Here are 100 books that The Complete Poems and Plays fans have personally recommended if you like
The Complete Poems and Plays.
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I’m a poet, lover of great literature, and an English professor who has served as faculty advisor to my university’s student-run literary journal. I caught the bug as a teenager when I first started reading and memorizing poems that moved and intrigued me. Since then, reading and writing poetry—and having the pleasure of teaching it to students—has been my best way of checking in with myself to see what’s most important to me that I may have lost sight of in the daily bustle. It’s also my best way of going beyond myself—allowing my imagination to carry me to unexpected places.
I love Wordsworth’s poetry (and his comments on the creative process) for its beauty and its importance to the history of the art form. His best poems—especially Tintern Abbey and his Intimations or Immortality Ode—tell psychological and spiritual tales about the gains and losses of growing up, and the role that nature can play in a person’s maturation.
His Preface to Lyrical Ballads lays out a Romantic program for poetry that has been hugely influential for two centuries. Wordsworth’s idea that poetry comes from “emotion recollected in tranquility” and captures the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” encapsulates how, for me and countless other writers, reflecting on personal memories provides a storehouse of poetic material.
William Wordsworth (1771-1850) is the foremost of the English Romantic poets. He was much influenced by the events of the French Revolution in his youth, and he deliberately broke away from the artificial diction of the Augustan and neo-classical tradition of the eighteenth century. He sought to write in the language of ordinary men and women, of ordinary thoughts, sights and sounds, and his early poetry represents this fresh approach to his art.
Wordsworth spent most of his adult life in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy and his wife Mary, by whom…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I’m a poet, lover of great literature, and an English professor who has served as faculty advisor to my university’s student-run literary journal. I caught the bug as a teenager when I first started reading and memorizing poems that moved and intrigued me. Since then, reading and writing poetry—and having the pleasure of teaching it to students—has been my best way of checking in with myself to see what’s most important to me that I may have lost sight of in the daily bustle. It’s also my best way of going beyond myself—allowing my imagination to carry me to unexpected places.
Every time I revisit Gabriela Mistral’s poetry, I’m eager to start writing new poems of my own. She unlocks my imagination with her richly synesthetic images, her suggestive metaphors, and her intense emotions, including grief, doubt, joy, and gratitude.
Her first two books—Desolation (Desolación, 1922) and Tenderness (Ternura, 1924)—are my favorites. From the landscape of her native Chile and her personal experiences, she develops universal themes. Her voice is always humane, no matter what emotional region she journeys into.
Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American ever to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, and her works are among the finest in all contemporary poetry. She is loved and honored throughout the world as one of the great humanistic voices of our time.
This bilingual edition of selected poems was translated and edited by Doris Dana, a close personal friend with whom Gabriela lived and worked with prior to her death in 1957. These translations give a profound insight into the original poetry of this greatest of contemporary Latin American women. They were selected from her four major works…
I’m a poet, lover of great literature, and an English professor who has served as faculty advisor to my university’s student-run literary journal. I caught the bug as a teenager when I first started reading and memorizing poems that moved and intrigued me. Since then, reading and writing poetry—and having the pleasure of teaching it to students—has been my best way of checking in with myself to see what’s most important to me that I may have lost sight of in the daily bustle. It’s also my best way of going beyond myself—allowing my imagination to carry me to unexpected places.
As much as any writer I know, Jorge Luis Borges soars in both poetry and fiction. His short stories would make him a candidate for my top five fiction authors, and they make a great bridge to his poetry.
With their profound examinations of the mysteries of selfhood and time, their love letters to the activities of reading and writing, and their reimagining of the past—from his native Argentina to Europe and beyond—Borges’s poems offer endless riches for my mind and my heart.
The largest collection of poetry ever assembled in English by "the most important Spanish-language writer since Cervantes" (Mario Vargas Llosa)
A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with flaps and deckle-edged paper
Though universally acclaimed for his dazzling fictions, Jorge Luis Borges always considered himself first and foremost a poet. This new bilingual selection brings together some two hundred poems, including scores of poems never previously translated. Edited by Alexander Coleman, it draws from a lifetime's work--from Borges's first published volume of verse, Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923), to his final work, Los conjurados, published just a year before his death in…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
I’m a poet, lover of great literature, and an English professor who has served as faculty advisor to my university’s student-run literary journal. I caught the bug as a teenager when I first started reading and memorizing poems that moved and intrigued me. Since then, reading and writing poetry—and having the pleasure of teaching it to students—has been my best way of checking in with myself to see what’s most important to me that I may have lost sight of in the daily bustle. It’s also my best way of going beyond myself—allowing my imagination to carry me to unexpected places.
