What I'm Reading
My reading list is heavily influenced by my passion for creativity, spirituality, nature, the recommendations of respected friends, and a few blogs that are daily reads for me. I rely heavily on Amazon's used book market—often I can get a nice used version of a book I want on my doorstep for four to six dollars.
Currently Reading
Several Short Sentences About Writing
Verlyn Klinkenborg
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Douglas Hofstadter
Norwegian Wood
Haruki Murakami
The Hungering Dark
Frederick Buechner
More Than a Rock
Guy Tal
2016 Completed
The Power of Myth
Joseph Campbell & Bill Moyers
Joseph Campbell talks through some of his most interesting work on the Hero's Journey, the Monomyth, and other ideas that have both ancient roots and modern weight.
Grief is the Thing With Feathers
Max Porter
A providential find on my trip to New Zealand. Porter imagines a family in the wake of a mother's death, visited by a giant crow who perfectly personifies and demystifies the giant blot of grief.
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson
For someone who overthinks, over-worries, and is prone to unhealthy nostalgia, I deeply enjoyed living in the Rev. John Ames' head for a few hundred pages.
The Abundance
Annie Dillard
"Best of" selections from a life's work by Ms. Dillard. She's my favorite author. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is at least in my top 3 of all time favorite reads.
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates cuts through politics and ideas and writes a deeply personal series of letters to his son about growing up African American.
Refusing Heaven
Jack Gilbert
A collection of odes to delight and elegies for lost or dead love. I much preferred this old man's recounting of a life than I did Salter's.
The Wisdom of Insecurity
Alan Watts
Watts explains that most of our life is wasted because we're living in the future or past, unable to see and appreciate the miracle and beauty and satisfaction of existence.
Holy The Firm
Annie Dillard
A short read that I know will warrant frequent re-reads. Covers some of the most existentially-troubling and soul-stirring questions that humans build their life around avoiding.
This House of Sky
Ivan Doig
Labelled "required reading" for a Midwest transplant. Ivan's writing about losing a parent and coming of age were deeply touching.
The Iliad
Homer (trans. Lattimore)
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
Survival of the Bark Canoe
John McPhee
Revenant
Michael Punke
For the Time Being
Annie Dillard
Telling Secrets
Frederick Buechner
Coming Through Slaughter
Michael Ondaatje
Let Your Life Speak
Parker Palmer
All That Is
James Salter
Eiger Dreams
Jon Krakauer
Winter Brothers
Ivan Doig
Sonnets to Orpheus
Rainer Maria Rilke
The Missing of the Somme
Geoff Dyer
Upstream
Mary Oliver
The Writing Life
Annie Dillard
Our Only World
Wendell Berry