you Been, - Joyce Carol Oates
The Ceiling - Kevin Brockmeier
Widow Water – Frederick Busch
A worn Path – Eudora Welty

Adds 7/13/2022:
A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
So Much Water So Close to Home” - Raymond Carver
The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
The Hunter’s Wife – Anthony Doerr
The Caretaker – Anthony Doerr
The Deep – Anthony Doerr (almost perfect story!)

I need to add flash/micro fiction to the list also maybe prose poetry maybe poetry… hmmm

#literature #books #stories #recommended #reading #essays

sylviaj@joindiaspora.com