reading list / august 2024 – may 2026

Essays

Abdurraqib, Hanif: “A Night in Bruce Springsteen’s America” 

Abdurraqib, Hanif: “Fear: A Crown”

Abdurraqib, Hanif: “I Would Like to Give Merry Clayton Her Roses”

Abdurraqib, Hanif: “Nine Considerations of Black People in Space”

Abdurraqib, Hanif: “On Marathons and Tunnels”

Abdurraqib, Hanif: “On the Performance of Softness”

Abdurraqib, Hanif: “On the Certain and Uncertain Movements of Limbs” 

Abdurraqib, Hanif: “Sixteen Ways of Looking at BlackFace”

Baldwin, James: “Notes of a Native Son” 

Baldwin, James: “Stranger in a Village” 

Bashaw, Molly: “All the Things We Once Thought Ordinary” 

Bass, Rick: “Fiber”

Beard, JoAnn: “The Fourth State of Matter” 

Biss, Eula: “Goodbye to All That” 

Biss, Eula: “No Man’s Land” 

Biss, Eula: “The Pain Scale” 

Brown, Molly McCully: “Bent Body, Lamb”

Brown, Molly McCully: “The Broken Country: On Disability and Desire”

Brown, Molly McCully: “Fragments Never Sent”

Brown, Molly McCully: “Frankenstein Abroad” 

Brown, Molly McCully: “If You Are Permanently Lost” 

Brown, Molly McCully: “In Smoke and Exhaustion” 

Brown, Molly McCully: “Muscle Memory” 

Brown, Molly McCully: “The Skin You’re In” 

Brown, Molly McCully: “The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded” 

Chee, Alexander: “The Querent” 

Cole, Taju: “Black Body” 

D’Agata, John: “Collage History of Art” 

D’Agata, John: “We Might as Well Call It the Lyric Essay” 

D’Ambrosio, Charles: “Degrees of Grey” 

Deresiewicz, William: “In Defense of Facts” 

Diaz, Natalie: “Body of Athletics” 

Didion, Joan: “Goodbye to All That”  

Didion, Joan: “The White Album” 

Dillard, Annie: “Total Eclipse” 

Erlich, Gretel: “Solace of Open Spaces”  

Faliveno, Melissa: “Driftless” 

Farrington, Anthony: “Kissing” 

Febos, Melissa: “Kettle Holes” 

Febos, Melissa: “Les Calanques” 

Febos, Melissa: “The Mirror Test” 

Febos, Melissa: “Prologue: Scarification”

Febos, Melissa: “Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself”

Fryar, Charlotte Taylor: “Blackwater”

Gay, Roxane: “What We Hunger For” 

Greenwell, Lia: “Your Soul Doesn’t Need You”

Hall, Ceridwen: “Submarine Reconnaissance” 

Jamison, Leslie: “Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain” 

Jamison, Leslie: “The March on Everywhere” 

Kaminsky, IIya: “Searching for a Lost Odessa”

Laymon, Kiese: “Da Art of Storytellin”

Parms, Jerico: “Lost Wax”

Parms, Jerico: “On Touching Ground”

Parms, Jerico: “Of Things Lost”

Parms, Jerico: “On Puddling”

Parms, Jerico: “Practicing”

Powell, Alison: “Nomen Nudum” 

Purpura, Lia: “All the Fierce Tethers”

Purpura, Lia: “My Eagles”

Purpura, Lia: “Of Prayer”

Purpura, Lia: “Scream”

Rankine, Claudia: “Ethical Loneliness” 

Rankine, Claudia: “Lemonade” 

Shah, Sejal: “Street Scene” 

Stainton, Leslie: “Here With You” 

Sullivan, John Jeremiah: “The Final Comeback of Axl Rose” 

Sullivan, John Jeremiah: “Upon This Rock” 

Wallace, David Foster: “Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All” 

Wang, “Sad White Women” 

Wrigley, Robert: “Nemerov’s Door” 

Novels/Poetry & Creative Nonfiction Collections

Aguda, ‘Pemi: Ghost Roots

Akbar, Kaveh: Martyr!

Apekina, Katya: Mother Doll

Austin, Derrick: Trouble the Water

Brown, Jericho: The Tradition

Butler, Octavia: Bloodchild and Other Stories 

Chang, Victoria: With My Back to the World

Chiang, Ted: Stories of Your Life and Others 

Christle, Heather: The Crying Book

Dunn, Katherine: Geek Love 

Everrett, Percival: James 

Graham, Jorie: [To] the Last [Be] Human

Hass, Robert: Time and Materials

Jackson, Shirley: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

July, Miranda: All Fours

Laymon, Kiese: Heavy

Ma, Lang: Severance 

Manning, Maurice: One Man’s Dark

Matar, Hisham: My Friends

McLarney, Rose: Colorfast

Phillips, Carl: Then the War

Claudia Rankine, Citizen

Rekdal, Paisley: Nightingale

Rich, Adrienne: The School Among the Ruins         

Seuss, Diane: Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and A Girl 

Soldier, Layli Long: Whereas

Syzbist, Mary: Incarnadine

Wilkins, Joe: The Mountain and the Fathers