William Morris pattern

Reading List

Books for writers

By Ideas Editor

This list of gift ideas for poets and writers takes readers around the world and back in time through  language: Translator Robert Alter shares a personal and passionate account of the art of Bible translation while poet Michael Schmidt explores the enduring fascinating of the epic of Gilgamesh; the original version of the Grimms’ fairy tales get a fresh look in a beautiful illustrated volume and the story of efforts to produce the first distinctly American English dictionary is brought to compelling light; the Writers on Writers series showcases Colm Tóibín on Elizabeth Bishop, Alexander McCall Smith on W.H. Auden, Michael Dirda on Arthur Conan Doyle, and Phillip Lopate on Susan Sontag while the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets features poetry from Eleanor Wilner, Kathleen Graber, Austin Smith, Dora Malech, Miller Oberman, and Myronn Hardy. 

 

The Art of Bible Translation

The Art of Bible Translation

 

Gilgamesh

GilgameshThe Life of a Poem

 

Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition

 

The Dictionary Wars

The Dictionary Wars: The American Fight over the English Language

 

On Elizabeth Bishop

On Elizabeth Bishop

 

What Auden Can Do For You

What W. H. Auden Can Do for You

 

On Conan Doyle

On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling

 

Notes on Sontag

Notes on Sontag

 

The River Twice

The River Twice: Poems

 

Before Our Eyes

Before Our Eyes: New and Selected Poems, 1975–2017

 

Flyover Country

Flyover Country: Poems

 

Stet

Stet

 

The Unstill Ones

The Unstill Ones: Poems

 

Radioactive Starlings

Radioactive Starlings: Poems