I’m captivated by the speakers in these poems: Russian monks, totally committed to their faith, whose god is more a product of their imaginations than something that can exist without them. In fact, this god is lonely, anxious, and dependent on the artist-monks for his existence.
With images of cathedral-building, prisons (prisons of the self, that is), and sunrises, Rilke brings to life a mysterious form of devotion that is also a kind of art. These poems are haunting and peaceful at the same time and very beautiful.
Although The Book of Hours is the work of Rilke's youth, it contains the germ of his mature convictions. Written as spontaneously received prayers, these poems celebrate a God who is not the Creator of the Universe but rather humanityitself and, above all, that most intensely conscious part of humanity, the artist. Babette Deutsch's classic translations-born from "the pure desire to sing what thepoet sang" (Ursula K. Le Guin)-capture the rich harmony and suggestive imagery of the originals, transporting the reader to new heights of inspiration and musicality.
As a kid, I loved how words on a page transported me. Later, I was astounded by how the words I wrote myself could help me solve problems, deepen my understanding, and expand my thinking. Over time, that writing offered clarity and built my confidence. And in my most challenging times, writing has saved me over and over again. Learning to observe like a writer or an artist continues to help me be more present in my life. Sharing expressive writing experiences with others, during a 35-year career as a writer and workshop facilitator, allowed me to witness how this creative engagement offers a respite while building resilience and joy in others too.
Susan Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy is a vibrant collage in which she shares her poetry-writing journey in rich detail. From evocative chapter titles, quotes by poets, and poems from a variety of lesser-known voices, each element plays a part in setting up and illustrating an approach or addressing the topic at hand. My favorite part of this book is the “Practice” opportunities Wooldridge crafts for us. Get out your pencil! This book, informed by Wooldridge’s expressive arts practice, is one in which we, the readers, are invited to play. You’ll be surprised and delighted by what Poemcrazywill inspire you to write.
Following the success of several recent inspirational and practical books for would-be writers, Poemcrazy is a perfect guide for everyone who ever wanted to write a poem but was afraid to try. Writing workshop leader Susan Wooldridge shows how to think, use one's senses, and practice exercises that will make poems more likely to happen.
I’ve been a working blues musician for almost half a century, a blues harmonica teacher for much of that time. Twenty-five years ago I first began offering university-level courses on the blues literary tradition. My experience as a Harlem busker back in the 1980s and a touring performer in the 1990s as part of the duo Satan & Adam critically shaped my approach, anchoring me in the wisdom, humor, and deep-groove aesthetics of partner, Mississippi native Sterling “Mr. Satan” Magee. The blues is or the blues are? It’s complicated! I try to honor that multiplicity and the people who put it there.
I remember reading Wilson’s play for the first time as a grad student, not long after I’d been a street musician in Harlem working with a brilliant, irascible old bluesman from Mississippi, and thinking “I knowthese guys.”
Wilson, the greatest American blues playwright (and one of the greatest American dramatists period), has an uncanny ear for the jibing, jiving, wisdom-declaiming back-and-forth that fills the conversational space between four southern-born musicians who find themselves in a Chicago recording studio one day in 1927, getting ready to back up their boss, Ma Rainey.
Toledo, elder and griot, the keeper of ancestral wisdom, butts heads with Levee, the hotheaded young innovator who bears, and brandishes, deep wounds inflicted by white southern violence. The play’s denouement is hurtful, shattering, unforgettable.
NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING VIOLA DAVIS AND CHADWICK BOSEMAN
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences and The Piano Lesson comes the extraordinary Ma Rainey's Black Bottom—winner of the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play.
The time is 1927. The place is a run-down recording studio in Chicago. Ma Rainey, the legendary blues singer, is due to arrive with her entourage to cut new sides of old favorites. Waiting for her are her Black musician sidemen, the white owner of the record company, and her white manager. What goes down in the session to come is…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
I like to write about everyday people who—whether by overconfidence or desperation—are motivated to solve crimes that hit close to home. My first novel Girl, 11 is about a true crime podcaster investigating a serial killer who terrorized her town decades earlier, and my newest book Lay Your Body Downis about an ex-fundamentalist Christian who returns to her insular community to expose the church’s secrets and uncover the truth of who killed the man she once loved. Normal people can and do solve mysteries before police—and even when detectives are involved, they rely on members of the community. Those are the stories I love to tell.
