Wayne Koestenbaum's Reading List

“When I was younger, I craved novels,” says the poet and cultural critic, whose latest book, “Figure It Out,” is a collection of essays. “Now I read more poetry and nonfiction.”

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By the Book: Wayne Koestenbaum (2020)

NYT By the Book column (2020-06-18).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Katalin Street

Magda Szabo · Buy on Amazon

"A dead girl comes back to semi-existence and hovers near the homes of neighbors who never treated her nicely enough while she was alive."

Visionary Film

P. Adams Sitney · Buy on Amazon

"Earlier this year, to school myself on the history of innovative celluloid magic, I finally read P. Adams Sitney's Visionary Film."

Aeneid

Virgil · Buy on Amazon

"I read the Robert Fagles translation. Dido, the tragic queen of Carthage, had long been part of my bloodstream, but I needed to confront her sorrow up close."

Dombey and Son

Charles Dickens · Buy on Amazon

"While temping as a Kelly Girl in 1982, I gulped down Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son."

Four Lectures

Stephen Rodefer · Buy on Amazon

"Stephen Rodefer's Four Lectures changed the tempo of my poetry-writing life. I was inspired by Rodefer's non sequiturs, by his distractibility."

The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara

Frank O'Hara · Buy on Amazon

"The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara. He taught me how to be quick."

Carceral Capitalism

Jackie Wang · Buy on Amazon

"From Jackie Wang's Carceral Capitalism, I learned about the sinister existence of a predictive policing software called PredPol."

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