Need a Required Reading List for Writers?

WHILE I HAVE no required reading list for writers in my classes, I always ask what people are reading. And, at some point, I’ll pass around a list of books that have informed my work. You can also see some of these in the rotator to the right of this post and, if you click on that, you will be transported to a new page that tells you why I read these books and what I learned from each. But first, have a look at the list.

Here it is:

• “Home Cooking,” Laurie Colwin
• “West with the Night,” Beryl Markham
• “The Hare with Amber Eyes,” Edmund de Waal
• “She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders,” Jennifer Finney Boylan
• “Dream Season,” Bob Cowser
• “Green Fields,” Bob Cowser
• “Fun Home,” Alison Bechdel
• “And I Shall Have Some Peace There,” Margaret Roach
• “The War of Art,” Stephen Pressfield
• “What I Thought I Knew,” Alice Eve Cohen
• “The Center of the Universe,” Nancy Bachrach
• “Perfection,” Julie Metz
• “Going Gray,” Anne Kreamer
• “The Gift of an Ordinary Day,” Katrina Kenison
• “About Alice” Calvin Trillin
• “Travels with Alice,” Calvin Trillin
• “Let Me Finish,” Roger Angell
• “The Rural Life,” Verlyn Klinkenborg
• “Manhattan, When I was Young,” Mary Cantwell
• “Patrimony,” Philip Roth
• “The Dog that Bit People,” James Thurber, in the book “My Life and Hard Times”
• “Between Meals,” A.J. Liebling
• “So Long, See You Tomorrow,” William Maxwell
• “Ancestors,” William Maxwell