The World According to Cosmos

Tag: fiction

  • Cosmos’s Reading List 2025

    Cosmos’s Reading List 2025

    Cosmos’s Reading List 2025

    https://wp.me/p7NAzO-3L5

    Books Read 2024
    Cosmos Books Read 2021 Update
    1001 Books to Read Before You Die List

    Cosmos Books Read 2020

    Books read 2019

    books read during 2018

    Reading the Clasics Updated

    Cosmos Reading List 2022 Final Updates
    Reading TS Elliot
    Reading G Keith Chesterton

     

    2025 Reading Goals:

    200 books, 2,000 poems, etc total 3,000 to 4,000 books/poems/stories listed numerically and chronologically by month

    Read Classics finish reading books. You Must read series

    One Thriller Per Month

    One history/politics book per month

    Read A Lot More Poetry

    Read At Least One Book A Year in Spanish.

    Read At Least One Book A Year in Korean

    While in the States, get books from Little River Turnpike library,DC Library and from the Medford library using the following criteria

    One classic book

    One poetry book

    One Sci-fi book

    One history/politics book

    One current event book

    One thriller

     

    Buy the 2024 best SciFi read in the fall

    Buy the 2024 Best Poetry read in the fall

     

    Re-do Mod Po following Mod Po plus poems

    Start a different poetry course on Coursea

    Start and complete All poetry poetry courses

     

    Alternate between reading Kindle classics, poetry and other books

    I will try to finish reading classic books.  I have a collection from Kindle of 50 books to read before you die, in three volumes – 15O books in total. See the list below.  I have read many of them already which I have noted by bolding.  As I read them, I will add them to the chronological listing below, and also have the Harvard classic.  I had a hard copy set, but donated it, I have to read it on Kindle.  I will also continue to read lots of poetry from the Mod Po class, will do the slo-mo courses then re-do it in September, focusing on reading the additional poems I did not last time in Mod Po Plus.

    Numerical Listing

    Note: after reading each book, write a review for Bach’s Reading List and for Goodreads copy to my blog entry and cc Substack, Medium, Wattpad, Fan Story, and Writing.com.

    Then save under Review when posting on the blog post, Zamzar audio clip into the blog piece, and do Spotify and Substack podcasts, later Threads and YouTube vblog starting in the fall

     Before reading ask Co-pilot the following questions

    Please provide a synopsis, list of characters, author bio and list of books by the author, plus literary reputation.   please do not format to make it easier to cut and paste

    The List

     

    Fiction

     

    Cather, Willa: My Ántonia From 50 Books Volume One

    Chopin, Kate: The Awakening From 50 Books Volume One

    Cummings, E. E.: The Enormous Room. From 50 Books Volume One

    Dreiser, Theodore: Sister Carrie  From 50 Books Volume One

    Janet Evanovich Plum Lucky Camp H library In Progress

    Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg,  the Job – Camp H Library

    Bobby Palmer Isaac and the Egg

    Fielding, Henry: Tom Jones TBC

    Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary TBC  From 50 Books Volume One

    Flaubert, Gustave: Sentimental Education TBC  From 50 Books Volume One

    Ford, Ford Madox: The Good Soldier TBC  From 50 Books Volume One

    Gogol, Nikolai: Dead Souls TBC  From 50 Books Volume One

    Gorky, Maxim: The Mother TBC  From 50 Books Volume One

    Huxley, Aldous: Crome Yellow TBC  From 50 Books Volume One

    James, Henry: The Portrait of a Lady TBC  From 50 Books Volume One

    JM Baarre  Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy) TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    BM Bower – Cabin Fever  TBC   TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess  TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    -Robert William Chambers  The King in Yellow  TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Wilkie Collins  The Woman in White  TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Richard Connell The Most Dangerous Game  TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition. TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Margaret Deland The Iron Woman  TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Andrew Lang  The Arabian Nights  TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Michael Proust- Swann’s Way   TBC  TBC From 50 Books Volume Two

    Emerson American Civilization (1862)

    Upton Sinclair It Can’t Happen Here 

    James Rollins Arkangel fairfax library

    Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child The Wheel of Darkness fairfax library

    Kaline Bradley the Ministry of Time fairfax library

    Preston and Child Relic (1995)

    Preston and Child Relic Reliquary (1997)

    Preston and Child Relic The Cabinet of Curiosities (2002)

    Preston and Child Relic The Book of the Dead (2006) 

    Preston and Child Relic The Obsidian Chamber (2016)

    Preston and Child Relic Riptide (1998)

    James Rollins Map of Bones (2005)

    James Rollins Black Order (2006)

    James Rollins The Judas Strain (2007)

    James Rollins The Last Oracle (2008)

    James Rollins The Doomsday Key (2009)

    James Rollins The Devil Colony (2010)

    James Rollins The Eye of God (2013)

    James Rollins The 6th Extinction (2014)

    James Rollins The Bone Labyrinth (2015)

    James Rollins The Seventh Plague (2016)

    James Rollins The Demon Crown (2017)

    James Rollins The Last Odyssey (2020)

    James Rollins Kingdom of Bones (2022)

    James Rollins Arkangel (2024)

    James Rollins Subterranean (1999)

    James Rollins Excavation (2000)

    James Rollins Deep Fathom (2001)

    James Rollins Amazonia (2002) 

    James Rollins Riptide (1998)

    John Connolly and Jenifer Ridyard Conquest Chronicles of the Invasion Medford Library

    John Connolly and Jenifer Ridyard Empire Medford Library

    John Connolly and Jenifer Ridyard  Dominon Medford Library

     

     

    Harlan Corbin Books

     Think Twice (2024)

    🔹 Tell No One (2001)]

    Gone for Good (2002)

    The Innocent (2005)

    The Stranger (2015)

     

    O Henry Stories Medford Library

                                 

    From the four Million

    Gift Of The Magi

    A Cosmopolitan In A Cafe.

    The Skylight Room.

    Man About Town.

    The Love Philtre Of Ikey Schoenstein

    Mammon And The Archer 

    Springtime Ala Carte.

    From The Cabbie Seat.  

    An Unfinished Story.

    The Romance Of A Busy Broker.

    After 20 Years.

    The Furnished Room.

    From Heart of the West

    Hearts And Crosses.

    The Ransom Of Mack.

    Telemachus, Friend .

    Handbook Of Hymen.

    Hygeia At The Solito.

    From the Gentle Grafter

    The Hand That Riles  The World.

    The Exact Science Of Matrimony

    Conscience In Art.

    From Cabbages and Kings

    The Lotus and the bottle.

    Shoes.

    Ships.

    Masters of Arts.

    From Options

    The Rose of Dixie.

    A poor rule.

    On the Sixes and Sevens

     

    The Last Troubadours.

    Makes The Whole World Kin

    Jimmy Hayes And Muriel

    The Adventures Of Shamrock Jolnes.

    From Rolling Stones.

     

    The Friendly Call.

    Sound and fury.

    From the Whirlgigs

    The Theory And The Hound.

    The Ransom Of Red Chief 

    The Whirligig Of Life.

    Have Back Blackjack Order.

    $1.00 Worth

    From the Voice of the City

     

    A Lickpenny Lover.

    Doughtery’ eye Opener.

    The Defeat Of The City.

    The Shocks Of Doom.

    Squaring The Circle.

    The Momento.

    From the Trimmed Lamp

    From the trimmed lamp.

    The Trimmed Lamp 

    Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen.

    The Making Of A New Yorker.

    A Harlem Tragedy.

    The Last Leaf.

    The Count And The Wedding Guest

    From Strictly Business

    .The Robe of Peace.

    A Ramble in Aphasia

    A Night In New Arabia.

    Proof Of The Pudding.

    From Waifes and Strays

     

    Hearts and Hands

     

    Non-Fiction

     

    Declaration of Independence

    Judge Luttridge 27 Principles from the Declaration of Independence

     

    DC Library December 10, 2025

     

    George Stewart Earth Abides

    Joseph Finder The Oligarch’s Daughter

    Ward Larsen Deep Fake

    Robert Charles Wilson Julian Comstock A Story of 20th Century America

     

    Poetry

    Anne Frank

    1. Anne Frank’s Tree
    2. Anne Frank’s Tree

    Entou

    1. Thunder and Lightning
    2. Almost Dead

    Lawrencealot

    1. Throw Away Jay’s Way

    Linda Varsell Smith

    1. Pathway

    Robert Brewer Writers Digest

    1. Robert Lee Brewer – Give Me a Reason Zejel
    2. An Old Hymn Still Singing Zejel

    Elegy

    1. David Romano’s “When Tomorrow Starts With Me”
    2. H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues”
    3. John Milton’s “Lycidas”
    4. Mary Oliver’s “In Blackwater Woods”
    5. Ocean Vuong’s “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”
    6. Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain”

    Haiku

    1. Gypsy Blue Rose – Cows Wander at Night
    2. Zebras Zeal Gallop

    Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century Poetry

    1. Edward Lee Masters – The Hill
    2. Fiddler Jones
    3. Petite The Poet

    Edwin Arlington Robinson

    1. Edwin Arlington Robinson
    2. Miniver Cheevy
    3. Flood’s Party

    James Weldon Johnson

    1. James Weldon Johnson
    2. The Creation

    Paul Laurence Dunbar

    1. The Poet
    2. Life
    3. Life’s Tragedy

    Robert Frost – Mod Po Selection

    1. The Death of the Hired Man
    2. Mending Wall
    3. Birches
    4. Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
    5. Tree in My Window
    6. Directive

    Amy Lowell

    1. Patterns

    Gertrude Stein – Mod Po Selections

    1. Susie Asado
    2. From Tender Buttons – A Box
    3. From Tender Buttons – A Plate

    Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson

    1. I Sit and Sew

    Carl Sandburg

    1. Grass
    2. Cahoots

    Wallace Stevens – Mod Po Selections

    1. Peter Quince at the Clavier
    2. Disillusionment of 10:00
    3. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
    4. The Emperor of Ice Cream
    5. A Mere Being

    Angelina Weld Grimke

    1. Angelina Weld Grimke
    2. Fragment

    William Carlos Williams – Mod Po Selections

    1. Tact
    2. Dance Ruse
    3. The Yachts
    4. From Apostle that Greeny Flower Book 1, Lines 1 to 92

    Sara Teasdale

    1. Moonlight
    2. There Will Come Soft Rains

    Ezra Pound

    1. The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance
    2. The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
    3. In a Station of the Metro
    4. Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
    5. From Cantos: 56 Libretto – Yet Ere This Season Died A Cold

    Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) – Mod Po Selections

    1. Sea Rose
    2. Helen
    3. From The Walls Do Not Fall – An Incident Here and There
    4. From Hermeneutic Definition Red Rose and A Beggar – Why Did You Come?
    5. Take Me Anywhere
    6. Venus

    Robinson Jeffers

    1. Gala in April
    2. Shine, Perishing Republic
    3. Clouds at Evening
    4. Credo

    Marianne Moore

    1. Fish
    2. Poetry

    T.S. Eliot

    1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
    2. The Wasteland

    Claude McKay

    1. If We Must Die
    2. The Harlem Dancer

    Archibald MacLeish

    1. Ars Poetica

    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    1. First Fig
    2. Recuerdo
    3. E. Cummings
    4. In Just-
    5. Buffalo Bill
    6. The Cambridge Ladies Who Lived in Furnished Souls
    7. Next to, Of Course, God, America
    8. Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled, Gladly Beyond
    9. Rpophessagr

    Jean Toomer

    1. Reapers
    2. November Cotton Flower
    3. Portrait in Georgia

    Louise Bogan

    1. Medusa
    2. New Moon

    Melvin B. Tolson

    1. Dark Symphony
    2. From Harlem Gallery: Psi – Black Boys, Let Me Get Up From The White Man’s Table

    Hart Crane

    1. From The Bridge
    2. Poem: To Brooklyn Bridge
    3. From The Bridge – Section XI: Powhatan’s Daughter – The River

    Robert Francis

    1. Silent Poem

    Langston Hughes

    1. The Negro Speaks of Rivers
    2. I, Too, Sing America
    3. Dream Boogie
    4. Harlem

    Countee Cullen

    1. Incident
    2. To John Keats, Poet, At Spring Time
    3. Yet Do I Marvel
    4. From The Dark Tower

    Stanley Kunitz

    1. Father and Son
    2. The Portrait
    3. Touch Me
    4. H. Auden
    5. Musée des Beaux arts
    6. Epitaph on a Tyrant

    Theodore Roethke

    1. My Papa’s Waltz
    2. The Waking
    3. In a Dark Time

    Charles Olson

    1. From The Maximus Poems: One – Maximus of Gloucester, To You
    2. The Distances

    Elizabeth Bishop

    1. The Fish
    2. Sestina
    3. First Death in Nova Scotia
    4. Visit to St. Elizabeths
    5. One Art

    Robert Hayden

    1. Middle Passage
    2. Those Winter Sundays
    3. Frederick Douglass

    Muriel Rukeyser

    1. Effort at Speech Between Two People
    2. Then I Saw What the Calling Was
    3. The Poem as Mask

    Delmore Schwartz

    1. The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me

    John Berryman

    1. From The Dream Songs
    2. Feeling Your Compact and Delicious Body
    3. Life, Friends, Is Boring. We Must Not Say So
    4. There Shut Down Once
    5. This World is Gradually Becoming a Place
    6. Henry’s Understanding

    Randall Jarrell

    1. 90 North
    2. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
    3. The Woman at the Washington Zoo
    4. Next Day

    Weldon Kees

    1. To My Daughter

    Dudley Randall

    1. A Different Image

    William Stafford

    1. Traveling through the Dark
    2. At the Bomb Testing Site

    Ruth Stone

    1. Scars

    Margaret Walker

    1. For My People

    Gwendolyn Brooks – Mod Po Selection

    1. The Mother
    2. A Song in the Front Yard
    3. The Bean Eaters
    4. The Lovers of the Poor
    5. We Real Cool
    6. The Blackstone Rangers

    Robert Lowell

    1. To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage
    2. Skunk Hour
    3. For the Union Dead

    Robert Duncan

    1. Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
    2. My Mother Would Be a Falconress

    Lawrence Ferlinghetti

    1. Populist Manifesto

    William Meredith

    1. Parents

    Howard Nemerov

    1. Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry

    Hayden Carruth

    1. The Hyacinth Gardens in Brooklyn
    2. August 1945

    Richard Wilbur

    1. Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
    2. Cottage Street
    3. The Writer

    James Dickey

    1. The Sheep Child

    Allen Ginsberg

    1. Howl

    Richard Hugo

    1. Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg
    2. The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field
    3. The Poem Unwritten
    4. Cademon
    5. Swan in Falling Snow
    6. Who Is Simpson?
    7. American Poetry

    Carolyn Kizer

    1. A Muse of Water

    Kenneth Koch

    1. Fresh Air

    Maxine Kumin

    1. Morning Swim

    Gerald Stern

    1. Behaving Like a Jew
    2. The Dancing
    3. Another Insane Devotion
    4. R. Ammons
    5. The City Limits
    6. Corsons Inlet

    Robert Bly

    1. Snowfall in the Afternoon
    2. Driving into Town to Mail a Letter
    3. Walking from Sleep

    Robert Creeley

    1. The Flower
    2. I Know a Man
    3. The Language
    4. The Rain
    5. Bresson’s Movies

    John Merrill

    1. Victor Dog
    2. Steps

    Frank O’Hara – New York School

    1. Lana Turner Has Collapsed
    2. The Day Lady Died

    John Ashbery – New York School

    1. Some Trees
    2. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
    3. What Is Poetry?

    Galway Kinnell

    1. The Bear
    2. After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
    3. Saint Francis and the Sow
    4. S. Merwin
    5. Air
    6. For the Anniversary of My Death
    7. Yesterday
    8. Chord

    James Wright

    1. A Blessing
    2. Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
    3. Lying in a Hammock at

    Wes Merwin

    1. Air
    2. For the Anniversary of My Death

     

    1. Yesterday
    2. Chord
    3. A Blessing

     

    1. Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, OH
    2. Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, MN
    3. In Response to the Rumor That Otis Warehouse in Wheeling, WV Has Been Condemned
    4. My Son, My Executioner
    5. Digging
    6. Rowing

     

    1. Orion Planetarium
    2. A Valedictorian Forbidding Mourning
    3. From 21 Love Poems 13 The Rules of Break Like a Thermometer

    Gregory Corsa

    1. Marriage

    Gary Snyder

    1. Hay for the Horses
    2. Riprap
    3. Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout

    Derek Walcott

    1. A Far Cry from Africa
    2. Sea Grapes
    3. Find the Schooner Flight Part 11 After the Storm. There’s a Fresh Light That Follows
    4. The Light of the World
    5. From Omeros Book. 7. 44 I Sing of Quiet, Achilles, Afrolabe’s Son

    Miller Williams

    1. Let Me Tell You

    Etheridge Knight

    1. Idea of Ancestry

    Amira Baraka, Leroy Jones

    1. Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
    2. Agony As Now
    3. SOS
    4. Black Art

    Ted Berrigan

    1. Wrong Rain
    2. A Final Sonnet

    Audre Lorde

    1. Power

    Sonia Sanchez

    1. Poetry at 30

    Mark Strand

    1. The Prediction
    2. The Night, The Porch

    Russell Edson

    1. A Stone Is Nobody’s

    Mary Oliver

    1. Singapore
    2. The Summer Day

    Charles Wright

    1. Reunion
    2. Dead Color
    3. California Dreaming

    Lucille Clifton

    1. Homage to My Hips
    2. At Least at Last We Killed the Roaches
    3. The Death of Fry, Alfred Clifton

    June Jordan

    1. Home About My Rights

    Frederick Seidel

    1. 1968
    2. K. Williams
    3. Find My Window
    4. Blades

    Tony Hoagland

    1. The Mechanic

    Michael S. Harper

    1. Dear John, Dear Coltrane
    2. Last Affair. Bessie’s Blues Song
    3. Grandfather
    4. Nightmare Begins Responsibility

    Charles Simic

    1. Stone
    2. Fork
    3. Classic Ballroom Dances

    Paula Gunn Allen

    1. Grandmother

    Frank Bidart

    1. Ellen West

    Carl Dennis

    1. Spring Letter
    2. Two or Three Wishes

    Stephen Dunn

    1. Allegory of the Cave
    2. Tucson

    Robert Pinsky

    1. History of My Heart
    2. The Questions
    3. Samurai Song

    James Welch

    1. Christmas Comes to Moccasin Flat

    Billy Collins

    1. Introduction to Poetry
    2. The Dead

    Toi Derricotte

    1. The Weakness

    Stephen Dobyns

    1. How to Like It?
    2. Lullaby

    Robert Hass

    1. Song
    2. That Photographer?
    3. Return of Robinson Jeffers

    Lyn Hejinian

    1. From My Life: Trim with Colored Ribbons
    2. H. Fairchild
    3. The Machinist Teaching His Daughter to Play the Piano

    Haki R. Madhubuti (Don L. Lee)

