Here are 94 books that Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems fans have personally recommended if you like Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems. Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Dorsey Nunn Author Of What Kind of Bird Can't Fly: A Memoir of Resilience and Resurrection

From my list on the strength it takes to be Black in America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I began advocating for the rights of California prisoners and their families while incarcerated. As co-director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC), in 2003, I cofounded All of Us or None (AOUON), a grassroots movement of formerly incarcerated people working on their own behalf to secure their civil and human rights. AOUON is now the policy and advocacy arm of LSPC, which I have led as executive director since 2011. Collective victories include ending indefinite solitary confinement in California, expanding access to housing and employment for formerly incarcerated people, and restoring the vote to those on parole and probation. 

Dorsey's book list on the strength it takes to be Black in America

Dorsey Nunn Why Dorsey loves this book

This was a book I first read nearly fifty years ago after my childhood friend Nate Harrington taught me to read while we were in prison together at 18 and 19 years old. As part of our commitment to helping each other return to our communities as an asset and not a liability, the men in prison taught each other political education classes, which included reading key texts like Malcolm X’s autobiography.

This book gave me an indication that I could do something different with my life. That moment occurred when it was revealed that Malcolm was known as “Detroit Red” on the streets of New York City–but when he went to prison and found a true education, he also embraced a new identity and new way of life. He died as Malcolm. His journey indicated that I could make a transition, too. It also helped me recognize that If…

By Malcolm X , Alex Haley ,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Autobiography of Malcolm X as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ONE OF TIME’S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement…


If you love Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems...

Book cover of Four Eyes

Four Eyes by Steve Benson,

The four performance works documented in this book were each built through advance planning and spontaneous decisions, in response to the opportunities and constraints I anticipated and experiences in the process of composition. Each depends on live improvisation to verbalize content, themes, and manner throughout the performance itself.

Steve Benson's…

Book cover of The Bean Eaters;

Robert Pinsky Author Of The Sounds of Poetry: a Brief Guide

From my list on that were composed by ear.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a poet, my main gift is related to my first ambition, to be a musician. I like to talk, I like to listen, I like the sounds of words and I like to hear (for example) what Emily Dickinson and William Butler Yeats have to say.

Robert's book list on that were composed by ear

Robert Pinsky Why Robert loves this book

When Brooks says “ballade” or “blues” she speaks with the authority of one who can hear—can allude to music without needing to copy it.

Composing the sounds before the record-keeping act of merely writing the words. She doesn’t need the added music of actual song: she embodies the music in the sentence-sounds. (And the harmonies and discords and rhythms of speech.)

By Gwendolyn Brooks ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Bean Eaters; as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been…


Book cover of Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper

Robert J. Begiebing Author Of Awakening

From my list on creative individuals in the arts.

Why am I passionate about this?

Well, I’ve devoted my life to literature (to a lesser extent, to music) as a critic, professor, and author of eleven books, from fiction to criticism to collected journalism to memoir and poetry. I’ve won several awards and fellowships for my own work. So, literary history and biography/autobiography are in my territory, so to speak. You can find more about me and my books at my website.

Robert's book list on creative individuals in the arts

Robert J. Begiebing Why Robert loves this book

If you trained to be a jazz musician as I once did, or if you love jazz, you’ll be fascinated by this story (both autobiography and oral history from those who knew Pepper).

It includes also journalistic and critical literary assessments of his music and life that Art and Laurie Pepper include, but mostly, I was fascinated by Art’s own testimony of the struggles of a musician in the 1950s and ‘60s.

By the 70s, Pepper was trying to go straight, off drugs, and his long struggle with that issue is documented by him, his wife, and his colleagues and friends. But he was indeed straight in a different sense—he played beautiful, lyrical, straight-ahead jazz, no free form self-indulgence. So I got a wide view of the man and music through the oral history and through the journalists and critics who wrote essays about him.

Ultimately, it is a tragic…

By Art Pepper , Laurie Pepper ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Straight Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Art Pepper (1925-1982) was called the greatest alto saxophonist of the post-Charlie Parker generation. But his autobiography, Straight Life , is much more than a jazz book,it is one of the most explosive, yet one of the most lyrical, of all autobiographies. This edition is updated with an extensive afterword by Laurie Pepper covering Art Pepper's last years, and a complete and up-to-date discography by Todd Selbert.


