John Ashbery's Reading List

The poet, whose latest collection is “Breezeway,” enjoys reading novels. “I’m no doubt a frustrated novelist. Maybe I should try, but at barely three months shy of 88 it seems unlikely.”

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By the Book: John Ashbery (2015)

NYT By the Book column (2015-05-07).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Confessions of an English Opium Eater

Thomas De Quincey · Buy on Amazon

"There are a couple of volumes of an incomplete 19th-century set of DeQuincey's essays, notably Confessions of an English Opium Eater, which I felt like rereading."

In Search of Lost Time

Marcel Proust · Buy on Amazon

"Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, for better or worse. You finish it feeling sadder and wiser, so if you're O.K. with the sadder part, you should take it on."

Paid on Both Sides

W. H. Auden · Buy on Amazon

"My favorite work of his from that era is Paid on Both Sides, whose title refers to a feud."

Vanity Fair

William Thackeray · Buy on Amazon

"I read Vanity Fair when I was 15, and liked it so much I read Gone With the Wind next."

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