    1. But He Was Cool or Even Stopped for Green Lights
    2. Upon To Compliment Other Poems

    William Matthews

    1. In Memory of the Utah Stars
    2. The Accompanist

    Sharon Olds

    1. The Language of the Brag
    2. The Lifting

    Henry Taylor

    1. Barbed Wire

    Tess Gallagher

    1. Black, Silver
    2. Under Stars

    Michael Palmer

    1. I Do Not

    James Tate

    1. The Lost Pilot

    Norman Dubie

    1. Elizabeth’s War with the Christmas Bear
    2. The Funeral

    Carol Muske Dukes

    1. August, Los Angeles Lullaby

    Kay Ryan

    1. Turtle
    2. Bestiary

    Larry Levis

    1. Childhood Ideogram
    2. Winter Stars

    Adrian C. Louis

    1. Looking for Judas
    2. How Much Lux?
    3. The People of the Other Village

    Marilyn Nelson

    1. The Ballad of Aunt Geneva
    2. Star Fix

    Ai

    1. Cuba 1963
    2. The Kid
    3. Finished

    Yusef Komunyakaa

    1. Thanks
    2. To Do Street
    3. Facing It
    4. Nude Interrogation

    Nathaniel Mackey

    1. Song of the Andoumboulou

    Gregory Orr

    1. Gathering the Bones Together
    2. Two Lines from the Brother Grimm
    3. Origin of the Marble Forest

    Robert Hill Long

    1. Reaching Yellow River

    Albert Goldbarth

    1. Away

    Heather McHugh

    1. Language Lesson 1976
    2. What He Thought

    Leslie Marmon Silko

    1. In Cold Storm Light

    Olga Broumas

    1. Calypso

    Victor Hernández Cruz

    1. Latin & Soul

    Jane Miller

    1. Miami Heart

    David St. John

    1. Iris
    2. D. Wright
    3. Why Ralph Refuses to Dance
    4. Girlfriend Poem #3
    5. Crescent

    Carolyn Forché

    1. Taking Off My Clothes

    Jorie Graham

    1. San Sepolcro

    Marie Howe

    1. What the Living Do

    Joy Harjo

    1. She Had Some Horses
    2. My House Is the Red Earth

    Garrett Hongo

    1. The Legend

    Andrew Hudgins

    1. Begotten
    2. We Were Simply Talking

    Brigit Pegeen Kelly

    1. Imaging Their Own Hymns
    2. Song

    Paul Muldoon

    1. Meeting the British
    2. Errata
    3. The Throwback

    Judith Ortiz Cofer

    1. Quinceanera

    Rita Dove

    1. Parsley
    2. Daystar
    3. After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed

    Alice Fulton

    1. Our Calling

    Barbara Hamby

    1. Thinking of Galileo
    2. Hatred

    Mark Jarman

    1. Unholy Sonnet

    Naomi Shihab Nye

    1. The Traveling Onion
    2. Arabic
    3. Wedding Cake

    Alberto Ríos

    1. Nani
    2. England Finally Like My Mother Always Said We Would

    Laurie Sheck

    1. Nocturne Blue Waves
    2. The Unfinished

    Gary Soto

    1. Field Poem
    2. Oranges
    3. Black Hair

    Susan Stewart

    1. Yellow Star and Ice
    2. The Forest

    Mark Doty

    1. Brilliance
    2. Esta Noche
    3. Bill’s Story

    Harryette Mullen

    1. Black Nikes

    Franz Wright

    1. Alcohol

    Lorna Dee Cervantes

    1. To My Brother
    2. Love of My Flesh, Living Death

    Sandra Cisneros

    1. My Wicked, Wicked Ways
    2. Little Clowns, My Heart

    Cornelius Eady

    1. Jack Johnson Does the Eagle Rock
    2. Crows in a Strong Wind
    3. I’m a Fool to Love You

    Louise Erdrich

    1. Indian Boarding School: The Runaways

    David Mason

    1. Spooning

    Marilyn Chin

    1. How I Got That Name
    2. Compose Near the Bay Bridge
    3. The Survivor

    Cathy Song

    1. The Youngest Daughter

    Annie Finch

    1. Another Reluctance
    2. Insert

    Li-Young Lee

    1. The Gift
    2. Eating Together

    Carl Phillips

    1. Our Lady
    2. As from a Quiver of Arrows

    Nick Flynn

    1. Bag of Mice
    2. Cartoon Physics

    Elizabeth Alexander

    1. The Venus Hottentot

    Reetika Vazirani

    1. From White Elephants
    2. A Million Balconies
    3. Train Windows

    Sherman Alexie

    1. What the Orphan Inherits
    2. The Powwow at the End of the World

    Natasha Trethewey

    1. Hot Combs
    2. Amateur Fighter
    3. Flounder
    4. E. Stallings
    5. The Tantrum

    Joana Klink

    1. Spare

    Brenda Shaughnessy

    1. Postfeminism
    2. Your One Good Dress

    Kevin Young

    1. Quivira City Limits
    2. Everywhere is Out of Town
    3. Whatever You Want

    Terrance Hayes

    1. At Pegasus
    2. Lady Sings the Blues

    Terrance Hayes

    1. At Pegasus
    2. Lady Sings the Blues

    Pablo Neruda

    1. Viente Poemas De Amor Poems of Love 1924
    2. Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
    3. Cuerpo De Mujer (Body of a Woman)
    4. Ah Vastness of Pines
    5. Leaning Into the Afternoon
    6. Every Day You Play
    7. Thinking, Tingling Shadows
    8. Tonight I Write
    9. Pablo Neruda, “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines”

    Gypsy Blue Rose

    1. Gypsy Blue Rose Light of the Bright Moon
    2. Gypsy Blue Rose Love Birds
    3. Gypsy Blue Rose I see you dance across life’s stage
    4. Gypsy Blue Rose Adrift Cherita

    Jejeu

    1. Gypsey Blue Rose Over Green Hills a limpid brook flows
    2. Pillow Woman
    3. Steady Breathing warms my Neck
    4. Brian Compton Might I Interject AHD

     

    Judi Van Godner

    Sioux

    1. Mask
    429.               Angel’s Dilemma

    430.               Where Frogs Are

    431.               Garland Seox

    Quin Jejeu Chinese Form

    432.               Ishikawa Jozan Mount Fuji

    433.               Cheng Hao Autumn Moon

    434.               Gyspy Rose BLue

    Waka

    Gyspy Rose blue Geologist

    435.

    Free Verse

    436.               Sierra Scribbler BLISS

    437.               Crookston 2 Daffodil

    438.               Noland Reflections

    Bragi

    439.               Judi Van Gorder Persimmon

    440.               Linda Versa Smith The snowplow heaves snow banks so high

    Lune

    441.               Robert Brewster  Trees Never Wander Lune

    Rondel

    442.               Lady And Louis Two Silver Rings Rondel

    443.               Mountainwriter49 Forever In My Heart Rondel

    Abhanga

    444.               Judi Can Gorder Incomplete Abhanga

    445.               Judi Can Gorder  Magic Moment abhanga

    446.               Rachael the Library is Wwhere Abhanga

    447.               Astrologically Speaking Aghanga

    448.               Tukaram, Words Are The Only Jewels I possess Ahanga

    Writing Com reviews

    449.               Dean Koontz Dragon Tears

    450.                Harlan Ellison“A Boy And His Dog.”

    451.               Fritz Leiber“Spacetime For Springers,”

    452.               Matt Griffin “Schrodinger’s Cat”

    453.                Larry Niven, Rescue Party,

    454.               Azimuth R. Daneel Olivaw

    455.               Roger Zelazny For A Breath I Tarry

    456.                Genesis

    457.                Goethe’s Faust

    458.               E. Housman A Shropshire Lad

    459.                     Keith Laumer“Combat Unit”

    460.                                                           Eregon Proofreading Hell

    461.                                                             Christine B Demonstration of Proof

    462.               Allen Charles A Love Beyond Pain

    463.               Professor Moriatty’s True Confession

    464.               Bobby Lou Steveson Vanwolf

    465.               Beholden Seven

    466.               WD Wilcox Valkyrie

    467.               Kare Enga Pasta Alfredo Please

    468.               Gervic A Hawk’s Gift

    469.               Sumojo Vexatious Valentine

    470.               Cubby on the Road Again, Clinging Hearts

    471.               Peris Throckmortorf Hearts and Darts

    472.               Fye a Simple Blue Note Book

    Manardina

    473.                                                            Lawrencealot – Do All Deceive (Form: Manardina)

    Free Verse

    474.               Kafka The Metamorpousis

    475.               John Gardner Grendel Old English Beowulf

    476.               John Gardner, The Art Of Fiction

    477.                Walt Whitman“Song of Myself.”

    478.                William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow”

    479.                William Carlos Williams’“This Is Just to Say”

    480.               Gwendoly Brooks’ “We Real Cool.”

    481.               TS Elliot the Waste Land

    482.               Sylvia Plath Daddy

    483.               Wallace Stevens Disissluionment of Ten O Clock

    484.               Allen Ginsberg America

    485.               David Ryan Do Not Resuscitate

    Etheree

    486.               Judi Van Gorder Etheree

    487.               Andrea Dietrich Your Wild Awakening

    488.               Andrea Dietrich Anonymous Solitude

    489.               Andrea Dietrich The Lair

    490.               Marie Summer Red Poppy

    491.               Marie Summer Blurred Vision (Double Reversed Etheree)

    492.               Marie Summer Ashen Despair (Double Reversed Etheree)

    Zen Haiku

    493.                ]

    494.               Gypsy Blue Rose at night zen haiku

    495.                Gypsy Blue Rose at the Bay zen Haiku

    Japanese Love Poems

     

    496.                Gypsy Blue Rose When I am Gone Japanese Love Poem

    knitelvers

    497.               Judi Van Gorder How Many Times  Knitelvers

    498.               Larencealot Riskless Investment (Knittelvers)

    499.               EE Cummings 24 Xaipe One Day a Nigger Caught in his Hand

    500.                EE Cummings 48 Xiaipe A kite is the Most Dangerous Machine

    TH Palmer

    501.               TH Palmer  Try Again

    Clerihew

    502.               E Clerihew Bentley Sir Humphrey Davy

    503.               Dan, I Am Taylor Swift

    504.               Alan Mc Alpine Douglas The Road Runner

    505.               James Dean Chase Diana Dalton

    506.               James Dean Chase Corporal Klinger

    507.               Judi Van Gorder  The King Of Pop

    508.               Judi Van Gorder Ms. Amber Heard

    509.               Frank Gibbard  Royal

    510.               Jay O Toole Clerihew Bob Denver

    511.                     James And Marie Summers Garfield The Cat

    512.                     Linda Varsell Smith Supreme Wordster

    513.                   Linda Varsell Smith Electrifying Inventor

     

    Tanka  

    514.                   Princess Nukada I wait for you

    515.                   Takuboku I Shut My Eyes

    516.                   Judi Van Gordner Chill of Soundless Night

    517.                   Dendrobia A cool wind blows in

    518.                   Can Sonmez Subtle hints of spring

    519.                   Cheri L. Ahner Peaceful solitude

    520.                   Ono no Komachi (825-900) Tanka –

    521.                   Ono No Komachi See how the blossoms

    522.                    Tada Chimako

    523.                A Spray of Water: Tanka

    524.                 June Jordan On Time Tanka

    525.                                                           Ono No Komachi The Ink Dark Moon Tanaka

    526.                                                           Mrs. KT Early Spring Rains Thrum

    Other famous poems

     

    527.                John Donne, “The Sun Rising”

    528.                 Emily Dickinson, “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain 

    529.                 Richard Brautigan Gee You’r So Beautiful That is starting to rain

    530.                 Chief Seattle Man Does not weave this web of life he is merely a strand of it What he does to the web, he does to himself

    531.                   Anita Shreve A house with any kind of age will have dozens of stories to tell. I suppose if a novelist could live long enough, one could base an entire oeuvre on the lives that weave in and out of an antique house.

    532.                   Anita Shreve A house with any kind of age will have dozens of stories to tell. I suppose if a novelist could live long enough, one could base an entire oeuvre on the lives that weave in and out of an antique house.

    533.                   Benjamin Franklin You may delay, but time will not

    534.                   Bill Keane Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present

    535.                   Geoffrey Chaucer Time and tide wait for no man.

    536.                   Horrace Mann Lost – yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.

    537.                     Nora Robert’s Three Fates The past is but a thread in the tapestry of our future

    Mad Cow Pastoral Poem

    538.                     Lawrencealot (December 18, 2014) Waiting for Us

    539.                     John Keats’s Odes to a Nightingale

    540.                     Joyce Kilmer Trees

    541.               Anonymous They Learn What We Live

    542.                Edward Lear’s the Owl and the Pussy Cat

    TS Elliot

    543.               T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  “   

    Allen Ginsberg

    544.               Allen Ginsberg Howl

    Lune

    545.               Robert Brewster Trees Never Wander Kelly Lune

    546.               Robert Brewster  An Envelope Labeled Collum Lune

    Pantoum

     

    547.               John Ashberry Hotel Lautréamont

    548.               Natalie Diaz My Brother At 3 A.M

    549.               Denrobia Osprey

    550.               Natalie E Illum Curious George Can’t Swim: A Pantoum

    551.               Blass Falconer A Ride in the Rain

    552.               Judi Van Gorder the Wanderer’s Return

    553.               Judi Van Gorder Seamrog

    554.               Judi Van Gorder Hello Goodbye

    555.               Maria Hummel Station

    556.               Kiandra Jimenez Halcyon Kitchen

    557.               Donald Justice Pantoum of the Great Depression

    558.               Chip Liningston Punta Del Este Pantoum

    559.               Hailey Leithauser O, She Says

    560.               Randal Mann Politics

    561.               Randal Mann Pantoum

    562.               Sally Ann Roberts It All Started with a Packet of Seeds

    563.               Clinton Scollard In The Sultan’s Garden

    564.               David Scheider Pins and Needles

    565.               Evie Shockl

    566.               ey Pantoum Landing, 1975

    567.               Linda Vsrsell Smith Our Changing Cosmic Fabric

    568.               Linda Varsell Smith Grandchildren are Rainbow-light

    569.                   Linda Varsell Smith an Eccentric Grandma

    570.                   Linda Varsell Smith Mole Hole Mode

    571.                   Linda Varsell Smith When Saturn Returned

    572.                   Linda Varsell Smith In Gardens of Earthly Delights

    573.                      Linda Varsell Smith Pantoum: Western version of a Malaysian

    574.                     E Stallings Another Lullaby For Insomniacs

    575.                     Marie Summers Celestial Dreams

    576.                     Marie Summers Seasonal Whispers

    577.                     Sasha Steensen Pantoum

    578.                   Chellie Wood Dance In The Rain

    579.                   Robert Lukeman Life – A Marriane Poem

    580.                   Gypsy Rose Blue Billowing Clouds Chain Haiku’

    581.                     Yamanoue no Okura When I eat Mellons Choka

    582.               anonymous They Learn What We Live

    Acrostic 

    583.               Gabriella 2 Masqueraders

    584.               .Dportwood Rejoice in Life

    585.                .Dportwood Boots and Spur

    Funny Poems

    586.               Anne Scott Missing

    587.               Shel Silverstein Messy Room

    588.               My One-Eyed Love” by Andrew Jefferson

    589.               Larry Huggins Doggy Heaven

    590.               Cynthia C. Naspinksi Our Imperfect Dog”

    591.                    Shelby Greer “The Life of a Cupcake”

    592.                    Joanna Fuchs Yes! No!”

    593.                    Cecilia L. Goodbody “Tinkle, Tinkle, Little Car”

    594.                   Robert Lewis Stevenson My Shadow”

    595.                   “I Atte a Chili Pepper” by Barbara Vance

    596.                   Snap, Crackle, Pop” by Catherine Pulsifer

    597.                    Ogden Nash “The People Upstairs”

    598.                   Spike Milligan “Granny”

    599.                    Julie Hebert ” Dessert Last”

    600.                     Richard Leavesley “Belly Button Magic”

    601.                   Anonymous  “Have You Ever Seen”

    602.                    Laura Elizabeth Richards “Ele telephony”

    603.                    Anonymous “Do You Carrot All For Me?”

    604.                     Darren Sardelli “My Doggy Ate My Essay”

    605.                   Jack Prelutsky “Be Glad Your Nose is On Your Face”

    606.                   Gelett Burgess “My Feet”

    607.                     Inna Renko “Home Alone”

    608.                     Nandita Shailesh Shanbhag Not Smart Enough For a Smart Phone”

     

    LImericks

    609.                   Edwar Lear Sit variorum megrim evacuation

    610.                    Unknown There was a young lady of Niger

    611.                   Judi Van Gorder The parrot was messy and loud.

    612.                   Judi Van Gorder An Irishman came to my city

    613.                   Judi Van Gorder In the flick of an eye she went down.

    614.                   Judi Van Gorder There once was a poet called Tinker

    615.                   Limericks I cannot compose,

    616.                    There was a young woman named Bright,

    617.                   There was an odd fellow named Gus,

    618.                   There once was a fly on the wall

    619.                   There once was a man from Tibet,

    620.                   There was a young woman named Bright,

    621.                   I need a front door for my hall,

    622.                   There once was a boy named Dan,

    623.                    A newspaperman named Fling,

    624.                    I know an old owl named Boo,

    625.                   I once fell in love with a blonde,

    626.                   I’d rather have Fingers than Toes,

    627.                   There was a Young Lady whose chin

    628.                   Hickory Dickory Dock,

    629.                   There was a faith healer of Deal

    630.                   My dog is really quite hip,

    631.                   A painter, who lived in Great Britain,

    632.                   There is a young schoolboy named Mason,

    633.                   There was a young schoolboy of Rye,

    634.                   An elderly man called Keith

    635.                   There was an old man of Peru,

    636.                   The Incredible Wizard of Oz,

    637.                    Once I visited France,

    638.                   It goes quickly, you know,

    639.                    Is it me or the nature of money,

    640.                   There once was a farmer from Leeds

    641.                   A fellow jumped off a high wall,

    642.                   A man and his lady-love, Min,

    643.                    There was a young lady of Cork,

    644.                    There once was a Martian called Zed

    645.                   There once was a girl named Sam

    646.                   Said the man with a wink of his eye

    647.                   A wonderful bird is the Pelican.

    648.                   There was once a great man in Japan

    649.                   There was a young man so benighted

    650.                   There was an old man from Sudan,

    651.                    A maiden at college, Miss Breeze,

    652.                    A canner, exceedingly canny,

    653.                    A mouse in her room woke Miss Dowd

    654.                    There was a young woman named Kite,

    655.                   A flea and a fly in a flue,

    656.                    A major, with wonderful force,

    657.                    A nifty young flapper named Jane

    658.                    “There’s a train at 4:04,” said Miss Jenny.

    659.                    A canny young fisher named Fisher

    660.                    Here’s to the chigger,

    661.                   A cheerful old bear at the Zoo

    662.                    The bottle of perfume that Willie sent

    663.                    I bought a new Hoover today,

    664.                    A crossword compiler named Moss

    665.                    I’m papering walls in the loo

    666.                    There once was an old man of Esser,

    667.                    To compose a sonata today,

    668.                    There was a young lady named Perkins,

    669.                    There was an old man of Nantucket

    670.                   There was a young lady of Kent,

    671.                   There was a young lady named Hannah

    672.                    There was a dear lady of Eden,

    673.                    A certain young fellow named Bee-Bee

    674.                    Remember when nearly sixteen

    675.                    There was an old person of Fratto

    676.                    There was a young man from Dealing

    677.                    As 007 walked by

    678.                   A tutor who tooted the flute

    679.                    No woodsman would cut a wood, would he

    680.                    There once was a man from the sticks

    681.                    A poet whose friends called him Steve

    682.                    If you catch a chinchilla in Chile

    683.                    There once was a man named Mauvette

    684.                   There once was a beautiful nurse

    685.                    There was a young girl from Flynn

    686.                There once was a man from Gorem

    687.                Dylan Thomas

    688.               The Hand that Signed the Paper

    689.

    690.                W. H. Auden

    691.

    692.               2

    866666

    693.               8Political Poetry

     

     

    Dylan Thomas, ‘The Hand That Signed the Paper’

    W. H. Auden, ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’

    Audre Lorde, ‘Power’

    Maxine Kumin, ‘Woodchucks’

    “Bloody Halos and Porcelain Chains”  from “The Lie Within The Line”   [18+] by Jeremy (704)
    “Hidden Bruises”   [E] by Sumojo (759)

    “Run From the Devil”   [18+] by Jayne (1,493)

    “Death’s Spell”   [E] by DMCarroll (66)

    “Light’s Labor Lost”   [E] by ChristineB (99)

    “Motherhood, Lost ”   [13+] by Robin:TheRhymeMaven (211)

     

    Monotetra

     

    Linda Newman Paper Dreams

    Michael Walker An Angel Spoke To Me Today

     

    Allan J Wight A Poet On The Launching Pad

    Robert Brewster No Chance

    Robert Lee Brewer “Waiting for April Showers,”

     

    Jan Turner Spring Eternal

    The Senses of Spring   Jan Turner

    SP Quill Magazine Spring 2006, Vol. #10

    Andrea Ditrich A Summer Alouette

    Judi Can Gorder Month of August

    Linda Varsell Smith Future Possibilities

    Linda Varsell Smith Fourth Dimensional Blueprint

     

    Lune

     

    Robert Brewster Trees Never Wander Kelly Lune

    Robert Brewster  An Envelope Labeled Collum Lune
    71. There once was a man from the city

    694.                   72. There once was a gal from Decatur

    695.                   73. What happens when you retire?

    696.                   74. At times I’m so mad that I’m hopping.