If you love William Carlos Williams...

Book cover of Four Eyes

Four Eyes by Steve Benson,

The four performance works documented in this book were each built through advance planning and spontaneous decisions, in response to the opportunities and constraints I anticipated and experiences in the process of composition. Each depends on live improvisation to verbalize content, themes, and manner throughout the performance itself.

Steve Benson's…

Book cover of The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Thief

Robert Pinsky Author Of The Sounds of Poetry: a Brief Guide

From my list on that were composed by ear.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a poet, my main gift is related to my first ambition, to be a musician. I like to talk, I like to listen, I like the sounds of words and I like to hear (for example) what Emily Dickinson and William Butler Yeats have to say.

Robert's book list on that were composed by ear

Robert Pinsky Why Robert loves this book

Like most calm, ordinary, cautious people, I enjoy movies and books by and about reckless, clever criminals.

Myles Connor, rock star and felon, may or may not know all about, or played a role in, the famous art theft from Boston’s Isabella Gardner museum. He talks an extremely good game.

By Myles J Connor , Jenny Siler ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Art of the Heist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“One of the most beguiling criminal memoirs ever written. . . . A rare gem of a book.” — T. J. English, New York Times bestselling author of Havana Nocturne

How did the son of a decorated policeman grow up to be one of Boston’s most notorious criminals? How did he survive a decades-long feud with the FBI? How did he escape one jail sentence with a fake gun carved out of soap? How did he trade the return of a famous Rembrandt for early release from another sentence? The Art of the Heist is a roller-coaster ride of a…


Book cover of Pieter Bruegel: The Complete Works

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern Author Of Lenin's Jewish Question

From my list on European art, culture, and history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern is the Crown Family Professor of Jewish Studies and a Professor of Jewish History in the History Department at Northwestern University. He teaches a variety of courses that include early modern and modern Jewish history; Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah; history and culture of Ukraine; and Slavic-Jewish literary encounters.

Yohanan's book list on European art, culture, and history

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern Why Yohanan loves this book

Although it is published as a coffee-table book with beautiful and carefully prepared illustrations, this is the best biography of Pieter Bruegel and a cultural study of his times and works. Magnificently written, exuberantly rich, it will please anybody interested in early modern history, art, Reformation, and colonial wars. This is the book to read slowly, as one drinks vintage wine. 

By Jürgen Müller , Thomas Schauerte ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pieter Bruegel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The life and times of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/30-1569) were marked by stark cultural conflict. He witnessed religious wars, the Duke of Alba's brutal rule as governor of the Netherlands, and the palpable effects of the Inquisition. To this day, the Flemish artist remains shrouded in mystery. We know neither where nor exactly when he was born. But while early scholarship emphasized the vernacular character of his painting and graphic work, modern research has attached greater importance to its humanistic content.

Starting out as a print designer for publisher Hieronymus Cock, Bruegel produced numerous print series that were…


Book cover of As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel

Elisabeth M. Lee Author Of Young PRB: A Novel of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

From my list on artists by non-artists.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a history major and artist I noticed a style of illustrations and paintings that popped up in history books, novels, and poetry collections. I found that the paintings and drawings were just scratching the surface. The lives and struggles of the artists known as Pre-Raphaelites were just as intriguing as the art. I have traveled to the many locations that the Pre-Raphaelites frequented to follow in their footsteps. I've even tried to copy their wet white painting style and was awed by the patience they must have had. I appreciate many art styles and enjoy being transported into the lives of the artists by authors as interested in art and history as I am. 

Elisabeth's book list on artists by non-artists

Elisabeth M. Lee Why Elisabeth loves this book

As Peter Bruegel stands in the Sistine Chapel admiring Michelangelo’s work he realizes he could never compete with one who works in the heavens – above. He will confine himself to the below the common man. We follow Bruegel and his friends on his journeys, his daily life, and the inspiration he finds in the everyday world around him. His peasants are peasants. Their daily toil is not romanticized. Their feasts consist of rural fare. Even his religious art is not idealized. It is wonderful to imagine that the author has walked in Bruegel's shoes. Rudy Rucker is a professor of math and computer science but his extensive research has brought to life an artist who left very little of his own life to history.  