Megan has been transparent about the fact thatBehind the Red Dooris not the most popular of her books, but it’s my personal favorite!
Fern Douglas is out of the loop: a missing woman shows up on the news whose famous kidnapping two decades ago—and subsequent return—everyone seems to have heard about. But Fern has no memory of that story; she only knows that she has seen the woman’s face before, and she comes to fear that she might have somehow been involved in what happened to her.
This book has one of the best portrayals of chronic anxiety I’ve read, and one of the most twisted and f-ed up stories, which I absolutely tore through. Read it, and prepare to be chilled to the bone.
"A haunting thriller" (PopSugar) about a woman who believes that she has a connection to a decades old kidnapping and begins a frantic investigation to find out what really happened when the victim goes missing again.
When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing woman from Maine, she is positive that she knows her. Fern's husband is sure it's because of Astrid's famous kidnapping-and equally famous return-twenty years ago, but Fern has no memory of that, even though it happened an hour outside her New Hampshire hometown. And when Astrid appears in Fern's recurring nightmare, one…
I am a Professor of early-modern British History at the University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, who was a specialist in the Tudor period, especially the life and reign of Elizabeth I. However, while doing research over the past six years, I became excited by the politics, religion, and culture of the Jacobean period. James I’s reign had been a topic I taught in a week to undergraduates, but I realised that I didn’t do justice to this rich and important period. Not only is it fascinating in its own right, but James’s reign had a huge impact on a long stretch of British and world history.
I love this book because it combines history and literature, doing justice to both. By setting Lear and Macbeth in their cultural and political contexts, Professor Shapiro has given me new insights into both plays. Before seeing them again, I’ll go back to this book.
Shapiro is a model for me of an academic historian who successfully addresses a wider audience by avoiding academic jargon, explaining the unfamiliar, and telling a good story. He wears his great scholarship lightly, but he has done a huge amount of research and has a mastery of his subject.
Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America, shows how the tumultuous events in 1606 influenced three of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies written that year—King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. “The Year of Lear is irresistible—a banquet of wisdom” (The New York Times Book Review).
In the years leading up to 1606, Shakespeare’s great productivity had ebbed. But that year, at age forty-two, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn—King Lear—then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.
I have spent my working life as a journalist, author and storyteller, aiming to uncover complexity that sheds new light on stories we think we know. I got my training at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times—and from the wonderful editors of my twelve books. An Innocent Bystander, my book that deals with the Middle East, began as the story of a hijacking and a murder of an American citizen. But as my research widened, I came to see this story couldn’t be told without understanding many perspectives, including the Israeli and the Palestinian, nor could the political be disentangled from the personal.
Oslo is a theatrical rendering of the behind-the-scenes negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords in 1993.
This Tony-Award-winning play takes a perhaps unreasonably optimistic view of potential peace. Nor will reading (or better yet, seeing) this play satisfy a serious researcher’s desire for historic detail. But it lays out the emotional stakes with humanity and humor, not qualities one usually dares to associate with the conflict in the Middle East.
Winner of the 2017 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play
Winner of the 2017 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play
“Oslo is a wonderful and moving work that portrays how real diplomacy works. The play shows us what can happen when men and women on opposite sides of what is perceived as an intractable divide strive to create a shared humanity.” – Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations
“A disarmingly funny masterpiece.” – Huffington Post
“So human and so funny. Oslo is gripping, compelling, and compulsively…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I’ve been a writer since I was fourteen (possibly before that) and I’ve been an official freelance proofreader/copyeditor since 2019. I’ve published over thirty books and proofread or copyedited over sixty-two manuscripts as of this writing. I’ve garnered enough experience in both fields to, at least, be considered.
Another excellent book about plot and the importance of making sure you have a good one. The difference between a good plot and a great plot is a bestseller. If you want your story’s plot to speak of mastery, do not miss out on reading this insightful book. Add it to your personal library for good measure. It’s always a good idea to have it there, so you can reference it in the future even after finishing it.
Discover how to create stories that build suspense, reveal character, and engage your audience with this ultimate guide to writing.
When it comes to writing bestsellers, it's all about the plot. Trouble is, plot is where most writers fall down-but you don't have to be one of them. With this book, you'll learn how to create stories that build suspense, reveal character, and engage readers-one scene at a time.
Celebrated writing teacher and author Martha Alderson has devised a plotting system that's as innovative as it is easy to implement. With her foolproof blueprint, you'll learn to devise a successful…