    697.                   75. One Saturday morning at three,

     

    Political Poetry

     

    1.      Dylan Thomas, ‘The Hand That Signed the Paper 

    2.      W. H. Auden, ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’

    3.      Audre Lorde, ‘Power

    4.      Maxine Kumin, ‘Woodchucks’

    5.
    “Bloody Halos and Porcelain Chains”  from “The Lie Within The Line”   [18+] by Jeremy (704)6.
    “Hidden Bruises”   [E] by Sumojo (759)7.
    “Run From the Devil”   [18+] by Jayne (1,493)8.
    “Death’s Spell”   [E] by DMCarroll (66)9.
    “Light’s Labor Lost”   [E] by ChristineB (99)

    10.
    “Motherhood, Lost ”   [13+] by Robin:TheRhymeMaven (211)

    Monotetra

     

    11. Linda Newman Paper Dreams

    12. Michael Walker An Angel Spoke To Me Today

    13. Allan J Wight A Poet On The Launching Pad

    14. Robert Brewster No Chance

    15. Robert Lee Brewer “Waiting for April Showers,”

    Aloulette

     

    16. Jan Turner Spring Eternal

    17. The Senses of Spring   Jan Turner

    18. SP Quill Magazine Spring 2006, Vol. #10

    19. Andrea Ditrich A Summer Alouette

    20. Judi Can Gorder Month of August

    21. Linda Varsell Smith Future Possibilities

    22. Linda Varsell Smith Fourth Dimensional Blueprint

    Lune

    23. Robert Brewster Trees Never Wander Kelly Lune

    24. Robert Brewster  An Envelope Labeled Collum Lune

     

    Writing com

     

    Capuchine Safety Dance

    Solang Bring Be Careful Out There

    Solang Bring Bermudagrass

     

    Robert Brewer “Semantically Speaking,”

    Robert Brewer  Full Throated

    Donald Justice“There is a gold light in certain old paintings,”

    Edgar Allan Poe The Philosophy of Composition

    Robert Lee Brewer Property

    Robert Lee Brewer What I gained

     

    Pantoum Poems

     

    1. Natalie E Illum Curious George Can’t Swim
    2. Kiandra Jimenez Halcyon Kitchen
    3. Chip Livingston Punta del Este Pantoum
    4. Donald Justice Pantoum
    5. Pantoum of the Great Depression
    6. Natlie Diaz Hotel Lautréamont
    7. Natlie Diaz My Brother at 3 A.M.
    8. Randall Mann Politics
    9. Randall Mann Pantoum Landing 1976
    10. Evie Shockley pantoum: landing, 1976
    11. Sasha Steensen Pantoum
    12. Hailey Leithauser O she Says Pantoum
    13. Randal Mann Politics Pantoum
    14. Blas Falconer Station Pantoum
    15. AE Stallings Another Lullaby for Insomnias
    16. Another Lullaby for Insomniacs
    17. Linda Varsell Smith Mole Hole Mode
    18. Kiandra Jimenez Halcyon Kitchen
    19. Chip Livingston Punta Del Este Pantoum
    20. Donald Justice Pantoum of the Great Depression
    21. Linda Varsell Smith Mole Hole Mode

     

    John Donne, “The Sun Rising”   – Yelling at the sun to go away because his love is more important. Close the curtains, man.

    Emily Dickinson, “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”   – Emotional distress is a funeral procession inside her head. A great poem worthy of an awkward “Can I, uh, get you a glass of water or something?”

    Pablo Neruda, “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines”   – This one is a bit meta since he knows he’s being overwrought, claiming his love was so powerful that even the stars shivered in response.

    Richard Brautigan, “Gee, You’re So Beautiful That It’s Starting to Rain”   –

    David Schnider The Art of Presumption  (E)

    Lyrette Form

     

    Anonymous lyrette meta poem

    Gypsy Blue Rose  Sunrise and Sunset Lyrette Poem

    Lawrencealot Our Store circa 1949 (Lyrette)-

     

    Pantoum

    Chain Haiku

     

    Gypsy Rose Blue Billowing Clouds Chain Haiku

    Choka

     

    Yamanoue no Okura When I eat Mellons Choka

    Other famous Poems

     

    Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat”   may seem like whimsical nonsense, but its playful rhymes and surreal imagery also gently mock the seriousness of courtship traditions. Plus, let’s be honest, it takes a bold poet to toss “runcible” around like it meant something.

    T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”   flirts with the absurd by pairing profound existential musings with questions about eating peaches and rolling one’s trousers. A reasonable exploration if one is both profoundly sad and struggling with fruit logistics.

    “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg   uses surreal and absurd imagery to critique societal norms, capitalism, and conformity. Moloch is especially absurd, depicting a monstrous deity that consumes individuality. “Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies!” Nothing like some Lovecraftian capitalism to keep my nightmares consistent

    Richard Brautigan, “Gee, You’re So Beautiful That It’s Starting to Rain”   –
    John Donne, “The Sun Rising”

     Emily Dickinson, “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”   –

    Pablo Neruda, “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” 

    T.S. Eliot Hollow Man

    John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

    Langston Hughes  I, Too

    Langston Hughes Mother To Son  .

    If

    Rudyard Kipling  “Is You?” .
    Rudyard Kipling  IF

     

    Other

     

    Eragon Proofreading Hell

    Christine B Demonstration of Proof

    Jay O Toole Quality Assurance Each Day

         

    Mandarina Form

     

    Lawrencealot – Do All Deceive? December 19, 2014 (Form: Mandarina)

    Tanka

     

    Ono No Komachi The Ink Dark Moon

    David Smith ‘Night Pleasures’

    Dave Scheider Snowflake

    Mrs. Kt Early Spring Rains Thrum

    Dendrobia A cool wind blows in Tanka

    Can Sonmez Subtle hints of spring Tanka

    Cheri Abner Peaceful solitude Tanka

    Ono no Komachi (825-900) Tanka –

    Tada Chikako A Spray of Water:

    June Jordan On Time Tanka –

    Princess Nakada I wait for you

    Takatoku I Shut My Eyes

    Judi Van Gordner Chill of Soundless Night

    Dendrobia A cool wind blows in

    Can Sonmez Subtle hints of spring

    Cheri L. Ahner Peaceful solitude

    Ono no Komachi (825-900) Tanka –

    Ono No Komachi See how the blossoms

    Tada Chikako

    A Spray of Water: Tanka

    June Jordan On Time Tanka

     

     

     

    Marie Summers Celestial Dreams

    Marie Summers Seasonal Whispers

    Sasha Steensen Pantoum

    Chellie Wood Dance In The Rain

     

    Acrostic

     

    Gabriella 2 Masqueraders

    Dportwood Rejoice in Life

    Dportwood Boots and Spurs

     

    Other

     

    Bandit’s Mama City Sorrow About 9-11

    Dr Israel Newman, I Wish

     

    Octain Refrain

    Lawrencealot  Octain Refrain (Abb aca bA)
    Showers Wash the Stars (A bba cab A)
    New Year’s Eve (High Octain) (Abb aca bA Abb aca bA)

    Octain

    Lawrencelot  Octawhat?
    PK Roy Feeling

     

     

    David Schneider Adrift WC Poets Place

     

    Herman Melville Art

    Occhtfochlach

    (Author Unknown) The Ochtfochlach
    Fochlach It (Ochtfochlach)
    © Lawrencealot – December 4, 2013
    Pen Allen Of Allpoetry Sixteen Thirty-Four Door — Double Ochtfochlach

    Alliteration Haiku

     

    Be-Bopping Bluebirds In The Birdbath
    A Banjo Busker’s Ballad Bobbing In The Breeze
    Shooting Star
    Rush Hour In The Rain –
    Beachside Birds
    Long Afternoon

    Japan’s 2011 Shake-Up Octodil
    Wake-Up Call Octodil

    Epistle

     

     Epistles Of St. Paul

    Note To Neighbor:

    Robert Burns Epistle To A Young Friend,

    Horace

    Ovid’s Heroides,

    Alexander Pope’s Moral Essays

    Alexander Pope’s Epistle To Dr. Arbuthnot,

     Elizabeth Bishop’s “Letter To N.Y.,”

     Langston Hughes’s “Letter,”

    Mark Jarman’s  Epistles .

     Bernadette Mayer’s The Desires Of Mothers To Please Others In Letters

    Laynie Browne’s  The Desires Of Letters

    Elana Bell’s Epistolary Poems, Letter To Palestine,”

    Read More Epistolary Poems

    Samuel Daniel Letter From Octavia To Marcus Antonius (1599) In

     Certain Epistles (1601–1603). 

    Ben Jonson The Forest (1616),

    John Dryden Epistles To Congreve (1694)

    Epistles Duchess Of Ormond (1700).

     Alexander Pope Eloisa To Abelard” (1717)

     And Adapted The Horatian Epistle In His Moral Essays (1731–1735) And

     An Epistle To Dr. Arbuhnot (1735).

    1. W. H. Auden/Louis Macneice’s Letters From Iceland (1937).

     Richard Hugo  31 Letters And 13 Dreams (1977). 

    Robert Lowell Elizabeth Hardwick

    Ezra Pound’s Li Po, “The River–Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” (1915).

    Auden’s “Letter To Lord Byron” (1937),

    . Alexander Pope  “Epistle To Dr. Arbuthnot,”

    Stepanie A Cephas  Angel Light (Rhyming) Mirror Sestat Shelley A. Cephas His Pristine Robes (Non-rhyming)

     

    ~ Emily Dickinson There is no Frigate like a Book
    ~ Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for Death,
    ~ Emily Dickinson Fame is a bee.

     

     

    Stepanie A Cephas  Angel Light (Rhyming) Mirror Sestat Shelley A. Cephas His Pristine Robes (Non-rhyming)

     

     

    Good twists are enormously hard to come by, and I think the best ones are earned ones. The idea that a story can take a left turn on you, it’s easy to do, but it has to be done very, very carefully, or else you risk losing the audience’s trust.
    -Damon Lindelof

    The more secrets and twists in a character, the better.
    -Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

    Before I start, I trick myself into thinking I know what’s going to happen in the story, but the characters have ideas of their own, and I always go with the character’s choices. Most of the time I discover plot twists and directions that are better than what I originally had planned.

    -Neal Shusterman

     

     

     

    Edgar Allen Poe The Raven

    Samuel T Colleridge ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel T. Coleridge
    Louis Mac Niece ‘The Sunlight on the Garden’

    Edgar Allen Poe ‘Lenore’

    Thomas Hood ‘The Double Knock’

    David Scheider Writer Stuff

    David Scheider Footprints in Time

    David Schenider “Snowflake” .

     

    gogyohka

     

    Gypsy Blue Rose Under the blooming Tree

    Gypsy Blue Rose you come over me

     

    2 D acrostic

     

     

    Harambe GO

    Harambe Cat

    Haarambe DOG
    Pookietoo Dog
    Julie GI God

    Harambe Test

    Julie GI Aunt

    Tempste Apes
    Harambe diet by Tempeste hate
    Harry T lead
    Terry Riley love
    Karen Cherry test
    Cupa Tea time
    Harambe PUTIN by Harambe:
    Wils birth
    Tid100 robin

    Lana Marie sport
    Julia Helms steam Terry Reily Trump

    Harambe censor
    gothic by Julie Helms **contest #2 winner**
    Gloria Hamlet

    Terry mother

    Tresischel repose
    Terry Riley scream
    John Cranford spring
    Nicki Nance tears
    Wils Travel
    Lisa May writer

    Helvi 2 Flowers
    Harambe gorilla
    YM Roger magical
    Hrambe weather
    Karen Cherry winning

    Harambe acrostic

    Wils harmonic

    Dragonskulls challenge
    Harambe Democrats by Harambe

    Harambe Republicans

     

    Solage

     

     

    1. Kathryn Abel It’s so cold
    2. Kathryn Abel Don’t Understand Cricket
    3. Kathryn Abel A Man Without Care
    4. Kathryn Abel Wrote a Line
    5. Kathryn Abel Soaring Too High
    6. David Schenider October Charm

    Silly Solage

    September 5, 201518

    I’m a little late with poetry Friday this week… but here ’tis. A quick-grab how-to on the fabulously fun solage. For those of you who like a joke – or know some kids who do.

     

    Foodie one:

    Soaring so high
    my pie in the sky.
    Plomp!

    “October’s Charm”

     

     

    Cherita [b. 22 June 1997]
    Gembun [b. 12 June 1997]
    Dua [b. 4 March 2022]

    *

    i get lost again
    cherita 96
    edited by ai li

    *

    blue sky
    dua anthology 13
    edited by ai li

    *

    updates on all forthcoming dua and gembun anthologies
    and our exciting the cherita award

     

    For those of you who missed reading ai li’s essay i, storyteller on Cherita, Gembun and Dua on Rhyvers and viewing her You Tube Cherita video interview for The Wise Owl by Neena Singh, for their special issue on Cherita, here are both links again below.

    Here are ai li’s You Tube interview link : www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnGmkKKQvqo
    and the link for her essay i, storyteller on Cherita, Gembun and Dua
    rhyvers.com/hk22/

    The full transcripts for both can be found on www.thecherita.com/lectures/ as well on the Rhyvers and The Wise Owl’s websites.

    There are now over 4300 views for my Rhyvers essay on Cherita, Gembun and Dua, which appeared on 16 September 2023, with 2600 views the last time I looked, for my You Tube video Cherita interview, which appeared on 30 September 2023, and which The Wise Owl’s Editor Rachna Singh called ‘insightful’.

     

    It is almost a year since I visited Thimphu, Punakha, Gantey, Bumthang and Paro in the Kingdom of Bhutan. I still feel that I left a part of me behind as residual energy, dancing with genius loci under a tall Indian silk tree.

    How can I forget struggling to get out of bed at the unearthly hour of 2 am to catch our only flight of the day from New Delhi to Paro. Paro airport is one of the most dangerous airports of the world akin to Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport which closed in 1998. It is located between Himalayan peaks and deep valleys and rely on only a limited number of highly skilled pilots who are certified to land, particularly in atrocious weather, as they mainly rely on landmarks to land due to limited radar capabilities.

    Our amazing Drukair pilots not only got us safely there and back, but gifted us with the jewel of a dawn, and our very first glimpse of Everest on our side of the aircraft. The early morning light was perfect and the flight turbulence free. Saying that it was a spiritual moment for me is an understatement.

    my first view, from my window seat, of Sagarmartha [the peak of heaven], its Sanskrit name

    Everest holds a special place in my consciousness. My younger nephew David led the very first Singapore expedition to Everest in 1998, and is the author of several motivational books. Shortly after his momentous expedition, he was in a coma for almost two years with Guillain-Barré syndrome. I remember him mentioning to me that he believed he had contracted GBS in Katmandu. His immune system attacked his peripheral nervous system which caused his paralysis and muscle weakness from this rare neurological disorder. If memory serves, he was only able to communicate with his parents with his eye movements.

    After his long recovery, he returned to his love of mountaineering and led over 15 more expeditions though disabled in one lower leg from GBS. What he has been through, and the way he re-started both his personal and professional life still leaves me in awe of the indomitability of the human spirit.

    One Bhutanese individual also came to mind as I’m writing this month’s newsletter.

    In one of the major draughty Paro monasteries, a child monk was bent over his small desk repeating his sutras. I was fully cocooned in fleece from the cold when I saw him with just his prayer robe on. I felt his aloneness. I went over quietly and asked him what he missed most from, and, of home. He looked up at me, and in perfect English, replied that what he missed most was his grandmother cooking her homemade sausages for him every morning for breakfast. We then shared a moment of silent understanding before I apologised for disturbing him, thanked him for speaking with us, and left him to return to his prayers. On my way out of the monastery, I turned around briefly to mentally wish him a long life of learning, freedom from too much suffering, with a hope that his family, particularly his grandmother, would one day be even more proud of him when he emerges as a compassionate and adult Buddhist monk.

    It was only when I returned to our lodge and sat by our clear pristine stream under an impossibly clear blue sky that I remembered I had forgotten to ask his name.

    I have always believed that Hope finds us, when and if, we really need it most.

    *

    February 2025 sees the launch of i get lost again, cherita 96 and blue sky, dua Anthology 13.

    There are now 96 anthologies of the cherita, and are available on Amazon in paperback and kindle, along with 17 Gembun Anthologies, and 13 Dua Anthologies, with more coming your way.

    www.thecherita.com/bookshop/

    *

    i get lost again is our 96th book in the cherita series of storytelling books, with 90 virgin cherita of more timeless stories to hopefully inspire our readers and poets to join our caravanserai of storytellers.

    i get lost again showcases 90 fine cherita and cherita terbalik from writers and poets who hail from UK, USA, Singapore, India, Canada and Germany.

    i get lost again, currently 96th on the list, belongs to the ongoing the cherita series, as do my personal ongoing writing in one breath series of virgin Cherita, Cherita and Tanka, Cherita and Haiku, and Cherita, Tanka and Haiku books, and lastly my poems for inner rooms series with its 18 Tanka and Haiku books. All these books are available in paperback and kindle on Amazon.

    Two of my own books of virgin Gembun, the weight of rain and blank screen, and my two books of Dua, the journey east and dancing shoes, and now arriving nowhere, my first cherita, gembun and dua book, have all been added to my writing in one breath series.

    I have edited this book as I have all the other anthologies of the cherita, to be experienced two ways. It can be read as one storybook but also as an anthology of individual poems. Two reading experiences within one book, filled with stories of Life, Love, Loss and Renewal.

    cherita terbalik continues to capture the imagination of poets and there are again fine examples in this edition.

    Featured Poets as they appear in this anthology :-

    ai li/ Joanna Ashwell/ Barun Saha/ Ceri Marriott/ Jan Stretch/ Neena Singh/ Partha Sarkar/ Biswajit Mishra/ C.X. Turner/ Barun Saha/ Daniel W. Brown/ Teri Messmer/ Vidya Premkumar/ Nolcha Mir Fox/ Lisa Ann Sparaco/ Taura Scott/ Ram Chandran/ john zheng/ Isabella Kramer/ Larry Kimmel/ Laughing waters/ Sigrid Saradunn/ Lee Hudspeth/

    Six sample virgin Cherita from this anthology :-

    young windows
    paint the wall
    with summer

    an old ceiling
    hanging
    beyond sight

    Barun Saha

    *

    from my deck chair
    the softening
    colours of the sky

    the stillness of the air

    the peace
    I wish for all

    Jan Stretch

    *

    fallen blossoms

    I pause
    to listen
    for the echo

    of familiar
    footsteps

    Neena Singh

    *

    my collection
    of designer sunglasses

    now retirees

    trying
    to remember
    the sun

    ai li

    *

    floating
    like mist across the bridge

    from her world
    to mine
    we touch

    but only briefly

    C.X. Turner

    *

    this morning
    rain

    on the field

    breathe in, breathe out
    the duet
    of existence

    Daniel W. Brown


    the cherita lighthouse     has been awarded to the following writers and poets in this anthology for their timeless Cherita :

    Jan Stretch/ Neena Singh/ C.X. Turner/ Daniel W. Brown/ Teri Messmer/ Partha Sarkar/ Isabella Kramer/

    *

    blue sky is our dua anthology 13, and it appears alongside i get lost again this month.

    https://www.thecherita.com/dua-bookshop/

    blue sky, our 13th Dua Anthology with 90 virgin Dua poems, has attracted writers and poets from UK, USA, Singapore, Germany, India and Canada.

    I would like to thank all the contributing poets and writers for their patience and hope they will find blue sky a worthy read.

    Featured Poets as they appear in this edition:

    Pitt Büerken/ Prashanth V/ Ceri Marriott/ ai li/ Richa Sharma/ Vidya Premkumar/ Bryan Rickert/ Jan Stretch/ Allison Douglas-Tourner/ Karina Klesko/ nivy/ Partha Sarkar/

     

    A dua bella has been awarded to the following writers and poets in this edition :

    Vidya Premkumar/ Pitt Büerken/ Partha Sarkar/ Allison Douglas-Tourner/ nivy/ Jan Stretch/

    Six sample virgin dua from this anthology :-

    dipped a toe in the river

    now part of the sea

    Jan Stretch

    *

    rainbow-coloured

    the smallest umbrella

    Richa Sharma

    *

    a lake

    that autumn colours

    ai li

    *

    a rendezvous

    with his scent

    Karina Klesko

    nursery

    a bud calls out

    nivy

    *

    the writing on the wall,

    was it always there?

    Ceri Marriott

    *

    This is the March update on the cherita award :

    Someone asked me the other day what a cherita lighthouse was.

     

    These are timeless pieces of cherita that resonate with me, and hopefully with our readers as well, was my answer, and which are worthy of a special award which the cherita lighthouse, as well as a gem and dua bella are, for gembun and dua respectively. These are pieces that can be read in your mind or aloud.

    Here are six beautiful virgin Cherita which I awarded the Lighthouse awards to from home for the wind, dream journal and wondering where, three titles from our cherita anthologies collection, to hopefully inspire and guide you to the many possibilities possible with my storytelling genre in 6 lines.

    If anyone is seriously considering writing Cherita well, my advice is for you to get hold of a copy of either one or both of our Cherita Award books or any of my own books which will help as reference guides for widening the storytelling scope for creating timeless Cherita.

    I hope this cherita will further inspire you, should you decide to submit your virgin cherita for the cherita award? We also now have Joanna Ashwell and Ceri Marriott, our first two Cherita Award recipients, with River Lanterns and soiree, their respective books. Who will be our next Cherita Award poet?

    dandelion
    wish
    hides

    in a spider web
    waiting

    to be blown away

    Pat Geyer
    from home for the wind
    the cherita

    *

    unfettered

    I let
    myself go

    a red kite’s wings
    measure the width
    of this loneliness

    Debbie Strange
    from home for the wind
    the cherita

    *


    a way out

    perhaps
    or is this

    another sliding door
    where time jars
    between a dream

    Joanna Ashwell
    from dream journal
    the cherita

    *

    the butterfly

    in me
    in you

    let’s see
    where . . .
    the breeze takes us

    Caroline Skanne
    from dream journal
    the cherita

    *

    this time again

    I prepare my mind
    to study harder

    but then
    my eyes fell on the world outside,
    playing with the wind

    Muskaan Ahuja
    from wondering where
    the cherita

    *

    searching
    for an apple

    to curl up in

    and
    give birth
    to the rain

    Réka Nyitrai
    from wondering where
    the cherita

    For all new entrants, please be aware that fewer words in your cherita are always more, and to not repeat a subject matter often, unless of course you are able to come to it from a very different angle or perspective, rendering it anew. You want your portfolio to be one of timelessness and wonder, and to avoid a sameyness of subject matter which would inevitably make your portfolio bland and yawn inducing.