By Rudy Rucker ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked As Above, So Below as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Peter Bruegel's paintings - a peasant wedding in a barn, hunters in the snow, a rollicking street festival, and many others - have long defined our idea of everyday life in 16th Century Europe. In sixteen chapters Rucker brings Bruegel's painter's progress and his colourful world to vibrant life doing for Bruegel what GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING did for Vermeer. We follow the artist from the winding streets of Antwerp and Brussels to the glowing skies and decaying monuments of Rome.


Book cover of Fearless Fourteen

Susan Rowland Author Of The Sacred Well Murders

From my list on female-centered humorous plots.

Why am I passionate about this?

Enchanted by mysteries of the cozy, comic, or traditional sort, I was delighted to realize that they replay the holy grail myth. Here the Waste Land is the community paralyzed by the crime that cannot be undone, murder, the sleuth is the Grail Knight, and the Grail Cup is the restorative magic of the solution. Cozy or comic or traditional sleuths find the murderer by asking the right questions, so re-storying or restoring the fertility of the realm. Comedy is used for rebirth in the face of tragedy. I began to write cozies-with-an-edge, emphasizing women heroes who need each other as they face issues of today’s wasteland in climate change. 

Susan's book list on female-centered humorous plots

Susan Rowland Why Susan loves this book

For sheer delight, I give you mysteries featuring not-very-competent bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum, because they use comedy to portray as well as endure a world of endemic violence. Serious stuff like organized crime is made visible and bearable to the reader by foregrounding Stephanie’s chaos-strewn friendships with walking disasters like ex ‘ho Lula. The great comic creation, Grandma Mazur (aged 70, looks 90) also drags our beloved sleuth into peril that is hilarious as well as life-threatening. This time Grandma becomes a holy terror in online gaming, a change from geriatric sex-crazed boyfriends, falling into coffin caskets, or shooting the dinner chicken. Evanovich collides the crime caper with darker textures of urban suffering. Read for comedy as a survival skill with plenty of sex, death, and doughnuts. 

By Janet Evanovich ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fearless Fourteen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sometimes fame can be fatal...

Personal vendettas. Hidden treasure. A monkey named Carl. Stephanie Plum is as fearless as ever in the fourteenth hilarious novel in Janet Evanovich's bestselling Stephanie Plum series. Fearless Fourteen is not to be missed by fans of Harlan Coben and JD Robb.

Raves for Evanovich's bestselling series: 'A laugh a minute against a background of dastardly crime with a ditzy heroine and two - yes TWO - of the hottest heroes ever created' (Woman's Weekly); 'A laugh-out-loud page-turner' (Heat).

Stephanie's desperate enough for a bit of extra cash that she's agreed to help run security…


Book cover of The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures on the Edge of a City

David Stradling and Richard Stradling Author Of Where the River Burned: Carl Stokes and the Struggle to Save Cleveland

From my list on the environmental movement in America.

Why are we passionate about this?

We grew up, brothers, in Cleveland’s Ohio antipode – Cincinnati – and so we knew Cleveland mostly in contrast to our home. Despite the many differences, both cities experienced the urban crisis. Richard, a journalist, was drawn to the story of Cleveland’s frequently burning river. How did the Cuyahoga become a poster child for the environmental movement? And David, an environmental historian, was drawn to Carl Stokes, a Black man with the skills to become mayor of a predominantly white city in 1968. How did he propose to solve the many problems running through the urban environment? We both wanted to know what Cleveland’s changing relationship with its river could tell us about environmental politics. 

David's book list on the environmental movement in America

David Stradling and Richard Stradling Why David loves this book

The subtitle to Robert Sullivan’s The Meadowlands is Wilderness Adventures on the Edge of a City, and it’s Sullivan’s adventures exploring the vast New Jersey wetlands that make the book so entertaining. But Sullivan is right to use the word “wilderness” to describe the 32 square miles of swamp, landfills, and rusting industrial debris along the Hackensack River where it flows into Newark Bay just five miles from the Empire State Building in New York City. Like the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, the Meadowlands have been abused and degraded for centuries but also show the resilience of nature and how people’s attitudes toward it have changed. “Now it is a good place to see a black-crowned night heron or a pied-bill grebe or eighteen species of ladybugs,” Sullivan writes, “even if some of the waters these creatures fly over can oftentimes be the color of antifreeze.” Sullivan’s loving description…