    *

    Here’s March 2025’s update on the forthcoming Gembun Anthologies 18-20:

    With a bit of luck, Anthology 18 should be the next anthology to appear soon.

    Anthology 19 is very nearly there with just a few spots left to fill.

    Meanwhile, Anthology 20 is filling up with your timeless gembun.

    Do please keep sending in your wonderful gembun stories but be aware that I do not read simultaneous submissions. Please do not send in work you have submitted elsewhere.

    The Gembun Anthologies 1 – 17 [snow clouds, evening, paper talisman, windswept rain, deepening night, the old, white flowers, coming home, bedtime story, rain song, ice storm, belonging, the water, dancing silhouette, empty bottles, i remember and just before dark] are now available on Amazon in paperback and kindle, thanks to all your amazing enthusiasm and strong faith for, and in this genre.

    Careful collating and editing are crucial for each anthology, for it to be a timeless work of short stories in the gembun format.

    Meanwhile, if you have written gembun that you consider to be special, please do not hesitate to send them in.

    Full details on the link below if you have not, as yet, sent in your Gembun/Gembun Terbalik for consideration.

    www.thecherita.com/gembun-anthos/

    Fine examples by Larry Kimmel, Joanna Ashwell and myself can be found, along with Gembun’s original guidelines on my personal website www.aili.co.uk/gembun/

    *

    Here too, is March 2025’s update on the other forthcoming Dua Anthologies 14-16 :

    Anthology 14 is now complete and wating for me to give it a  final proof reading.

    Anthology 15 is very nearly there.

    Meanwhile Anthology 16 is steadily filling up with more and more of with your timeless dua.

    Writing good Dua requires a different mental discipline to Gembun and Cherita but it can be just as good a workout for our brain cells. Your storytelling skills are kept honed when you write all these three unique short form poetry genres. Seriously though, can we resist a challenge to tell our stories in a timeless fashion? I know I can’t. All these three genres challenge me to become a better storyteller in 6, 4 and 2 lines.

    All Dua Anthologies 1 – 13 [remembering, I know the way, the light dying, the rain, something rare, all is dark, listening to the ocean, no longer sky, home in rain wildflowers were here, in the room, hammock afternoon and blue sky] are now available on Amazon in paperback and kindle, thanks to all your faith in Dua and your creative flair for telling stories even more minimally than Cherita and Gembun.

    Tough editing is essential for each anthology, for it to be a strong and timeless book of minimal stories in the dua format.

    You will find full info for this dua and its guidelines on www.thecherita.com/dua
    and on www.aili.co.uk/dua

    If you have written dua that you consider to be special, please do not hesitate to send them in stories but be aware that I do not read simultaneous submissions. Please do not send in work you have submitted elsewhere.

    Full details on the link below if you have not, as yet, sent in your Dua for consideration.

    www.thecherita.com/dua

    Fine examples by ai li can be found, along with Dua’s original guidelines on my personal website www.aili.co.uk

    *

    NEW SUBMISSION GUIDELINES JANUARY 2025

    Please can you now submit all of your submissions in Arial 11 font size, left justified with no italics, and also use our standard submission email for all our genres. This will be in effect as of now.

    You will still be required to fill in your hometown/city and country with all submissions [this info is for our files] but only your country will be published in our books from this edition onwards. This will help speed up my proof reading.

    There are also no longer any deadlines for submissions which are now on an ongoing basis.

    Edition # 8.7 will be the last book numbered this way. From January 2025, all our books will be simply numbered, starting with Cherita 94, Cherita 95, Cherita 96 and so forth. This new numbering style will be incorporated in all the acceptance letters.

    from sandalwood dreaming by ai li

     

    rain
    has come

    to
    my night
    i step into

    the mirror

     

    ai li
    from sandalwood dreaming by ai li

     

    *

    ai li

    CHERITA [1 — 2 — 3]
    [pronounced CHAIR-rita]

     

     

    temple bell

    through fog
    dawn

    is still
    a
    haunting away

    from paper flowers by ai li

     

     

     

    General Information on the Gembun and Dua Anthologies

    All our anthologies have 90 poems within.

    In the next few months or so, I will endeavour to launch the finished anthologies which I hope to launch alternating with the dua anthologies, where possible, as you have all been saints with your inspirational patience.

    I would also like to profusely thank all the poets whose gembun and dua have been selected for the forthcoming anthologies for being so patient.

    My wish, as I have indicated before, is for the both Anthologies to become a fluid and ongoing series for showcasing the best of the Gembun and Dua genres with the gems from your writing. That has not changed.

    Gembun and Cherita share the same year of birth and hopefully they will continue to celebrate storytelling with Life, Love, Loss and Renewal into and beyond their third decade.

    Dua may not have been around as long as Gembun and Cherita, but it is part and parcel of a storytelling trio which perpetuates the stories of Life, Love, Loss and Renewal.

     

    “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

    Mother Teresa

     

    Stephen King “The secret about writing, is sit down and write.”

     

    Other

     

    Robert Lee Brewer “Comfort Killers,”

    Robert Lee Brewer “summer song,

     

    Gypsy Blue Rose Today

     

    Solage

     

     

    1. Kathryn Abel It’s so cold
    2. Kathryn Abel Don’t Understand Cricket
    3. Kathryn Abel A Man Without Care
    4. Kathryn Abel Wrote a Line
    5. Kathryn Abel Soaring Too High
    6. David Schenider October Charm

     

    Oddquain

     

    Cynthia Kay ArmstrongAutumn Cynthia Kay Armstrong Hope Cynthia Kay Armstrong Cards Cynthia Kay ArmstrongGlenda L. Hand Change of Seasons (Mirror Oddquain)Glenda L. Hand Celebration (Butterfly Oddquain)Glenda L. Hand At Last I’ve Let Go (Crown Oddquain)

    Claire Litchfield  Glad
    Linda Smith Tidbits Seen Through a Window

    Linda Smith Nnibble Dove dark chocolate

    JVG They Keep Coming

    Gypsy Rose Blue A rose represents

    Gypsy Rose Blue wilted rose bouquet

    Gypsy Rose Blue roses stand erect

     

    Gypsy Blue Rose under the blooming tree TWO GOGYOHKA EXAMPLE

    Gypsy Blue Rose you come over me
    Gypsy Blue Rose Roses stand erect

    Lawrencealot A piaku
    C.W. Bryan a piaku-

    Gypsy Blue Rose Today

    Stephanie Abney New Born La Pensee
    Stephanie Abney Grandkids La pense

    Stephanie Abney Freedom

    Stephene Abney Ice Cream

     

    Eric Golner Rick form creator’s example

    Lawrencealot Captive Form Rick’s 32

     

    John Barr the south China Sea

    John Baar Gloria Visits the Fry House

    John Baar Chant for a Hurricane

     

    Lee-jae-Young From Blossoms

    Rictameter

     

     

    Jason Wilkins Beauty

    Jason Wilkins Satin

    Aubrey Steedman Childhood

    Judi Van Gorder Listening

    Judi Van Gorder Memo To Hotshot

     

    Qoute  “The secret about writing, is sit down and write.” – Stephen King

    Memento

     

    Emily Romano Gardening The Rose*

    Jan Turner  *Commemorating The Holiday Of Roses

    Graduation By Judi Van Gorder
    Holiday At Low Tide By Judi Van Gorder

     

    Payar

     

    Judi Van Gorder Temptation
    Lawrencealot Non Pro Se (Form: Payar) –

     

    7-7-7-7

     

    Gypsy Blue Rose Love the Black Widow Spider

     

    Gypsy Blue Rose Today I Wrote a Love Poem for You

    Cinquin

     

    Jeanne Cassir’s First Visit to the Ocean

    Quotes

    Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.~~Robert Frost

    Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity — it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.~~John Keats

    Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.~~Carl Sandburg

    Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.~~Plutarch

    With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.~~Edgar Allan Poe

    If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.~~David Carradine

    To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears.~~Octavio Paz

    Stephen King “The secret about writing, is sit down and write.”

     

    Nove Otto

     

    Scott J. Alcorn Canebrake WhispersScott J. Alcorn Caribbean Nights

    Tybun

     

    Marion Gibson  Sowing tyburn

    Japanese haiku:

     

    Bachao Old pond

    Gypsy Blue Rose Sunday morning light
    Lawrencealot We Missed the Dance

     

    Rictameter

    Jason Wilkins Beauty

    Jason Wilkins Satin

    Aubrey Steedman Childhood

    Judi Van Gorder Listening

    Judi Van Gorder Memo To Hotshot

     

    Robert Brewer

     

    Robert Brewer Better yet

    Robert Brewer AI Did Not Write This Poem

    1.    Robert Lee Brewer The Last Thing

     

    Anonymous She left the porch light on.
    Maya Angelo Still I RiseRobert Frost ~ Fire and Ice Rudyard Kipling If

    Lai

     

    Mike Montreuil March 2026

    Judi Van Gorder Aliens

     

    The Perseids
    Crowning a Fairy
    Staying In

     

    Trimeric Poem

     

    Robert Lee Brewer About Superheroes,

    Judi Van Gorder Customer Service

    Alan J Wright Inkblock

    Linda Versa Smith Crows and Ravens

     

    1st Place ~ “Gone Things”  by

    2nd Place ~ “Lost in One’s Own Mind”  by

    3rd Place ~ “Crossing Sevens”  by

    HM ~ “Pad Thai ผัดไทย”   by  (941)

    HM ~ “Taps For Claire”   by  (3,180)

    HM ~ “Hello Memories — Goodbye, Immutable ”  by

     

    Acrostic monorhyme

     

    Bianca More for the fun, than for the need

     

    La Pensee

     

     Stephanie Abney New Born
    Stephanie Abbey Grandkids

    Stephanie Abbie Freedom

    Stephanie Abbey Ice Cream

     

     

    Fan Story Review

    Tikok Poem: The Moon Rises Slowly Above The Still Sea

     

     

    Epic Epitat

     

    Merv Griffin: “I Will Not Be Right Back After This Message.”
    John Yeast: “Here Lies Johnny Yeast. Pardon Me For Not Rising.”
    Jane Doe: “Just Close Your Eyes And You Will See

     

    Sparrowlet

     

    Judi Van Gorder Lets Talk

    Ron Rowland Facing The Storm

    Katheen Sparrow Deer In Winter

     

     

     

    Estonian Haiku

    Jürgen Rooste Nordic Walk

     

    Author unknown, In complete darkness we are all the same.

     

    JD Gorder Dance with Wind

    Linda Versa Smith new techno gizmos

     

     

     

    Cascade

     

    Judi Van Gorder Vote
    Udit Bhatia  Cascade Poem

    Cascade Anxious Inquiry

     

    Quotes to Ponder

    Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.~~Neale Donald Walsh

    If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.~~John C. Maxwell

    You will never improve in life if you’re always living on easy street. Strength and progress can be gained if only you just step outside of your comfort zone.~~Dee Waldeck

    Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zones. We have to break the rules. And we have to discover the sensuality of fear. We need to face it, challenge it, dance with it.~~Kyra Davis

    As you move outside of your comfort zone, what was once the unknown and frightening becomes your new normal.~~Robin Sharma

    If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.~~Thomas Jefferson

    Quotes to Ponder

    Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.~~Neale Donald Walsh

    If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.~~John C. Maxwell

    You will never improve in life if you’re always living on easy street. Strength and progress can be gained if only you just step outside of your comfort zone.~~Dee Waldeck

    Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zones. We have to break the rules. And we have to discover the sensuality of fear. We need to face it, challenge it, dance with it.~~Kyra Davis

    As you move outside of your comfort zone, what was once the unknown and frightening becomes your new normal.~~Robin Sharma

    If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.~~Thomas Jefferson

     

    “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

    1. At Christmas, all roads lead home.~~Marjorie Holmes“It’s not what’s under the Christmas tree that matters, it’s who’s around it.~~Charlie BrownChristmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.~~Dr. Seuss

     

     

    Lotus Tasseri  Scribblings

    Lancelot Backyard

    Fan Story review

     

    1. Annoymous be here for a while
    2. Annoymous beautiful butterflies
    3. John Crawford My Wee Abode
    4. Pearl Edwards Nature’s Recycler’s
    5. Evelinne a Fan Story Halloween
    6. Cecilia A Heiskary Ghoul’s Night Out
    7. Rama Devi Meditation
    8. Cecilia Hesikary
    9. Private Face
    10. Debbie D’Arcy Mary Shelley
    11. Debbie D’Arcy Lord Bryon
    12. Debbie D’Arcy Volodymyr Zelensky
    13. Karen Cherry Common Sense for Seniors 337-348
    14. Rick Gardner Innocent of Guilty
    15. Harry Craft A Kangaroo from Baraboo
    16. Nicki B Robin Williams
    17. Harry Craft, the Cell Phone
    18. Estory In this Autumn Time
    19. Cecilia a Heiskary Watcher at the Window
    20. Cecilia A Heiskary Panda
    21. Janet Foor God’s Back Yard
    22. Mrs Anna Howard: Difficult Decisions
    23. Harambe iz ur Daddy rejected
    24. Sally Law, Blood Moon and Blood Rain
    25. Robert Lukeman Life – A Marriane Poem
    26. Pam Lonsdale Descent
    27. Kentucky Sweet Pea My Dogma
      Debbie Pick Marquette Thelma and Louise
    28. Debbie Pick Marquette Finding the Bright Side
    29. Debbie Pick Marquette March
    30. Debi Pick Marquette My Bedroom Window
    31. Debi Pick Marquette, Happy St Patrick’s Day
    32. Debbie Pick Marquette The Need to Share
    33. Nancy Jam Love in the w
    34. jacquelyn popp Mom’s Love
    35. Jaquelyn Poop Living the Dream, No Thank You
    36. Iraven Prayers for Eva
    37. Pam Respa Humanity
    38. Pam Respa, Renowned Violinist
    39. Pamusart I am Helpless
    40. Pamusart Colorful world
    41. Pamusart the Kidnapping
    42. Pamusart the Kidnapping Chapter Two
    43. Pamusart Sturdy Roots
    44. Pamusart Your Golden Aura
    45. Pamusart The Sword
    46. Pamusart The Planet Earth
    47. Barry Penfold Slow Dance with You
    48. Pam Respa Humanity
    49. Sanku the Woods
    50. Stacy MS Vanishing Points
    51. YM Roger Always For Now
    52. Fan Story Review
    53. Debbie D’ Arcy Bee Gees
    54. Debbie D’Arcy Shotgun Willie Nelson
    55. Janet Floor Daybreak
    56. Anna Howard How to Move On
    57. Nicki Nance Emotional Support
    58. Pamusart On Finding Peace
    59. Pamusart Jean Marie Lane
    60. Pamusart the Empty Notebook
    61. Winter Bard Ode to Night
    62. Rachael Allen Proud to Be His Daugther
    63. Rick Gardner Wishes to Have
    64. Cecilia A Heiskary Sumatran Orangutan
    65. Cecilia A Heiskary Guiana Red-Face Monkey
    66. Dolly’s Poems the Witching Hour
    67. Kapot Swimming in Pain
    68. Debbie Pick Marquette Men are From Mars, Women from Venus
    69. Miss Merrie This Love
    70. Nancyjam the meadow
    71. Gypsy Blue Rose Billowing Clouds
    72. Pamusart The Kidnapping Chapter 3
    73. Tea for Two It was the Shoes
    74. Tea for Two Wordsmiths with Big Faces
    75. Anonymous Today
    76. Anonymous Cougar on the Prowl
    77. Anonymous Cougar on the Prowl
    78. Debbie D’Arcy Mary Shelley
    79. Cecilia, a Heiskary Watcher at the Window
    80. Cecilia Heiskary Janguars
    81. Cecilia A Heiskary Insane
    82. Anonymous I am Fire
    83. Anonymous Ode to My Scrunchies
    84. Anonymous Wildfire Naani
    85. Anonymous – A Tick A Tock
    86. Anonymous – To Shelter Feathered Songs
    87. Anonymous Even the Odds contest Carl Sanberg
    88. Anonymous Nonesense
    89. Anonymous Female Strength in Nature
    90. Anonymous Loon
    91. Anonymous – Owl on the Hunt
    92. Anonymous the Wild Side
    93. Patrick Bernady Her Rage
    94. Jamison Brown Before the Wind Calls
    95. lJbutterfly Prayer for Debbie Pick Marquette
    96. Debbie D’Arcy Anne Frank
    97. Debie D’arcy James Baldwin
    98. Debbie D’Arcy – Jimmy Carter
    99. Harry Craft I Was a Spy
    100. Harry Craft What Happened to the Word Groovy
    101. Harry Craft What Does Freedom Mean to You?
    102. Harry Craft – Peace
    103. John Crawford Rudyard Kipling
    104. Donald Saacca Forever friends
    105. Donaldandvicki – Tender Trap
    106. Rick Gardner the Sun, the Desert, the One
    107. Douglas Goff – Perspective
    108. Dolly Poems Granite Island
    109. Elias Noor The Whispher of Time
    110. Finback Never
    111. Finback When Shadows Creep
    112. Gypsey Rose Blue Gardens of Delight
    113. Cecilia a Heikary Bobcat
    114. Cecila Heiskary – Brown Bear
    115. Cecilia A Hiskary Horses
    116. Ceclia A Heiskary The Magic
    117. Cecilia A Heiskary – Night Life
    118. Cecila Heiskary – Snow
    119. Christy 710 – Happy New Year from Aus
    120. Marylyn Hamilton Darkness Descends
    121. Marylyn Hamilton He Waits
    122. Marylyn Hamilton Winging It
    123. Tom Hormoz A Griever’s Prayer
    124. Tom Horonzy Rumpelstilskin Unleashed
    125. Kaput howling at Moon Haiku
    126. Kt Silent Dancers
    127. KT Shades of Blue –
    128. Mrs KTEnding Pain’s Servitude
    129. 5 fish JM Jenca
    130. Debbie Pick Marquette Believe in Miracles
    131. Debi Pick Marquette My Cornea Disease
    132. Debbie Pick Marquette – Keeping Gypsy in Prayers
    133. Debbie Pick Marquette – My Lifetime
    134. Debbie Pick Marquette Romance on the Beach
    135. Me and Erin G – Long Gone Away
    136. Lana Marie Hairy Nipple
    137. Paul McFarland January
    138. JUMBO 1 Shame
    139. Pam (respa) Black History Month
    140. Tea for Two Eclectic Wordsmiths
    141. Ean Black I Write
    142. Richard Frohm Dreams
    143. KiwiSteveh Sudden Tears
    144. Lana Marie The Dash Between
    145. Pamusart – The Kirby Part 1
    146. Pamusart – The Kirby Part 2
    147. Pamusart – The Kirby Part 3
    148. Pamusart – The Kirby Part 4
    149. Pamusart – The Kirby Case Part 5
    150. Pamusart – The Kirby Case Part 6
    151. Pamusart – The Kirby Case Part 7
    152. Pamusart – The Kirby Case Part 8
    153. Pamusart Rembering the Past
    154. Pamusart Old Man at the River
    155. Pamusart The Great Apes
    156. Pamusart cooing doves
    157. Pamusart Exploding Star
    158. Pamusart Purple Flowers Wake
    159. Pamusart the Search
    160. Pamusart On Finding Peace
    161. Pamusart Jean Marie Lane
    162. Pamusart the cavesweet
    163. Pamusart Independence
    164. Pamusart the Broken Man
    165. Lea Tonin – Famitree Flames
    166. Lea Tonin1 – Humiston
    167. Lea Toni1 – Mansion
    168. Lea Toni1 – The Meet
    169. Alexandra Trovato A Monster Schemes Under Your Bed
    170. Alexandra Trovato A Timely Trump Limerick
    171. Willie P Smith – Sleigh Ride
    172. Willie P Smith – Walk with Me
    173. Teafor2 – Last Night of the Year
    174. Jessica Wheller – Waking Daisy
    175. Jessica Wheller – January Wind
    176. Nicki Nance Emotional Support
    177. Cecilia A Heiskary Daffodils
    178. Cecila A Heiskary Jaguaurs
    179. Cecila A Heiskary Insane
    180. Cecilia A Heiskary Insane
    181. Cecilia Heiskary Daffodils
    182. Debbie D’arcy Rest
    183. Annonymous Golden Years
    184. Anonymous AI Future
    185. D’Arcy Rest
    186. Cecilia A Heiskary Jagaurs
    187. Cecilia A Heiskary Insane
    188. Gyspy Rose blue Geologist Waka
    189. Annoymous AI Future
    190. Annoymous Tiny Puppy
    191. Karen Cherry Common Sense for Seniors 337-348
    192. Rick Gardner Innocent of Guilty

     

    1. Harry Craft A Kangaroo from Baraboo
    2. Nancyjam Love in the winter
    3. Debbie Pick Marquette Finding the Bright Side
    4. Debbie Pick Marquette March
    5. Pamusart The Sword
    6. Pamusart The Planet Earth
    7. Barry Penfold Slow Dance with You
    8. YM Roger Always For Now
    9. Arabellesom Mom Truest Love Ever Known
    10. Debbie D’Arcy Lord Bryon
    11. Nicki B Robin Williams
    12. Harry Craft the Cell Phone
    13. Estory in this Autumn Time
    14. Mrs Anna Howard Difficult Decisions
    15. Debbie Pick Marquette Thelma and Louise
    16. Pamusart Your Golden Aura
    17. Rachell Allen Public Face/Private Face
    18. Anonymous Today
    19. Rachael Allen Exceptional Teacher
    20. Debbie D’Arcy Voldymyr Zelensky
    21. Kentucky Sweet Pea My Dogma
    22. Pamusart The Kidnapping
    23. Pamusart the Kidnapping Chapter Two
    24. Pam Respa Rennoved Violinst
    25. Rachael Allen Proud to Be His Daugther
    26. Rick Gardner Wishes to Have
    27. Cecilia A Heiskary Sumatran Orangutan
    28. Cecilia A Heiskary Guiana Red-Face Monkey
    29. Dolly’s Poems the Witching Hour
    30. Kapot Swimming in Pain
    31. Debbie Pick Marquette Men are from Mars, Women from Venus
    32. Miss Merrie This Love
    33. Nancyjam the Meadow
    34. Gypsy Blue Rose Billowing Clouds
    35. Pamusart the Kidnapping Chapter 3
    36. Pamusart Colorful world
    37. Pamusart the World Around Lavenders
    38. Annoymous Maladorous
    39. Tea for Two It Was the Shoes
    40. Tea for Two Wordsmith with Big Faces
    41. Iraven Prayers for Eva
    42. Sally Law Blood Moon and Blood Rain
    43. Jaquelyn Poop Living the Dream, No Thank You
    44. Debi Pick Marquette My Bedroom Window
    45. Debi Pick Marquette Happy St Patrick’s Birthday
    46. Debi Pick Marquette My Bedroom Window
    47. Debi Pick Marquette Happy St Patrick’s Birthday
    48. Rven Prayers for Eva
    49. Jennifer Secret Rendezvous
    50. Sally Law’s Blood Moon and Blood Rain
    51. Jaquelyn Poop Living the Dream, No Thank You
    52. Sanku A New Day
    53. Aiona I Am Photine
    54. Annyomous Too Many Boyfriends For This Is Serious
    55. Annyomous Cary Hope
    56. Annyomous Cicada Watch
    57. Annyomous Ned the Postman
    58. Brad Bennett I Saw A Man Walking Crying
    59. Carasdreams Betrayal
    60. Cullen Bob I Just Want To Leave Things Be
    61. Chris Davies Irish
    62. Iza Dealeanu The Wandering Queen
    63. Dolly’s Poems Graveyard Shift
    64. Cecilia A Heiskary Fun Time
    65. Rick Gardner April Is Today And The Next Day
    66. Brenda Strauser Early Signs Of Spring
    67. Alexandra Trovato Real Love
    68. Rachell Allen’s Perception Of Time
    69. Dolly’s Poems Speak Up: A Sonnet
    70. Jim Vechio   The House Of The Raison Bun
    71. Stu Harrel Columbus Calls To Me
    72. Pam Respa Delicate Blossoms
    73. Gypsy Blue Rose The The Treasure Inside
    74. Rsport Daunting Chasm
    75. Debbie Pick Marquette Regina’s Birthday
    76. Jessizero In Memoriam
    77. Roy Owen Love’s Measure
    78. JLR DO Over
    79. Ricahrd E Parkison Life in an Hourglass
    80. Jamison Brown The Declaration Then and Now
    81. Rama Devi writing rhymes
    82. Rama Devi Extinction
    83. Stoncosos1 Sunset Sleeps
    84. Richard E Parkison Life In an Hourglass
    85. Lancellot An Old Man’s Folly
    86. Clockwise Grief in Gray
    87. Cecillia A Heiskary The Forest
    88. Miss Merri Out of the Winter
    89. Jim Wille Streaming Woe
    90. Jim Wille Trolling the Bureaucrats
    91. Anonymous My Guiding Light
    92. Anonymous Shingles
    93. Beth Shelby Spring Sonnet
    94. Harry Croft A Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer
    95. Dolly’s Poem Bee Business
    96. Dolly’s Poem: Life is Short
    97. Dolly’s Poems Contemp of Youth
    98. Dolly’s Poem: The Arabian Sea
    99. Dolly’s Poem: Shadows Lurk Sonnet
    100. Dolly’s Poems: He Changed
    101. Pearl Edwards Lavender Mist
    102. Pearl Edwards I Remember When
    103. Evilynne, Do You Remember Me
    104. Gypsy Rose Blue When I Look At You
    105. Marylyn Hamilton Monday Mona Lisa
    106. Harmony 13 Before You Speak
    107. Kahpot Misplace Bravery
    108. Kahpot Rain
    109. Cecilia A Heiskary
    110. Shelly Kaye The Forest is Watching
    111. Pookietoo, I Felt Lost
    112. Penofire Dreams
    113. Poem Lover Story Time
    114. Mrs Kt, When Faith is Tested
    115. Samandlancelot Unexpected Outcome
    116. Jessica Wheller Called
    117. Lo Anne Beery, Finally I See Her
    118. Dazed and Confused The Witch’s Jar
    119. Phil Doran Andalusia A Lachesis Poem
    120. Debbie Pick Marquette A Butterfly’s Birthday
    121. Richard Frohm’s Out Last Flight
    122. Jessizero My Lost Love
    123. Beth Shelby Desire for Life’s Best
    124. Zanya Searching
    125. Anonymous Grandkid’s Treasure Chest
    126. Anonymous Aging
    127. Carol Clark First Look
    128. Harambe iz ur Daddy Go Pro
    129. Marlyn Hamilton Dreaming
    130. Ceilia Heiskarry Sneer
    131. Ceilia Heiskarry Harpy Eagle
    132. Debi Pick Marquette
    133. Mintybee Our Silence is Full
    134. Rami Devi Forest Songs and Dances
    135. Brenda Strauser Scavenger Hunt
    136. Alexandra Trovato: Emotions and Writing
    137. Jessica Wheller Witness
    138. Yardier No Reason Why
    139. Anonymous the Serpent’s Kiss
    140. Lo Ann Berry About Me
    141. Blossom Chime Mondays Should be Illegal
    142. Cecilia A Heiskary My Angel Dog
    143. Cecilia A Heiskary Fall’s Coming
    144. Cecilia A Heiskary Venus Fly Trap
    145. Mrs Anna Howard Longing
    146. Dazed and Confused Blooming in the Night
    147. Hitcher Whisphered Words
    148. Rama Devi Book Mirrors
    149. Brenda Straser Tricky Squirell
    150. Jim Wile Goat Yoga
    151. Lo Ann Berry Answers
    152. Jumbo Internal Examination
    153. Mrs KT along the lakeshore
    154. Debbie Pick Marquette Auto-immune Family reunion
    155. Dragon poet feeding faith

    349.               Alexandra Trovato, Answers

    1. Jamison Brown changes
    2. Anonymous A Season In Love
    3. Anonymous If You Cut Us, Do We Not Bleed?
    4. Amy Lynn Child, Mom, and Young Grandmother
    5. Amy Lynn Her Wish
    6. Karenina Emilyn’s Dream
    7. Debbie Pick Marquette Patch and Ruby Become Famous
    8. Debbie Pick Marquette, I see a Dove
    9. Pam Respa Nature’s harmony
    10. Hitcher Queen of the Damn
    11. Debbie Pick Marquette Assassinate
    12. Reso22 Paint Pour
    13. Resso Writer’s Right
    14. Teafor2 Unforgettable and Unforgivable
    15. Annyomous the dead
    16. Christmas candy. (found on Google – author unknown)

    366.            Philip Doran Sepia

    1. Gypsy Blue Rose the Monster Among US
    2. Pearl Edwards Peace in the Mase minute poem
    3. Evilyne, that Magic Moment
    4. Ready to Fly, Hilda the Name
    5. Marlyn Hamilton Fan Story
    6. Cecilia A. Hesikary Halloween Crew
    7. Cecilia A. Hesikary, the Maze
    8. Kahlani Where Serenity Lives
    9. Kahlani, a Harvest Moon
    10. Khapot Acrostic
    11. Debbie Pick Marquette Happy Birthday, Bill
    12. Tea for the Last two
    13. Alexandra Trovato, the Porch Swing
    14. Alexandra Trovato Peace On Earth
    15. Debbie Pick Marquette A Birthday for Debora Dey
    16. Lancelot Inside Her Room
    17. Harmony 13 Getting Through This Life
    18. Iyenocka True Loyalty
    19. Tea for Two Individually and Collectively
    20. Cedar A birthday Tribute to Cedar
    21. Janet Floor Melancholy Day
    22. Mrs Kt To Dance Among the Maple Tees
    23. Sally Law Just the Way You Are
    24. Debbie Pick Marquette My Life in Rhyme
    25. Sammielwf Life on a Potao Farm In Main
    26. Anonymous Never Again
    27. Mrs KT On a Winter’s Morning
    28. Nommi 1331 Ebenezer’s Awakening
    29. Sammielwf the Forgotten
    30. Anonymous Asleep
    31. Anonymous Supergirl
    32. Walt Brown Water, Friend Or Foe
    33. Debbie Pick Marquette Sally And Jack’s 50th
    34. Mrs Anna Howar American Moon
    35. Sammielwf My Aunt Angelina
    36. Alexandra Trovato Animal Court
    37. Themarfbard_Michael Hospice Heroine
    38. L Raven Merry Christmas All
    39. Cogiator Touched By Angel
    40. Cecilia A Heiskrary Angel Dog
    41. Cecilia A Heiskrary Happy Birthday Eean
    42. Debbie Pick Marquette Happy Birthday Kylie

     

     

    David Scheider

     

    David Schnider Footprints in Time

    Did Schinder Soldiers

    David Schinder Together Forever

    David Schinder The all Mighty Threasher Pantoum

     

    Sonnet

    1. Starkafi Romantic Interlude
    2. Shakespear Sonnet for a Poet Grieving

     

     

    Torque Poems

    1. ,Lawrencealot Anxious (Torque)
    2.  Michael Romani September 11, 2018 Big and Vicious

    Tea Cup  Poems

    1. Sheley Keyes ILLUMINATION (5 syllables)
    2. Sheley Keyes Chatoyant (3
    3. Sheley Keyes Poetry (3
    4. Sheley Keyes Fuddy-duddy (4)
    5. Christmas Angel

     

    The White Book Poems by Han Kang

     

    Spring

    Door

    Swadlling Bands

    Newborn Gown

    Moon Shape Rice Cake

    Fog

    White City

    Certain Objects

    The Direction of the Light

    Breast Milk

    She

    Candle

    She

    Rime

    Frost

    Wings

    Fist

    Snow

    Snow Flakes

    Perpetual Snow

    Wave

    Sleet

    White Dog

    Blizzard

    Ashes

    Salt

    Moon

    Lace Curtain

    Breath Cloud

    White Bird

    Hankerchief

    Milky Wave

    Laughing Whitely

    Yulan

    Small White Pills

    Sugar Cubes

    Lights

    A Thousand Points of Silver

    Glittering

    White Pebble

    White Bone

    Sand

    White Hair

    Clouds

    Incandescent Bulb

    White Nights

    Island of Light

    Black Writing Through White paper

    Scattering

    TO the Stillness

    Bondary

    Reedbed

    White Butterfly

    Spirit

    Rice Raw and Cook

    All Whiteness

    Your Eyes

    Shroud

    Onni

    Like a Clutch of Words Strewn Over White Petals

    Morning robes

    Smoke

    Silence

    Lower Teeth

    Parting

    All Whiteness

     

    Korean Literature of Washington

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    End Poetry

     

     

     

     

    Begin Harvard Classics

     

    Harvard Classics

     

    The volumes are:

    Bolded read

     

     (1) Franklin, Woolman, Penn

     (2) Plato, Epictetus,

     Marcus, Aurelius Meditations

    (3) Bacon,

    Milton’s Prose,

    Thomas Browne

    (4) Complete Poems in English: Milton

    (5) Essays and English Traits: Emerson (

    6) Poems and Songs: Burns (7)

    Confessions of St. Augustine. Imitation of Christ

    (8) Nine Greek Dramas (9)

    Letters and Treatises of Cicero

    Pliny

    (10) Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith

    (11) Origin of Species: Darwin

    (12) Plutarch’s Lives (13)

     Aeneid Virgil (14)

    Don Quixote Part 1: Cervantes

    (15) Pilgrim’s Progress. Donne

    Herbert. Bunyan, Walton

    (16) The Thousand and One Night

    (17) Folk-Lore and Fable. Aesop, Grimm,

    Andersen

    Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales

    (18) Modern English Drama

    (19) Faust,

    Egmont Etc.

    Doctor Faustus,

    Goethe,

    Marlowe

    (20) The Divine Comedy: Dante

    (21) I Promessi

    Sposi,

    Manzoni

    (22) The Odyssey: Homer

    (23) Two Years Before Mast. Dana

    (24) On the Sublime French Revolution Etc. Burke

    (25) Autobiography Etc. Essays and Addresses: J.S. Mill,

    1. Carlyle

    (26) Continental Drama

    (27) English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay

    (28) Essays. English and American

    (29) Voyage of the Beagle: Darwin (

    30) Faraday,

    Helmholtz,

    Kelvin,

    Newcomb,

    Geikie

    (31) Autobiography: Benvenuto, Cellini

    (32) Literary and Philosophical Essays:

    Montaigne,

    Sainte Beuve,

    Renan,

    Lessing,

    Schiller,

    Kant,

    Mazzini

    (33) Voyages and Travels

    (34) Descartes,

    Voltaire,

    Rousseau,

    Hobbes

    (35) Chronicle and Romance:

    Froissart,

    Malory,

    Holinshed (36)

    Machiavelli, the Prince

    More,

    Luther

    (37) Locke,

    Berkeley,

    Hume

    (38) Harvey,

    Jenner,

    Lister,

    Pasteur

    (39) Famous Prefaces

    (40) English Poetry 1: Chaucer to Gray

    (41) English Poetry 2: Collins to Fitzgerald

    (42) English Poetry 3: Tennyson to Whitman

    (43) American Historical Documents

    Federalist Papers

    Constitution

    Bill of Rights

    Declaration of Indepedence

    (44) Sacred Writings 1

    (45) Sacred Writings 2

    The Bible

    The Quaran

    The Analect of Confucius

    Mencius

    Buddist Writing

    Bhaga Vita

    Lao Tzo The Tao

     

    (46) Elizabethan Drama 1

    (47) Elizabethan Drama 2

    (48) Thoughts and Minor Works: Pascal

    (49) Epic and Saga (

    50) Introduction, Readers Guide,

     

    50 Books to Read Before You Die

    Vol 1 starts with Volume One


    Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
    Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
    Austen, Jane: Emma
    Balzac, Honoré de: Father Goriot
    Barbusse, Henri: The Inferno
    Brontë, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
    Brontë, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
    Brontë, Emily: Wuthering Heights
    Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Tarzan of the Apes
    Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh
    Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
    Cather, Willa: My Ántonia
    Cervantes, Miguel de: Don Quixote
    Chopin, Kate: The Awakening
    Cleland, John: Fanny Hill
    Collins, Wilkie: The Moonstone
    Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
    Conrad, Joseph: Nostromo
    Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
    Crane, Stephen: The Red Badge of Courage
    Cummings, E. E.: The Enormous Room
    Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe
    Defoe, Daniel: Moll Flanders
    Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
    Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
    Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
    Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: The Idiot
    Doyle, Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
    Dreiser, Theodore: Sister Carrie
    Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Musketeers
    Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo
    Eliot, George: Middlemarch
    Fielding, Henry: Tom Jones
    Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary
    Flaubert, Gustave: Sentimental Education
    Ford, Ford Madox: The Good Soldier
    Forster, E. M.: A Room With a View
    Forster, E. M.: Howard End
    Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
    Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: The Sorrows of Young Werther
    Gogol, Nikolai: Dead Souls
    Gorky, Maxim: The Mother
    Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon’s Mines
    Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D’Urbervilles
    Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
    Homer: The Odyssey
    Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables
    Huxley, Aldous: Crome Yellow
    James, Henry: The Portrait of a Lady

     

    Volume 2


    – Little Women [Louisa May Alcott]
    – Sense and Sensibility [Jane Austen]
    – Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy) [J.M. Barrie]
    – Cabin Fever [ B. M. Bower]
    – The Secret Garden [Frances Hodgson Burnett]
    – A Little Princess [Frances Hodgson Burnett]
    – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland [Lewis Carroll]
    – The King in Yellow [Robert William Chambers]
    – The Man Who Knew Too Much [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – The Woman in White [Wilkie Collins]
    – The Most Dangerous Game [Richard Connell]
    – Robinson Crusoe [Daniel Defoe]
    – On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition [Charles Darwin]
    – The Iron Woman [Margaret Deland]
    – David Copperfield [Charles Dickens]
    – Oliver Twist [Charles Dickens]
    – A Tale of Two Cities [Charles Dickens]
    – The Double [Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
    The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes [Arthur Conan Doyle]
    – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [Francis Scott Fitzgerald]
    – A Room with a View [E. M. Forster]
    – Dream Psychology [Sigmund Freud]
    – Tess of the d’Urbervilles [Thomas Hardy]
    – Siddhartha [Hermann Hesse]
    – Dubliners [James Joyce]
    – The Fall of the House of Usher [Edgar Allan Poe]
    – The Arabian Nights [Andrew Lang]
    – The Sea Wolf [Jack London]
    – The Call of Cthulhu [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
    – Anne of Green Gables [Lucy Maud Montgomery]
    – Beyond Good and Evil [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]
    – The Murders in the Rue Morgue [Edgar Allan Poe]
    – The Black Cat [Edgar Allan Poe]
    – The Raven [Edgar Allan Poe]
    – Swann’s Way [Marcel Proust]
    – Romeo and Juliet [William Shakespeare]
    – Treasure Island [Robert Louis Stevenson]
    – The Elements of Style [William Strunk Jr.

     

    Vol 3  finished keeping for the historical record

     

    This book contains the following works arranged alphabetically by authors’ last names.

    Starting with volume 3 then will go back and do volumes one, two, and the Harvard classics. The goal is to finish all of these by the end of next year.  I almost finished Volume One.  Will do some of the WC reading books as well.

    – What’s Bred in the Bone [Grant Allen]
    – The Golden Ass [Lucius Apuleius]
    – Meditations [Marcus Aurelius]
    – Northanger Abbey [Jane Austen]
    – Lady Susan [Jane Austen]
    – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz [Lyman Frank Baum]
    – The Art of Public Speaking [Dale Breckenridge Carnegie]
    – The Blazing World [Margaret Cavendish]
    – The Wisdom of Father Brown [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – Heretics [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – The Donnington Affair [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – The Innocence of Father Brown [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [John Cleland]
    – The Moonstone [Wilkie Collins]
    – Lord Jim [Joseph Conrad]
    – The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe [Daniel Defoe]
    – The Pickwick Papers [Charles Dickens]
    – A Christmas Carol [Charles Dickens]
    – Notes From The Underground [Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
    – The Gambler par Fyodor [Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
    – The Lost World [Arthur Conan Doyle]
    – The Hound of the Baskervilles [Arthur Conan Doyle]
    – The Sign of the Four [Arthur Conan Doyle]
    – The Man in the Iron Mask [Alexandre Dumas]
    – The Three Musketeers [Alexandre Dumas]
    – This Side of Paradise [Francis Scott Fitzgerald]
    – Curious, If True: Strange Tales [Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell]
    – King Solomon’s Mines [Henry Rider Haggard]
    – The Hunchback of Notre Dame [Victor Hugo]
    – Kim [Rudyard Kipling]
    – Captain Courageous [Rudyard Kipling]
    – The Jungle Book [Rudyard Kipling]
    – Lady Chatterley’s Lover [David Herbert Lawrence]
    – The Son of the Wolf [Jack London]
    – The Einstein Theory of Relativity [Hendrik Antoon Lorentz]
    – The Dunwich Horror [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
    – At the Mountains of Madness [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
    – The Prince [Niccolò Machiavelli]
    – The Story Girl [Lucy Maud Montgomery]
    – The Antichrist [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]
    – The Republic [Plato]
    – The Last Man [Mary Shelley]
    – Life On The Mississippi [Mark Twain]
    – The Kama Sutra [Vatsyayana]
    – In the Year 2889 [Jules Verne]
    – Around the World in Eighty Days [Jules Verne]
    – Four Just Men [Edgar Wallace]
    – Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ [Lewis Wallace]
    – Jacob’s Room [Virginia Woolf]

     

    Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025

     

    Caroline M Yanchen We Would Teach You How To Read.

    Rachale Swirsky The Cat

    Olivia Blake, The Audit.

    Keji Johnson. Country Birds.

    Tatiya Oberb Flock Them Kids.

    SI Huaag, The River Judge

    .Charlie. Saint George. The Weight Of Your Own Ashes.