By Robert Sullivan ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Meadowlands as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Imagine a grungy north Jersey version of John McPhee's classic The Pine Barrens and you'll get some idea of the idiosyncratic, fact-filled, and highly original work that is Robert Sullivan's The Meadowlands. Just five miles west of New York City, this vilified, half-developed, half-untamed, much dumped-on, and sometimes odiferous tract of swampland is home to rare birds and missing bodies, tranquil marshes and a major sports arena, burning garbage dumps and corporate headquarters, the remains of the original Penn Station--and maybe, just ,maybe, of the late Jimmy Hoffa. Robert Sullivan proves himself to be this fragile yet amazingly resilient region's…


Book cover of 16 Words: William Carlos Williams and the Red Wheelbarrow

Ronni Diamondstein Author Of Jackie and the Books She Loved

From my list on inspire young people to be readers and writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been a reader and a writer for as long as I can remember, so books about reading, writing, and storytelling have always interested me. As a school library media specialist for over 30 years, I have read thousands of picture books and placed wonderful books in the hands of thousands of young people. Several of these books were mentor texts when I wrote my picture book biography. I want young people to be inspired to read and write, and I hope these books will do that for the adults who select them and the children who read them.

Ronni's book list on inspire young people to be readers and writers

Ronni Diamondstein Why Ronni loves this book

I found this book to be the perfect illustration of how writers get their ideas and inspiration. This “oh-so-simple picture book” emulates the simplicity of William Carlos Williams’s beloved poem, The Red Wheelbarrow.

I found it to be a very thoughtful and thought-provoking book. The gentle illustrations complement the lyrical text, and the prose is as lovely to read aloud as William Carlos Williams’s poem. It’s such great inspiration for writers of all ages.

By Lisa Rogers , Chuck Groenink (illustrator) ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked 16 Words as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This simple nonfiction picture book about the beloved American poet William Carlos Williams is also about how being mindful can result in the creation of a great poem like "The Red Wheelbarrow"--which is only sixteen words long.

"Look out the window. What do you see? If you are Dr. William Carlos Williams, you see a wheelbarrow. A drizzle of rain. Chickens scratching in the damp earth." The wheelbarrow belongs to Thaddeus Marshall, a street vendor, who every day goes to work selling vegetables on the streets of Rutherford, New Jersey. That simple action inspires poet and doctor Williams to pick…


Book cover of Forever...

Stella Grae Author Of Just Call Me Confidence

From my list on erotic romance to give you all the feels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve loved, I’ve lost, and everything in between! Just like my protagonist, Jenna, in Just Call Me Confidence, life imitated art and I took a page from her “book,” having to begin anew. I’ve been the friend who has entertained all sorts of stories—sex, love, and rock n’ roll (wink, wink)—all without judgment. That role in my life continues, and what I’ve discovered in my “research” is this: Sex is wonderful, but there’s no greater joy than loving someone, even if it’s only for a little while. Read more about my take on sex, love, and rock n’ roll on my blog “Bone Up.” 

Stella's book list on erotic romance to give you all the feels

Stella Grae Why Stella loves this book

I couldn’t compile a list of books without including Judy Blume. In the forty years since I read my first Blume novel, a lot of things have changed, and—many have stayed the same.
Forever, first published in the mid-70s, is mildly erotic—and raw, and sensuous, and tender, and all the things that love and sex are. The sensual scenes are peppered in with great dialogue between the characters.

I especially love this book because no matter how many experiences I’ve had, I can still find a small piece of myself in protagonist Katherine—first sex, first love, first breakup, first death, and the many “firsts” that I’ve carried through my own life (divorce, pandemic, post-divorce love).

Forever may not always last, but it never fails to define chunks of our lives—always. 

By Judy Blume ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Forever... as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

Do you remember the first time?

Forever is still the bravest, freshest, fruitiest and most honest account of first love, first sex and first heartbreak ever written for teens. It was a book ahead of its time - and remains, after forty years in print, a teenage bestseller from the award-winning Judy Blume.

With a contemporary cover, Forever is a teen classic ripe for a new generation of readers.


Book cover of The Autobiography of Malcolm X
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Book cover of Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper

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