    Xavier Garcia An Ode To The.Minor Arcana in a Tripple Flow

    Kathryin Ross. The Forgotten Room.

    Dominique Dickey, Look At The Moon.

    Isabel Kim, Why Don’t We Just Kill The Kid?

    Jennifer Hudock, The Witch Trap.

    Susan Palwick Yarns.

    Pemmie Aguda The Wonders Of The World

    TJ Klune Reduce, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

    Tannarive Due  A Stranger Knocks?

    Thomas Hardy, The Sort.

    Russell Nichols What Happened To The Crooners? Adam Troy Castro, The 3420 Third Laws Of Robotics.

    Joe Hill Ushers.

     

    Sci-Fi short stories

     

    The Big Book of Science Fiction is a massive anthology of science fiction stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It covers the history and evolution of the genre from the early 20th century to the end of the millennium, featuring works from over 30 countries and many languages. The book contains 105 stories, ranging from classics by H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ursula K. Le Guin, to lesser-known gems by W.E.B. Du Bois, David R. Bunch, and Liu Cixin. The book also includes comments from the editors and the authors, offering insights into their creative process and vision. The book is divided into 11 sections, each with a thematic focus and chronological order.

    Here is the table of contents for the book1:

    Goal read one to five per week alternating with Kindle classics and reading poetry collections finish by end of the year

     

    Introduction: Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

    The Lens of Time: Science Fiction as a Way of Seeing

    H.G. Wells: “The Star” (1897)

    Lu Xun: “The New Overworld” (1902)

    Sultana’s Dream: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1905)

    Albert Robida: “The Triumph of Mechanics” (1908)

    Miguel de Unamuno: “Mechanopolis” (1913)

    W.E.B. Du Bois: “The Comet” (1920)

    Claude Farrère: “The Fate of the Poseidonia” (1923)

    Edmond Hamilton: “The Star Stealers” (1929)

    David H. Keller: “The Lost Language” (1934)

    Stanislaw Lem: “Solaris” (1961) excerpt

    Jorge Luis Borges: “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940)

    Cixin Liu: “The Poetry Cloud” (1997)

    Invasions

    Edgar Rice Burroughs: “A Princess of Mars” (1912) excerpt

    Leslie F. Stone: “The Conquest of Gola” (1931)

    Stanley G. Weinbaum: “A Martian Odyssey” (1934)

    John W. Campbell Jr.: “Who Goes There?” (1938)

    Ray Bradbury: “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” (1949)

    Katherine MacLean: “Pictures Don’t Lie” (1951)

    William Tenn: “The Liberation of Earth” (1953)

    J.G. Ballard: “The Voices of Time” (1960)

    Dino Buzzati: “Catastrophe” (1966)

    James Tiptree Jr.: “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972)

    Joanna Russ: “When It Changed” (1972)

    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: “The Spontaneous Reflex” (1973) excerpt

    Octavia Butler: “Bloodchild” (1984)

    James Patrick Kelly: “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995)

    Monsters

    H.P. Lovecraft: “The Dunwich Horror” (1929)

    Ray Bradbury: “The Foghorn” (1951)

    Jerome Bixby: “It’s a Good Life” (1953)

    Julio Cortázar: “Axolotl” (1956)

    J.G. Ballard: “The Drowned Giant” (1964)

    R.A. Lafferty: “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” (1966)

    Terry Carr: “The Dance of the Changer and the Three” (1968)

    Harlan Ellison®: “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967)

    Lisa Tuttle & George R.R. Martin: “The Storms of Windhaven” (1975)

    John Varley: “Air Raid” (1977)

    William Gibson: “New Rose Hotel” (1984)

    Ted Chiang: “Story of Your Life” (1998)

    Experiments

    Alfred Jarry: “Elements of Pataphysics” (1911)

    Karel Čapek: “R.U.R.” (1920) excerpt

    Stanisław Lem: “How Erg the Self-Inducting Slew a Paleface” (1955)

    William S. Burroughs: “Excerpt from Naked Lunch” (1959)

    J.G. Ballard: “Chronopolis” (1960)

    Philip K. Dick: “Beyond Lies the Wub” (1952)

    Boris Vian: “Froth on the Daydream” (1947) excerpt

    Joanna Russ: “Useful Phrases for the Tourist” (1970)

    George Alec Effinger: “Two Sadnesses” (1973)

    John Sladek: “Solar Shoe Salesman” (1974)

    Dafydd ab Hugh: “The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk” (1986)

    Generation Ships

    Don Wilcox: “The Voyage That Lasted 600 Years” (1940)

    Judith Merril: “Daughters of Earth” (1952)

    Brian W. Aldiss: “Non-Stop” (1958) excerpt

    Robert Silverberg: “Sundance” (1969)

    Pamela Zoline: “The Heat Death of the Universe” (1967)

    Gene Wolfe: “A Cabin on the Coast” (1984)

    Bruce Sterling: “Swarm” (1982)

    Geoff Ryman: “The Unconquered Country” (1984)

    New Worlds

    Cordwainer Smith: “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” (1961)

    Samuel R. Delany: “Aye, and Gomorrah …” (1967)

    Ursula K. Le Guin: “Vaster Than Empires and Slower” (1971)

    James Tiptree Jr.: “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” (1976)

    Frederik Pohl: “The Gold at the Starbow’s End” (1972)

    Angélica Gorodischer: “Of Navigators and Traitors” (1973) excerpt

    John Crowley: “Snow” (1985)

    Iain M. Banks: “A Gift from the Culture” (1987)

    Greg Egan: “Learning to Be Me” (1990)

    Future War

    Jack London: “The Unparalleled Invasion” (1910)

    Edward Bulwer-Lytton: “The Coming Race” (1871) excerpt

    George Griffith: “The War of the Viruses” (1895)

    Philip Francis Nowlan: “Armageddon 2419 A.D.” (1928)

    E.E. “Doc” Smith: “The Skylark of Space” (1928) excerpt

    Olaf Stapledon: “Star Maker” (1937) excerpt

    Robert A. Heinlein: “Solution Unsatisfactory” (1941)

    C.M. Kornbluth: “Two Dooms” (1958)

    Joe Haldeman: “Hero” (1972)

    Harry Harrison: “The Streets of Ashkelon” (1962)

    David R. Bunch: “Moderan” (1967)

    Harlan Ellison®: “A Boy and His Dog” (1969)

    James S.A. Corey: “Rates of Change” (2011)

    Virtual Reality

    Stanisław Lem: “The Seventh Sally or How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good” (1965)

    Philip K. Dick: “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966)

    John Brunner: “The Vitanuls” (1967)

    Roger Zelazny: “For a Breath I Tarry” (1966)

    Robert Silverberg: “Passengers” (1968)

    Rudy Rucker: “Software” (1982) excerpt

    William Gibson: “Burning Chrome” (1982)

    Pat Cadigan: “Pretty Boy Crossover” (1986)

    Neal Stephenson: “Snow Crash” (1992) excerpt

    Humanity 2.0

    Olaf Stapledon: “Odd John” (1935) excerpt

    C.L. Moore: “No Woman Born” (1944)

    Cordwainer Smith: “Scanners Live in Vain” (1950)

    Algis Budrys: “Who?” (1955)

    James Blish: “Surface Tension” (1952)

    Gregory Benford: “Blood Music” (1983)

    Bruce Sterling: “Mozart in Mirrorshades” (1985)

    Vernor Vinge: “True Names” (1981)

    Ted Chiang: “Understand” (1991)

    Alien Minds

    Arthur C. Clarke: “The Sentinel” (1951)

    Isaac Asimov: “The Last Question” (1956)

    Clifford D. Simak: “Desertion” (1944)

    James H. Schmitz: “Grandpa” (1955)

    Frank Herbert: “Try to Remember!” (1961)

    Philip José Farmer: “Sail On! Sail On!” (1952)

    Stanisław Lem: “Solaris” (1961) excerpt

    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: “Roadside Picnic” (1972) excerpt

    Karen Joy Fowler & Pat Murphy: “Rachel in Love” (1987)

    Ian McDonald: “The Tear” (2008)

    Walter M Miller, Jr After the End

    Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century Poetry

     

    BOLD read

     

    Edward Lee Masters.

    The Hil

    Fiddler. Jones,

    Petite the Poet

     

    Edwin Arlington Robinson

    Miniver Cheevy

    Mr. Flood’s Party.

     

    James Weldon Johnson

    The Creation

    Paul Laurence  Dunbar.

     

    The Poet

    Life

    Life’s Trajedy

     

    Robert Frost.

    The Death Of The Hired Man.

    Mending Wall.

    Birches

              Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening.

              Tree In My Window.

    Directive.

    Amy Lowell

    Patterns.

     

    Getrude Stein

    Susie Asado.

    From Tender Buttons A Box.

     From Tender Buttons, A Plate.

     

    Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson

    I sit and sew .

    Carl Sandburg.

    Grass.

    Cahoots.

     

    Wallace Stevens.

    Peter Quince at the Clavier.

    Disillusionment of 10:00.

    13 Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird.

              Emperor Of Ice Cream.

    A Mere  Being.

    Angelina Weld Grimke

    Fragment.

    William Carlos Williams.

    Tact.

               Dance Ruse

    The Yachts.

    From Apostlethat Greeny  Flower Book 1, Lines 1 To 92.

     

    Sarah Teasdale.

    Moonlight.

    There Will Come Soft Rains.

     

    Erza Pound

    The Jewel Stairs Grievance.

    The River Merchants Wife Letter.

    In A Station At The Metro.

    Hugh  Selwyn Mulberry.

    From Conto. 56 Libretto Yet Ere This Season Died A Cold

     

    Hilda Doolittle, HD.

    Sea Rose.

    The Helen.

    From The Walls Do Not Fall An Incident Here And There.

    From Hermeneutic Definition Red Rose And A Beggar. Why Did You Come?

    Take Me Anywhere.

    Venicc. Venus.

     

    Robinson, Jeffers.

    Gala in April.

    Shine, Perishing Republic.

    Cloudss at Evening.

    Credo

    Mararane Moore

    Fish.

    Poetry.

    Poetry.

     

    TS, Elliott.

    Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

     The Wasteland.

     

    Claude McKay.

              If We Must Die.

    Harlem Dancer.

     

    Archibald MacLeash,

              Arts Poetica 

    Edna, Saint Vincent Millay.

    First Fig

    Recuerdo

    E E Cummings.

    In Just.

    Buffalo Bill

    The Cambridge Ladies Have Lived In Furnished Souls.

    Next To, Of Course, God, America.

    Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled Gladly Beyond.

    Rpophessagr

    Gene Toomor.

    Reapers.

    November Cotton Flowers.

    Portrait in Georgia.

    Louise Bogan

    Medusa.

    New moon.

    Melvin B Tolson

    Dark Symphony.

    From Harlem Gallery PSI Black Boys, Let Me Get Up From The White Man’s Table.

     

    Hart Crane

    From the Bridge

    Poem to Brooklyn Bridge

    From 11  Powhatan’s Daughter the River.

     

    Robert Francis.

    Silent Poem

    Langston Hughes

    Nego speaks of rivers.

    I, Too.

    Dreams Boogie.

    Harlem

    Countee Cullan

    Incident

    To John Keats Poet at Springtime

    Yes I Do Marvel

    From the Dark Tower

    Stanley Kutitz

    Father and Son

    The Protrait

    Touch Me

    WH Auden

    Mussee Des Beaux Arts

    Epitah on a Tryant

    Theordore Roethke

    My Papa’s Waltz

    The Waking

    In a Dark Time

     

    Charles Olson.

    From The Maximum Poems One Maximum Of Gloucester To You.

    The Distances.

    Elizabeth Bishop.

    The Fish

    Sestina

    First Death In Nova Scotia.

    Visit  To Saint Elizabeths.

    One Art.

    Robert Hayden.

    Morning Poem For The Queen Of Sunday.

    Those Winter Sundays.

    Frederick Douglass.

    Middle Passage.

    Muriel  Rukeyser?

    Effort At Speech Between Two People.         ‘

    Then I Saw What The Calling  Was.

    The Poem as Mask

    Delmore  Swartz.

    The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me.

    John Barryman.

    From Dream Songs.

    Feeling Your Compact And Delicious Body. ‘

    Life, Friends, Is Boring. We Must Not Say So.

    There Shut Down Once.  ‘

    This World Is Gradually Becoming A Place.

    Henry’sUnderstanding

     

    Randall, Jarell.

    90 North.

    The Death Of The Bell Turret Gunner.

    The Woman At The Washington Zoo.

    Next Day.

    Weldon Kees.

    To My Daughter?

     

    Dudley Randall

    A Different Image

    William Stafford.

    Traveling Through The Dark.

    At The Bomb Testing Site.

     

    Ruth Stone.

    Scars.

    Margaret Walker.

    For My People

    Gwendolyn Brooks.

    The Mother.

    A Song In The Front Yard.         ‘

    The Bean Eaters

    The Lovers Of The Poor.

    We  Real Cool.      ‘

    The Blackstone Rangers.

     

    Robert Lowell.

    To Speak Of Woe That Is In Marriage.

    Skunk Hour .

    For The Union Dead.

    Robert Duncan.

    Often I’m Permitted To Return To A Medow.

    My Mother Would Be A Falconress

    Lawrence Ferlinghetti

    Populist Manifesto.

    William Meredith.

    Parents. Howard Nemeroff.

    Because You Asked About The Line Between Prose And Poetry.

    Hayden Caruth.

    The  Hyacinth Gardens In Brooklyn.

    August 1945.

    Richard Wilber

    Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

    Cottage Street

    The Writer

    James Dickey

    The Sheep Child

    Alan Duncan.

    Love song I And Thou

    Anthony Act.

    More light, More light.

    Richard Hugo.

    The Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg.

    The Freaks at Spring General Rd. Field.

    Dennis Levertov.

    The Unwritten Poem

    Cademon.

    Swan in Falling snow.

    Who is Simpson?

    American Poetry.

    Carolyn Kaiser.

    A Muse of water.

    Kenneth Koch.

    Fresh air.

    Permanently.

    Maxine Coleman.

    Morning Swim.

    How Is It?

    Gerald Stern.

    Behaving Like A Jew.

    The Dancing.

    Another Insane Devotion.

    AR Ammons.

    The City Limits.

    Corson Inlet.

    Robert Blye.

    Snowfall In The Afternoon.

    Driving Into Town Late To Mail A Letter.

    Walking From Sleep.

    Robert Creeley.

    The Flower.

    I Know A Man.

    The Language.

    The Rain.

    Bresson’s Movies.

    James Merrill.

    Victor Dog.

    Frank O’Hara New York School.

    Steps.

    Poem Lana Turner Has Collapsed.

    The Day Lady Died.

    John Ashberry. New York School

    Some Trees.

    Self-Portrait In A Convex Mirror.

    What Is Poetry?

    Galway, Kennel.

    The Bear.`

    After Making Love, We Hear Footsteps.

    Saint Francis And The Soul.

    Ws Merwin.

    Air.

    For The Anniversary Of My Death.

    Yesterday.

    Chord .

    James Wright.

    A Blessing.

    Autumn  Begins In Martins Ferry, Oh.

    Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy’s Farm In Pine Island, Mn.

    In Response To The Rumor That Otis Warehouse In Wheeling, Wv Has Been Condemned.

    Donald Hall.

    My Son, My Executioner.

    Digging.

    Philip Levine.

    Animals Are Passing From Our Lives.

    They Feed They Lion.

    You Can Have It.

    The  Simple Truth.

     

    Anne Sexton.

    Her Kind

    Adoption.

    Waiting To Die.

    In Celebration Of My Uterus.

    Rowing

    Adrienne Rich.

    Orion

    Planetarium.

    A Valedictorian Forbidding Mourning.

    From 21 Love Poems 13 The Rules Of Break Like A Thermometer.

    Gregory Corso.

    Marriage

    Gary Snyder.

    Hay, For The Horses.

    Riprap.

    Mid August As Sourdough Mountain Lookout.

    Dereck  Walcott.

    A Far Cry From Africa.

    Sea Grapes.

    Find The Schooner Flight Part 11 After The Storm. There’s A Fresh Light That Follows.

    The Light Of The World.

    From Omeros Book. 7. 44 I Sing Of Quiet,Achiles, Afrolabe’s Son.

    Miller Williams.

    Let Me tell you.

    Etheridge Knight

    Idea Of Ancestry.

    Amira Baraka, Leroy Jones.

    Preface To A 20 Volume Suicide Note.

    Agony As Now.

    SOS.

    Black Art.

    Ted Berrigon .

    Wrong Rain.

    A Final Sonnet

    Andre Lorde.

    Power.

    Sonia Sanchez.

    Poetry at 30.

    Mark Strand.

    The Prediction.

    The Night, The Porch.

    Russell Edson.

    A Stone Is Nobody’s.

     

    Mary Oliver.

    Singapore.

    The Summer’s Day.

    Charles Wright.

    Reunion.

    Dead Color.

    California Dreaming.

    Lucile  Clifton.

    Homage To My Hips.

    At Least At Last We Killed The Roaches.

    The Death Of Fry, Alfred Clifton.

    To My Last.

    June, Jordan.

    Home About My Rights.

    Frederick Seidel.

    1968.

    CK Williams.

    Find My Window.

    Blades

    Tynan Wilkowski.’

    The Mechanic.

    Michael S Harper.

    Dear John. Dear Coltrane.

    Last Affair. Bessies Blues Song.

    Grandfather.

    Nightmare Begins Responsibility.

    Charles Simik .

    Stone.

    Fork.

    Classic Ballroom Dances.

    Paula Gunn Allen.

     

    Grandmother.

    Frank Bidart.

    Ellen West.

    Carl Dennis.

    Spring Letter.

    Two Or Three Wishes.

    Stephen Dunn.

    Allegory Of The Cave.

    Tucson.

    Robert Pensky.

    History Of My Heart.

    The Questions.

    Samurai Song.

    James Welch.

    Christmas Comes To Moccasin Flat.

    Billy Collins.

    Introduction To Poetry.

    The Dead.

    Toi Derricote .

    Allen Ginsberg.

    The Weakness.

    Stephen Dobyns.

    How To Like It?

    Lullaby.

    Robert Hass.

    Song.

    That Photographer?

    Return Of Robinson Jeffers.

    Lyn Hejinian

    From My Life trim With Colored Ribbons.

    BH  Fairchild.

    The Machinist Teaching His Daughter To Play The Piano.

    Haik R Madhubuti Don L Lee.

    But He Was Cool Or Even Stopped For Green Lights.

    Upon To Compliment Other Poems.

    William Matthews.

    In Memory Of The Utah Stars.

    The  Accompanist

    . Sharon Olds

    The Language Of The Brag.

    The Lifting.

    Henry Taylor.

    Barbed Wire.

    Tess Gallagher.

    Black, Silver.

    Under Stars.

    Michael Palmer.

    I Do Not.

    James Tate.

    The Lost  Pilot.

    Norman Dubie.

    Elizabeth War With The Christmas Bear.

    The Funeral.

    Carol Muske Dukes,.

    August, Los Angeles Lullaby.

    Kay Ryan.

    Turtle

    Bestiary

    Larry Levis.

    Childhood Ideogram

    Winter Stars

    Adrian C Lousis

    Looking For Judas

    How much lux?

    The People of the Other  Village.

    Marilyn Nelson.

    The Ballad of Aunt Geneva.

    Star Fix.

    Run Stilleman

    Albany

    AI

    Cuba 1963

    The Kid

    Finished

    Yusef Komunyakaa

    Thanks

    To Do Street

    Facing It

    Nude Interogation

    Nathaniel Mc Kay

    Song of the Aduumboulou

    Gregory Orr

    Gathering the Bones Together

    Two Lines From the Brother Grimm

    Origin of the Marble Forrest

    Robert Hill Whiteman

    Reaching Yellow River

    Albert Goldbarth

    Away

    Heather Mc Hugh

    Language Lesson 1976

    What He Thought

    Leslie Marmon Silko

    In  Cold Storm Light

    Olga Boumas

    Calypso

    Victor Hernadez Soul

    Latin and Soul

    Jane Miller

    Miami Heart

    David St. James

    Iris

    CD Wright

    Why Ralph Refuses to Dance

    Girl Friend Poe # 3

    Crescent

    Carolyn Forche

    Taking Off My Clothes

    Jorie Graham

    San Sepolcro

    Marie Howe

    What the Living Do

    Joy Harjo

    She Had Some Horses

    My House is Red Earth

    Garret Honjo

    The Legend

    Andrew  Hugins

    Beggoten

    We Were Simply Talking

    Brigit Peggen Kelly

    Imaging Their Own Hyms

    Song

    Paul Muldoon

    Meeting the British

    Errata

    The Throwback

    Judith Orez Coffer

    Quinceanera

    Rita Dove

    Parsley

    Day Star

    After Reading Mikey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed

    Alice Fulton

    Our Calling

    Barbara Hamby

    Thinking of Galileo

    Hatred

    Mark Jarman

    Unholy Sonnet

    Naomi Shihab Nye

    The Traveling Onion

    Arabic

    Wedding Cake

    Alberto Rios

    Nani

    England Finally like My Mother Always Said We Would

    Laurie Sheck

    Nocturne Blue Waves

    The Unfinished

    Gary Sotto

    Field Poem

    Oranges

    Black Hair

    Susan Stewart

    Yellow Star and Ice

    The Forrest

    Mark Dotty

    Brillance

    Esta Noche

    Bill’s Story

    Harryette Mullen

    Black Nikes

    Franz Wright

    Alcohol

    Lorna Dee Cervantes

    To My Brother

    Love of My Flesh, Living Death

    Sandra Cisneros.

    My Wicked, Wicked Ways.

    Little Clowns, My Heart.

    Cornelius, Eady.

    Jack Johnson Does The Eagle Rock.

    Crows In A Strong Wind.

    I’m A Fool To Love You.

     

    Louise Eldritch

    .         Indian Boarding School. The Runaways.

    David Mason.

    Spooning.

    Marilyn Chin.

    How I Got That Name?

    Compose Near The Bay Bridge

    The Survivor

    Cathy Song .

    The Youngest Daughter.

    Ann Finch.

    Another Reluctance.

    Insert

    Lee Young Lee.

    The Gift

    Eating Together.

    Carl Phillips

    Our Lady

    As From a Quiver of Arrows

    Nick Flynn

    Bag of Mice

    Cartoon Physics

    Elizabeth Alexander

    The Viena Hott not

    Reetika Vazirani

    From White Elephants

    A million Balconies

    Train Windows

    Sherman Alexie

    What the Orphan Inherits

    The Pow Wow at the End of the World

    Natasha Trethewey

    Hot Combs

    Amateur Fighter

    Flounder

    A E Stallings

    The Tantrum

    Joana Klink

    Spare

    Brenda Shaughnessy

    Post feminism

    Your One Good Dress

    Kevin Young

    Quivira City Limits

    Everywhere is Out of Town

    Whatever You Want

    Terrance Hayes

    At Pegasus

    Lady Sings the Blues

    Sci-Fi short stories

     

    The Big Book of Science Fiction is a massive anthology of science fiction stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It covers the history and evolution of the genre from the early 20th century to the end of the millennium, featuring works from over 30 countries and many languages. The book contains 105 stories, ranging from classics by H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ursula K. Le Guin, to lesser-known gems by W.E.B. Du Bois, David R. Bunch, and Liu Cixin. The book also includes comments from the editors and the authors, offering insights into their creative process and vision. The book is divided into 11 sections, each with a thematic focus and a chronological order.

    Here is the table of contents for the book1:

    Introduction: Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

    The Lens of Time: Science Fiction as a Way of Seeing

    H.G. Wells: “The Star” (1897)

    Lu Xun: “The New Overworld” (1902)

    Sultana’s Dream: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1905)

    Albert Robida: “The Triumph of Mechanics” (1908)

    Miguel de Unamuno: “Mechanopolis” (1913)

    W.E.B. Du Bois: “The Comet” (1920)

    Claude Farrère: “The Fate of the Poseidonia” (1923)

    Edmond Hamilton: “The Star Stealers” (1929)

    David H. Keller: “The Lost Language” (1934)

    Stanislaw Lem: “Solaris” (1961) excerpt

    Jorge Luis Borges: “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940)

    Cixin Liu: “The Poetry Cloud” (1997)

    Invasions

    Edgar Rice Burroughs: “A Princess of Mars” (1912) excerpt

    Leslie F. Stone: “The Conquest of Gola” (1931)

    Stanley G. Weinbaum: “A Martian Odyssey” (1934)

    John W. Campbell Jr.: “Who Goes There?” (1938)

    Ray Bradbury: “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” (1949)

    Katherine MacLean: “Pictures Don’t Lie” (1951)

    William Tenn: “The Liberation of Earth” (1953)

    J.G. Ballard: “The Voices of Time” (1960)

    Dino Buzzati: “Catastrophe” (1966)

    James Tiptree Jr.: “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972)

    Joanna Russ: “When It Changed” (1972)

    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: “The Spontaneous Reflex” (1973) excerpt

    Octavia Butler: “Bloodchild” (1984)

    James Patrick Kelly: “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995)

    Monsters

    H.P. Lovecraft: “The Dunwich Horror” (1929)

    Ray Bradbury: “The Foghorn” (1951)

    Jerome Bixby: “It’s a Good Life” (1953)

    Julio Cortázar: “Axolotl” (1956)

    J.G. Ballard: “The Drowned Giant” (1964)

    R.A. Lafferty: “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” (1966)

    Terry Carr: “The Dance of the Changer and the Three” (1968)

    Harlan Ellison®: “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967)

    Lisa Tuttle & George R.R. Martin: “The Storms of Windhaven” (1975)

    John Varley: “Air Raid” (1977)

    William Gibson: “New Rose Hotel” (1984)

    Ted Chiang: “Story of Your Life” (1998)

    Experiments

    Alfred Jarry: “Elements of Pataphysics” (1911)

    Karel Čapek: “R.U.R.” (1920) excerpt

    Stanisław Lem: “How Erg the Self-Inducting Slew a Paleface” (1955)

    William S. Burroughs: “Excerpt from Naked Lunch” (1959)

    J.G. Ballard: “Chronopolis” (1960)

    Philip K. Dick: “Beyond Lies the Wub” (1952)

    Boris Vian: “Froth on the Daydream” (1947) excerpt

    Joanna Russ: “Useful Phrases for the Tourist” (1970)

    George Alec Effinger: “Two Sadnesses” (1973)

    John Sladek: “Solar Shoe Salesman” (1974)

    Dafydd ab Hugh: “The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk” (1986)

    Generation Ships

    Don Wilcox: “The Voyage That Lasted 600 Years” (1940)

    Judith Merril: “Daughters of Earth” (1952)

    Brian W. Aldiss: “Non-Stop” (1958) excerpt

    Robert Silverberg: “Sundance” (1969)

    Pamela Zoline: “The Heat Death of the Universe” (1967)

    Gene Wolfe: “A Cabin on the Coast” (1984)

    Bruce Sterling: “Swarm” (1982)

    Geoff Ryman: “The Unconquered Country” (1984)

    New Worlds

    Cordwainer Smith: “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” (1961)

    Samuel R. Delany: “Aye, and Gomorrah …” (1967)

    Ursula K. Le Guin: “Vaster Than Empires and Slower” (1971)

    James Tiptree Jr.: “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” (1976)

    Frederik Pohl: “The Gold at the Starbow’s End” (1972)

    Angélica Gorodischer: “Of Navigators and Traitors” (1973) excerpt

    John Crowley: “Snow” (1985)

    Iain M. Banks: “A Gift from the Culture” (1987)

    Greg Egan: “Learning to Be Me” (1990)

    Future War

    Jack London: “The Unparalleled Invasion” (1910)

    Edward Bulwer-Lytton: “The Coming Race” (1871) excerpt

    George Griffith: “The War of the Viruses” (1895)

    Philip Francis Nowlan: “Armageddon 2419 A.D.” (1928)

    E.E. “Doc” Smith: “The Skylark of Space” (1928) excerpt

    Olaf Stapledon: “Star Maker” (1937) excerpt

    Robert A. Heinlein: “Solution Unsatisfactory” (1941)

    C.M. Kornbluth: “Two Dooms” (1958)

    Joe Haldeman: “Hero” (1972)

    Harry Harrison: “The Streets of Ashkelon” (1962)

    David R. Bunch: “Moderan” (1967)

    Harlan Ellison®: “A Boy and His Dog” (1969)

    James S.A. Corey: “Rates of Change” (2011)

    Virtual Reality

    Stanisław Lem: “The Seventh Sally or How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good” (1965)

    Philip K. Dick: “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966)

    John Brunner: “The Vitanuls” (1967)

    Roger Zelazny: “For a Breath I Tarry” (1966)

    Robert Silverberg: “Passengers” (1968)

    Rudy Rucker: “Software” (1982) excerpt

    William Gibson: “Burning Chrome” (1982)

    Pat Cadigan: “Pretty Boy Crossover” (1986)

    Neal Stephenson: “Snow Crash” (1992) excerpt

    Humanity 2.0

    Olaf Stapledon: “Odd John” (1935) excerpt

    C.L. Moore: “No Woman Born” (1944)

    Cordwainer Smith: “Scanners Live in Vain” (1950)

    Algis Budrys: “Who?” (1955)

    James Blish: “Surface Tension” (1952)

    Gregory Benford: “Blood Music” (1983)

    Bruce Sterling: “Mozart in Mirrorshades” (1985)

    Vernor Vinge: “True Names” (1981)

    Ted Chiang: “Understand” (1991)

    Alien Minds

    Arthur C. Clarke: “The Sentinel” (1951)

    Isaac Asimov: “The Last Question” (1956)

    Clifford D. Simak: “Desertion” (1944)

    James H. Schmitz: “Grandpa” (1955)

    Frank Herbert: “Try to Remember!” (1961)

    Philip José Farmer: “Sail On! Sail On!” (1952)

    Stanisław Lem: “Solaris” (1961) excerpt

    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: “Roadside Picnic” (1972) excerpt

    Karen Joy Fowler & Pat Murphy: “Rachel in Love” (1987)

    Ian McDonald: “The Tear” (2008)

    After the End

    Walter M. Miller Jr.: “The Darfsteller” (1955) J.G. Ballard: “The Terminal Beach” (1964) John Wyndham: ”

    Sci-Fi short stories

     

    The Big Book of Science Fiction is a massive anthology of science fiction stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It covers the history and evolution of the genre from the early 20th century to the end of the millennium, featuring works from over 30 countries and many languages. The book contains 105 stories, ranging from classics by H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ursula K. Le Guin, to lesser-known gems by W.E.B. Du Bois, David R. Bunch, and Liu Cixin. The book also includes comments from the editors and the authors, offering insights into their creative process and vision. The book is divided into 11 sections, each with a thematic focus and a chronological order.

    Here is the table of contents for the book1:

    Introduction: Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

    The Lens of Time: Science Fiction as a Way of Seeing

    H.G. Wells: “The Star” (1897)

    Lu Xun: “The New Overworld” (1902)

    Sultana’s Dream: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1905)

    Albert Robida: “The Triumph of Mechanics” (1908)

    Miguel de Unamuno: “Mechanopolis” (1913)

    W.E.B. Du Bois: “The Comet” (1920)

    Claude Farrère: “The Fate of the Poseidonia” (1923)

    Edmond Hamilton: “The Star Stealers” (1929)

    David H. Keller: “The Lost Language” (1934)

    Stanislaw Lem: “Solaris” (1961) excerpt

    Jorge Luis Borges: “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940)

    Cixin Liu: “The Poetry Cloud” (1997)

    Invasions

    Edgar Rice Burroughs: “A Princess of Mars” (1912) excerpt

    Leslie F. Stone: “The Conquest of Gola” (1931)

    Stanley G. Weinbaum: “A Martian Odyssey” (1934)

    John W. Campbell Jr.: “Who Goes There?” (1938)

    Ray Bradbury: “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” (1949)

    Katherine MacLean: “Pictures Don’t Lie” (1951)

    William Tenn: “The Liberation of Earth” (1953)

    J.G. Ballard: “The Voices of Time” (1960)

    Dino Buzzati: “Catastrophe” (1966)

    James Tiptree Jr.: “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972)

    Joanna Russ: “When It Changed” (1972)

    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: “The Spontaneous Reflex” (1973) excerpt

    Octavia Butler: “Bloodchild” (1984)

    James Patrick Kelly: “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995)

    Monsters

    H.P. Lovecraft: “The Dunwich Horror” (1929)

    Ray Bradbury: “The Foghorn” (1951)

    Jerome Bixby: “It’s a Good Life” (1953)

    Julio Cortázar: “Axolotl” (1956)

    J.G. Ballard: “The Drowned Giant” (1964)

    R.A. Lafferty: “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” (1966)

    Terry Carr: “The Dance of the Changer and the Three” (1968)

    Harlan Ellison®: “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967)

    Lisa Tuttle & George R.R. Martin: “The Storms of Windhaven” (1975)

    John Varley: “Air Raid” (1977)

    William Gibson: “New Rose Hotel” (1984)

    Ted Chiang: “Story of Your Life” (1998)

    Experiments

    Alfred Jarry: “Elements of Pataphysics” (1911)

    Karel Čapek: “R.U.R.” (1920) excerpt

    Stanisław Lem: “How Erg the Self-Inducting Slew a Paleface” (1955)

    William S. Burroughs: “Excerpt from Naked Lunch” (1959)

    J.G. Ballard: “Chronopolis” (1960)

    Philip K. Dick: “Beyond Lies the Wub” (1952)

    Boris Vian: “Froth on the Daydream” (1947) excerpt

    Joanna Russ: “Useful Phrases for the Tourist” (1970)

    George Alec Effinger: “Two Sadnesses” (1973)

    John Sladek: “Solar Shoe Salesman” (1974)

    Dafydd ab Hugh: “The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk” (1986)

    Generation Ships

    Don Wilcox: “The Voyage That Lasted 600 Years” (1940)

    Judith Merril: “Daughters of Earth” (1952)

    Brian W. Aldiss: “Non-Stop” (1958) excerpt

    Robert Silverberg: “Sundance” (1969)

    Pamela Zoline: “The Heat Death of the Universe” (1967)

    Gene Wolfe: “A Cabin on the Coast” (1984)

    Bruce Sterling: “Swarm” (1982)

    Geoff Ryman: “The Unconquered Country” (1984)

    New Worlds

    Cordwainer Smith: “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” (1961)

    Samuel R. Delany: “Aye, and Gomorrah …” (1967)

    Ursula K. Le Guin: “Vaster Than Empires and Slower” (1971)

    James Tiptree Jr.: “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” (1976)

    Frederik Pohl: “The Gold at the Starbow’s End” (1972)

    Angélica Gorodischer: “Of Navigators and Traitors” (1973) excerpt

    John Crowley: “Snow” (1985)

    Iain M. Banks: “A Gift from the Culture” (1987)

    Greg Egan: “Learning to Be Me” (1990)

    Future War

    Jack London: “The Unparalleled Invasion” (1910)

    Edward Bulwer-Lytton: “The Coming Race” (1871) excerpt

    George Griffith: “The War of the Viruses” (1895)

    Philip Francis Nowlan: “Armageddon 2419 A.D.” (1928)

    E.E. “Doc” Smith: “The Skylark of Space” (1928) excerpt

    Olaf Stapledon: “Star Maker” (1937) excerpt

    Robert A. Heinlein: “Solution Unsatisfactory” (1941)

    C.M. Kornbluth: “Two Dooms” (1958)

    Joe Haldeman: “Hero” (1972)

    Harry Harrison: “The Streets of Ashkelon” (1962)

    David R. Bunch: “Moderan” (1967)

    Harlan Ellison®: “A Boy and His Dog” (1969)

    James S.A. Corey: “Rates of Change” (2011)

    Virtual Reality

    Stanisław Lem: “The Seventh Sally or How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good” (1965)

    Philip K. Dick: “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966)

    John Brunner: “The Vitanuls” (1967)

    Roger Zelazny: “For a Breath I Tarry” (1966)

    Robert Silverberg: “Passengers” (1968)

    Rudy Rucker: “Software” (1982) excerpt

    William Gibson: “Burning Chrome” (1982)

    Pat Cadigan: “Pretty Boy Crossover” (1986)

    Neal Stephenson: “Snow Crash” (1992) excerpt

    Humanity 2.0

    Olaf Stapledon: “Odd John” (1935) excerpt

    C.L. Moore: “No Woman Born” (1944)

    Cordwainer Smith: “Scanners Live in Vain” (1950)

    Algis Budrys: “Who?” (1955)

    James Blish: “Surface Tension” (1952)

    Gregory Benford: “Blood Music” (1983)

    Bruce Sterling: “Mozart in Mirrorshades” (1985)

    Vernor Vinge: “True Names” (1981)

    Ted Chiang: “Understand” (1991)

    Alien Minds

    Arthur C. Clarke: “The Sentinel” (1951)

    Isaac Asimov: “The Last Question” (1956)

    Clifford D. Simak: “Desertion” (1944)

    James H. Schmitz: “Grandpa” (1955)

    Frank Herbert: “Try to Remember!” (1961)

    Philip José Farmer: “Sail On! Sail On!” (1952)

    Stanisław Lem: “Solaris” (1961) excerpt

    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: “Roadside Picnic” (1972) excerpt

    Karen Joy Fowler & Pat Murphy: “Rachel in Love” (1987)

    Ian McDonald: “The Tear” (2008)

    After the End

    Walter M. Miller Jr.: “The Darfsteller” (1955) J.G. Ballard: “The Terminal Beach” (1964) John Wyndham: ”

     

    Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century Poetry

    BOLD read

    Edward Lee Masters.

    The Hil

    Fiddler. Jones,

    Petite the Poet

     

    Edwin Arlington Robinson

    Miniver Cheevy

    Mr. Flood’s Party.

     

    James Weldon Johnson

    The Creation

    Paul Laurence  Dunbar.

     

    The Poet

    Life

    Life’s Trajedy

     

    Robert Frost.

    The Death Of The Hired Man.

    Mending Wall.

    Birches

              Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening.

              Tree In My Window.

    Directive.

    Amy Lowell

    Patterns.

     

    Getrude Stein

    Susie Asado.

    From Tender Buttons A Box.

     From Tender Buttons, A Plate.

     

    Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson

    I sit and sew .

    Carl Sandburg.

    Grass.

    Cahoots.

     

    Wallace Stevens.

    Peter Quince at the Clavier.

    Disillusionment of 10:00.

    13 Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird.

              Emperor Of Ice Cream.

    A Mere  Being.

    Angelina Weld Grimke

    Fragment.

    William Carlos Williams.

    Tact.

    Dance Ruse

    The Yachts.

    From Apostlethat Greeny  Flower Book 1, Lines 1 To 92.

     

    Sarah Teasdale.

    Moonlight.

    There Will Come Soft Rains.

     

    Erza Pound

    The Jewel Stairs Grievance.

    The River Merchants Wife Letter.

    In A Station At The Metro.     

              Hugh  Selwyn Mulberry.

    From Conto. 56 Libretto Yet Ere This Season Died A Cold

     

    Hilda Doolittle, HD.

    Sea Rose.

    The Helen.

    From The Walls Do Not Fall An Incident Here And There.

    From Hermeneutic Definition Red Rose And A Beggar. Why Did You Come?

    Take Me Anywhere.

    Venicc. Venus.

     

    Robinson, Jeffers.

    Gala in April.

    Shine, Perishing Republic.

    Cloudss at Evening.

    Credo

    Mararane Moore

    Fish.

    Poetry.

     

    TS, Elliott.

    Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

              The Wasteland.

     

    Claude McKay.

    If We Must Die.

    Harlem Dancer.

     

    Archibald MacLeash,

    Arts Poetica

    Edna, Saint Vincent Millay.

    First Fig

    Recuerdo

    E E Cummings.

    In Just.

    Buffalo Bill

    The Cambridge Ladies Have Lived In Furnished Souls.

    Next To, Of Course, God, America.

    Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled Gladly Beyond.

    Rpophessagr

    Gene Toomor.

    Reapers.

    November Cotton Flowers.

    Portrait in Georgia.

    Louise Bogan

    Medusa.

    New moon.

    Melvin B Tolson

    Dark Symphony.

    From Harlem Gallery PSI Black Boys, Let Me Get Up From The White Man’s Table.

     

    Hart Crane

    From the Bridge

    Poem to Brooklyn Bridge

    From 11  Powhatan’s Daughter the River.

     

    Robert Francis.

    Silent Poem

    Langston Hughes

    Nego speaks of rivers.

    I, Too.

    Dreams Boogie.

    Harlem

    Countee Cullan

    Incident

    To John Keats Poet at Spring Time

    Yes I Do Marvel

    From the Dark Tower

    Stanley Kutitz

    Father and Son

    The Protrait

    Touch Me

    WH Auden

    Mussee Des Beaux Arts

    Epitah on a Tryant

    Theordore Roethke

    My Papa’s Waltz

    The Waking

    In a Dark Time

     

    Charles Olson.

    From The Maximum Poems One Maximum Of Gloucester To You.

    The Distances.

    Elizabeth Bishop.

    The Fish

    Sestina

    First Death In Nova Scotia.

    Visit  To Saint Elizabeths.

    One Art.

    Robert Hayden.

    Morning Poem For The Queen Of Sunday.

    Those Winter Sundays.

    Frederick Douglass.

    Middle Passage.

    Muriel  Rukeyser?

    Effort At Speech Between Two People.         ‘

    Then I Saw What The Calling  Was.

    The Poem as Mask

    Delmore  Swartz.

    The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me.

    John Barryman.

    From The Dream Songs.

    Feeling Your Compact And Delicious Body. ‘

    Life, Friends, Is Boring. We Must Not Say So.

    There Shut Down Once.  ‘

    This World Is Gradually Becoming A Place.

    Henry’sUnderstanding

     

    Randall, Jarell.

    90 North.

    The Death Of The Bell Turret Gunner.

    The Woman At The Washington Zoo.

    Next Day.

    Weldon Kees.

    To My Daughter?

     

    Dudley Randall

    A Different Image

    William Stafford.

    Traveling Through The Dark.

    At The Bomb Testing Site.

     

    Ruth Stone.

    Scars.

    Margaret Walker.

    For My People

    Gwendolyn Brooks.

    The Mother.

    A Song In The Front Yard.         ‘

    The Bean Eaters

    The Lovers Of The Poor.

              We  Real Cool.      ‘

    The Blackstone Rangers.

     

    Robert Lowell.

    To Speak Of Woe That Is In Marriage.

    Skunk Hour .

    For The Union Dead.

    Robert Duncan.

    Often I’m Permitted To Return To A Medow.

    My Mother Would Be A Falconress

    Lawrence Ferlinghetti

    Populist Manifesto.

    William Meredith.

    Parents. Howard Nemeroff.

    Because You Asked About The Line Between Prose And Poetry.

    Hayden Caruth.

    The  Hyacinth Gardens In Brooklyn.

    August 1945.

    Richard Wilber

    Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

    Cottage Street

    The Writer

    James Dickey

    The Sheep Child

    Alan Duncan.

    Love song I And Thou

    Anthony Act.

    More light, More light.

    Richard Hugo.

    The Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg.

    The Freaks at Spring General Rd. Field.

    Dennis Levertov.

    The Poem Unwritten

    Cademon.

    Swan in Falling snow.

    Who is Simpson?

    American Poetry.

    Carolyn Kaiser.

    A Muse of water.

    Kenneth Koch.

    Fresh air.

    Permanently.

    Maxine Coleman.

    Morning Swim.

    How It Is?

    Gerald Stern.

    Behaving Like A Jew.

    The Dancing.

    Another Insane Devotion.

    AR Ammons.

    The City Limits.

    Corson Inlet.

    Robert Blye.

    Snowfall In The Afternoon.

    Driving Into Town Late To Mail A Letter.

    Walking From Sleep.

    Robert Creeley.

    The Flower.

    I Know A Man.

    The Language.

    The Rain.

    Bresson’s Movies.

    James Merrill.

    Victor Dog.

    Frank O’Hara New York School.

    Steps.

    Poem Lana Turner Has Collapsed.

    The Day Lady Died.

    John Ashberry. New York School

    Some Trees.

    Self-Portrait In A Convex Mirror.

    What Is Poetry?

    Galway, Kennel.

    The Bear.`

    After Making Love, We Hear Footsteps.

    Saint Francis And The Soul.

    Ws Merwin.

    Air.

    For The Anniversary Of My Death.

    Yesterday.

    Chord .

    James Wright.

    A Blessing.

    Autumn  Begins In Martins Ferry, Oh.

    Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy’s Farm In Pine Island, Mn.

    In Response To The Rumor That Otis Warehouse In Wheeling, Wv Has Been Condemned.

    Donald Hall.

    My Son, My Executioner.

    Digging.

    Philip Levine.

    Animals Are Passing From Our Lives.

    They Feed They Lion.

    You Can Have It.

    The  Simple Truth.

     

    Anne Sexton.

    Her Kind

    Adoption.

    Waiting To Die.

    In Celebration Of My Uterus.

    Rowing

    Adrienne Rich.

    Orion

    Planetarium.

    A Valedictorian Forbidding Mourning.

    From 21 Love Poems 13 The Rules Of Break Like A Thermometer.

    Gregory Corso.

    Marriage

    Gary Snyder.

    Hay, For The Horses.

    Riprap.

    Mid August As Sourdough Mountain Lookout.

    Dereck  Walcott.

    A Far Cry From Africa.

    Sea Grapes.

    Find The Schooner Flight Part 11 After The Storm. There’s A Fresh Light That Follows.

    The Light Of The World.

    From Omeros Book. 7. 44 I Sing Of Quiet,Achiles, Afrolabe’s Son.

    Miller Williams.

    Let Me tell you.

    Etheridge Knight

    Idea Of Ancestry.

    Amira Baraka, Leroy Jones.

    Preface To A 20 Volume Suicide Note.

    Agony As Now.

    SOS.

    Black Art.

    Ted Berrigon .

    Wrong Rain.

    A Final Sonnet

    Andre Lorde.

    Power.

    Sonia Sanchez.

    Poetry at 30.

    Mark Strand.

    The Prediction.

    The Night, The Porch.

    Russell Edson.

    A Stone Is Nobody’s.

     

    Mary Oliver.

    Singapore.

    The Summer’s Day.

    Charles Wright.

    Reunion.

    Dead Color.

    California Dreaming.

    Lucile  Clifton.

    Homage To My Hips.

    At Least At Last We Killed The Roaches.

    The Death Of Fry, Alfred Clifton.

    To My Last.

    June, Jordan.

    Home About My Rights.

    Frederick Seidel.

    1968.

    CK Williams.

    Find My Window.

    Blades

    Tynan Wilkowski.’

    The Mechanic.

    Michael S Harper.

    Dear John. Dear Coltrane.

    Last Affair. Bessies Blues Song.

    Grandfather.

    Nightmare Begins Responsibility.

    Charles Simik .

    Stone.

    Fork.

    Classic Ballroom Dances.

    Paula Gunn Allen.

     

    Grandmother.

    Frank Bidart.

    Ellen West.

    Carl Dennis.

    Spring Letter.

    Two Or Three Wishes.

    Stephen Dunn.

    Allegory Of The Cave.

    Tucson.

    Robert Pensky.

    History Of My Heart.

    The Questions.

    Samurai Song.

    James Welch.

    Christmas Comes To Moccasin Flat.

    Billy Collins.

    Introduction To Poetry.

    The Dead.

    Toi Derricote .

    Allen Ginsberg.

    The Weakness.

    Stephen Dobyns.

    How To Like It?

    Lullaby.

    Robert Hass.

    Song.

    That Photographer?

    Return Of Robinson Jeffers.

    Lyn Hejinian

    From My Life trim With Colored Ribbons.

    BH  Fairchild.

    The Machinist Teaching His Daughter To Play The Piano.

    Haki  R Madhubuti Don L Lee.

    But He Was Cool Or Even Stopped For Green Lights.

    Upon To Compliment Other Poems.

    William Matthews.

    In Memory Of The Utah Stars.

    The  Accompanist

    . Sharon Olds

    The Language Of The Brag.

    The Lifting.

    Henry Taylor.

    Barbed Wire.

    Tess Gallagher.

    Black, Silver.

    Under Stars.

    Michael Palmer.

    I Do Not.

    James Tate.

    The Lost  Pilot.

    Norman Dubie.

    Elizabeth War With The Christmas Bear.

    The Funeral.

    Carol Muske Dukes,.

    August, Los Angeles Lullaby.

    Kay Ryan.

    Turtle

    Bestiary

    Larry Levis.

    Childhood Ideogram

    Winter Stars

    Adrian C Lousis

    Looking For Judas

    How much lux?

    The People of the Other  Village.

    Marilyn Nelson.

    The Ballad of Aunt Geneva.

    Star Fix.

    Run Stilleman

    Albany

    AI

    Cuba 1963

    The Kid

    Finished

    Yusef Komunyakaa

    Thanks

    To Do Street

    Facing It

    Nude Interogation

    Nathaniel Mc Kay

    Song of the Aduumboulou

    Gregory Orr

    Gathering the Bones Together

    Two Lines From the Brother Grimm

    Origin of the Marble Forrest

    Robert Hill Whiteman

    Reaching Yellow River

    Albert Goldbarth

    Away

    Heather Mc Hugh

    Language Lesson 1976

    What He Thought

    Leslie Marmon Silko

    In  Cold Storm Light

    Olga Boumas

    Calypso

    Victor Hernadez Soul

    Latin and Soul

    Jane Miller

    Miami Heart

    David St. James

    Iris

    CD Wright

    Why Ralph Refuses to Dance

    Girl Friend Poe # 3

    Crescent

    Carolyn Forche

    Taking Off My Clothes

    Jorie Graham

    San Sepolcro

    Marie Howe

    What the Living Do

    Joy Harjo

    She Had Some Horses

    My House is the Red Earth

    Garret Honjo

    The Legend

    Andrew  Hugins

    Beggoten

    We Were Simply Talking

    Brigit Peggen Kelly

    Imaging Their Own Hyms

    Song

    Paul Muldoon

    Meeting the British

    Errata

    The Throwback

    Judith Orez Coffer

    Quinceanera

    Rita Dove

    Parsely

    Day Star

    After Reading Mikey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed

    Alice Fulton

    Our Calling

    Brbar Hamby

    Thinking of Galieo

    Hatred

    Mark Jarman

    Unholly Sonnet

    Naomi Shibab Nye

    The Traveling Onion

    Arabic

    Wedding Cake

    Alberto Rios

    Nani

    Enland Finally like My Mother Always Said We Would

    Laurie Sheck

    Nocturne Blue Waves

    The Unfinished

    Gary Sotto

    Field Poem

    Oranges

    Black Hair

    Susan Stewart

    Yellow Star and Ice

    The Forrest

    Mark Dotty

    Brillance

    Esta Noche

    Bill’s Story

    Harryette Mullen

    Black Nikes

    Franz Wright

    Alcohol

    Lorna Dee Cervantes

    To My Brother

    Love of My Flesh, Living Death

    Sandra Cisneros.

    My Wicked, Wicked Ways.

    Little Clowns, My Heart.

    Cornelius, Eady.

    Jack Johnson Does The Eagle Rock.

    Crows In A Strong Wind.

    I’m A Fool To Love You.

     

    Louise Eldritch

    .         Indian Boarding School. The Runaways.

    David Mason.

    Spooning.

    Marilyn Chin.

    How I Got That Name?

    Compose Near The Bay Bridge

    The Survivor

    Cathysong .

    The Youngest Daughter.

    Ann Finch.

    Another Reluctance.

    Insert

    Lee Young Lee.

    The Gift

    Eating Together.

    Carl Philiphs

    Our Lady

    As From a Quiver of Arrows

    Nick Flynn

    Bag of Mice

    Cartoon Physics

    Elizabeth Alexander

    The Viena Hottenot

    Reetivka Vazisrani

    From White Elephants

    A million Balconies

    Train Windows

    Sherman Alexie

    What the Orphan Inherits

    The Pow Wow at the End of the World

    Natasha Trethevey

    Hot Combs

    Amateur Fighter

    Flounder

    A E Stallings

    The Tantrum

    Joana Klink

    Spare

    Brenda Shaughnessy

    Postfeminism

    Your One Good Dress

    Kevin Young

    Quivra City Limits

    Everywhere is Out of Town

    Whaatever You Want

    Terrance Hayes

    At Pegasus

              Lady Sings the Blues

     

     

     

     

    Monthly Themes enter one review per month

    January

    Cather, Willa: My Ántonia
    Chopin, Kate: The Awakening

     

    Part two reading recommendations until July 15, 2025

     

    Part three Reading recommendations July to August

     

    July 1, 2025

    5 Timeless Classics That Every Thinking Person Should Read

    15 Masterpieces of American Literature to Read at Least Once in Your Life

     

    July 5

     

    15 Songs That Were Inspired by American Literature

    The 17 Most Thought-Provoking Books of the Last 100 Years

     

    Goodreads lists top 100 books released every year in the last century

    Good reads  top book of last hundred years

    1957 – On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

    1958 – Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

    1959 – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

    1960 – To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

    1961 – Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

    1962 – A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle.

    1963 – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

    1964 – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

    1965 – Dune by Frank Herbert.

    1966 – Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

    1967 – One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

    1968 – A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.

    1969 – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

    1970 – The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison.

    1971 – The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.

    1972 – The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin.

    1973 – The Princess Bride by William Goldman.

    1974 – If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin.

    1975 – Shogun by James Clavell.

    1976 – Roots by Alex Haley.

     

    Rest of the List

    1925 – Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

    1926 – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.

    1927 – Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather.

    1928 – All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

    1929 – Passing by Nella Larsen.

    1930 – As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.

    1931 – The Waves by Virginia Woolf.

    1932 – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

    1933 – Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain.

    1934 – Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

    1935 – Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.

    1936 – Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot.

    1937 – Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

    1938 – Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

    1939 – The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

    1940 – Native Son by Richard Wright.

    1941 – The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges.

    1942 – The Stranger by Albert Camus.

    1943 – The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry.

    1944 – No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre.

    1945 – The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

    1946 – The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.

    1947 – The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

    1948 – I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

    1949 – 1984 by George Orwell.

    1950 – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

    1951 – The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

    1952 – Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

    1953 – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

    1954 – The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien.

    1955 – Lolita by Vladimr Nabokov.

    1956 – Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.

    1977 – The Shining by Stephen King.

    1978 – The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.

    1979 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

    1980 – The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

    1981 – Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

    1982 – The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende.

    1983 – The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett.

    1984 – The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.

    1985 – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

    1986 – Maus by Art Spiegelman.

    1987 – Beloved by Tony Morrison.

    1988 – The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushtie.

    1989 – The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

    1990 – V for Vendetta by Alan Moore.

    1991 – Possession by A. S. Byatt.

    1992 – The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

    1993 – Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler.

    1994 – The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa.

    1995 – Wicked by Gregory Maguire.

    1996 – A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

    1997 – Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

    1998 – A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.

    1999 – all about love by bell hooks.

    2000 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon.

    2001 – Atonement by Ian McEwan.

    2002 – Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides.

    2003 – The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

    2004 – Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

    2005 – Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

    2006 – The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

    2007 – In The Woods by Tana French.

    2008 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

    2009 – Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

    2010 – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

    2011 – The Martian by Andy Weir.

    2012 – Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

    2013 – Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan.

    2014 – Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

    2015 – The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin.

    2016 – The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.

    2017 – Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

    2018 – Circe by Madeline Miller.

    2019 – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

    2020 – The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.

    2021 – Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner.

    2022 – Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsoliver.

    2023 – Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.

    2024 – James by Percival Everett.

     

    July 6, 2025

     

    7 Philosophy Books for Beginners | Watch

    The 10 Best Standalone Sci-Fi Books

    July 8, 2025

    The 22 best motivational books to become your best self in 2025

    25 Thought-Provoking Books You Should Read From The Last Decade

     

    Literary Masterpieces: The 25 Best Books That Defined the 20th Century

    7 Philosophical Science Fiction Novels You Need to Read | Watch

     

    July 9, 2025

     

    30 Best-Selling Books Everyone’s Reading in 2025

    The 15 Best Books of the Past 15 Years, According to PureWow’s Books Editor

    The 10 Best Fantasy Books of the Last Decade

    10 best sci-fi fantasy books, ranked

    15 Books That Predicted the Future with Eerie Accuracy

    July 11, 2025

    The 10 Best Classic Sci-Fi Books (That Still Hold Up)

    Seven Great Reads

    Stephen King’s 10 favorite books of all time – from epic fantasy to brutal western

    These 15 Novels Sparked National Controversies

    55 Science Fiction Books Everyone Needs to Read

    Why “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse Still Changes Lives 100 Years Later

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/15-masterpieces-of-american-literature-to-read-at-least-once-in-your-life/ss-AA1HkrFf?ocid=A&pcALGTS&cvid=8d4cce81b30043a29a6a9db8b9487de7&ei=150

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    📺 Series Overview: Gone for Good (2021)

    Premise:
    Guillaume Lucchesi thought he had moved past the tragedy that claimed his brother Fred and first love Sonia. But ten years later, his girlfriend Judith vanishes during his mother’s funeral, triggering a desperate search that unearths buried secrets and forces him to confront the past he tried to forget.

    Format:

    • 5 episodes
    • Released on Netflix
    • French title: Disparu à jamais
    • Created by David Elkaïm and Vincent Poymori
    • Executive Producer: Harlan Coben

    📽️ Episode Synopses

    Episode Title Summary
    1️⃣ Guillaume Guillaume’s life is upended when Judith disappears. Flashbacks reveal the trauma of losing Fred and Sonia.
    2️⃣ Inès Guillaume investigates his mother’s finances and uncovers clues about Judith’s past. Inès hides a key piece of evidence.
    3️⃣ Daco Daco’s neo-Nazi past resurfaces as he helps Guillaume track Judith’s daughter Alice. A funeral reveals a shocking twist.
    4️⃣ Nora Judith’s real identity as Nora is revealed. Flashbacks to Italy show her escape from an abusive husband and Fred’s involvement.
    5️⃣ Fred Fred returns, seeking revenge and redemption. Guillaume learns the truth about Sonia’s death and confronts his brother in a deadly showdown.

    🎭 Cast List

    Actor Character
    Finnegan Oldfield Guillaume Lucchesi
    Nicolas Duvauchelle Fred Lucchesi
    Nailia Harzoune Judith Conti / Nora
    Garance Marillier Sonia & Inès Kasmi
    Guillaume Gouix Daco
    Tómas Lemarquis Ostertag
    Grégoire Colin Kesler
    Jacques Bonnaffé Mr. Lucchesi
    Mila Ayache Alice
    Sonia Bonny Awa

    🗣️ Notable Quotes from the Book

    “You want the good guys on one side, the bad on the other. It doesn’t work that way, does it? It is never that simple.”
    — Gone for Good, Harlan Coben

    “The mind does that. It tries to find a way out. It makes deals with God. It makes promises.”
    — Gone for Good

    These quotes reflect the novel’s central theme: the murky moral terrain of love, loss, and redemption.

    📚 Literary Reputation

    Harlan Coben is widely regarded as one of the most successful thriller writers of his generation. His novels are known for:

    • Twist-heavy plots
    • Ordinary people in extraordinary danger
    • Themes of buried secrets and family trauma

    Gone for Good was praised for its emotional depth and suspense, and its adaptation continues Coben’s streak of successful international Netflix series.

    👤 Author Bio: Harlan Coben

    • Born: January 4, 1962, Newark, NJ
    • Education: Amherst College (Political Science)
    • Awards: Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony — the only author to win all three
    • Books in print: Over 90 million
    • Known for: Myron Bolitar series, standalone thrillers, and Netflix adaptations
    • Lives in: Ridgewood, NJ with his wife and four children

    📖 Book List (Selected)

    🔹 Myron Bolitar Series

    • Deal Breaker (1995)
    • Fade Away (1996)
    • Darkest Fear (2000)
    • Home (2016)
    • Think Twice (2024)

    🔹 Mickey Bolitar Series (YA)

    • Shelter (2011)
    • Seconds Away (2012)
    • Found (2014)

    🔹 Standalone Novels

    • Tell No One (2001)
    • Gone for Good (2002)
    • The Innocent (2005)
    • The Stranger (2015)
    • I Will Find You (2023)

    🎬 Movie & TV Adaptations

    Title Country Year Notes
    Tell No One France 2006 Acclaimed film adaptation
    Safe UK 2018 Netflix original
    The Stranger UK 2020 Netflix original
    The Innocent Spain 2021

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    Claude McKay’s Must-Read Masterpieces: 25 Powerful Poems That Shaped Literature

    45 Must-Read Classics That Still Hold Up Today

     

    July 14

    10 Great Novels To Read if You Love Alfred Hitchcock Movies

    Books That Will Keep You Up All Night

    Top 10 best classic novels of all time as Jane Austen and J. R. R. Tolkien beaten by ‘masterpiece’

    20 Book Endings That Sparked Major Controversies

    Top 10 Cultural Immersion Novels That Transport You Across Time and Space

    Do You Have Time? The Best Books Over 1,000 Pages That Are Worth the Read

    30 Overlooked Books That Deserve More Love

    8 Fantasy Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once

    10 TV Shows That Failed to Capture the Magic of Great Books

    20 Life-Changing Books That Will Inspire You and Transform Your Perspective

    Quick Escapes: Must-Read Literary Classics Under 200 Pages

    The five best books for escapism, according to Matt Haig

    The Best Books on Spain’s Medieval Past | Watch

     

    20 Books That Predicted the Future – And Got It Scarily Right

    1. “1984” by George Orwell (1949)
    2. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley (1932)
    3. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury (1953)
    4. “Neuromancer” by William Gibson (1984)
    5. “Stand on Zanzibar” by John Brunner (1968)
    6. “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster (1909)
    7. “Looking Backward” by Edward Bellamy (1888)
    8. “The Shockwave Rider” by John Brunner (1975)
    9. “Earth” by David Brin (1990)
    10. “The Space Merchants” by Pohl & Kornbluth (1953)
    11. “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler (1970)
    12. “Player Piano” by Kurt Vonnegut (1952)
    13. “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson (1992)
    14. “The World Set Free” by H.G. Wells (1914)15. “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood (1985)
    15. “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson (1962).
    16. “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand (1957)
    17. “Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson (1999)©wikimed
    18. “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson (1995)©wiki
    19. “Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson (1992)

     

    30 Books Every 40+ Person Should Read

    Life-Changing Books for Your Mental Health

    10 Ambitious Sci-Fi Books That Really Pay Off

     

    July 21, 2025

     

    Small Books, Big Impact: 10 Short Reads That Leave a Lasting Impression

     

    July 27, 2025

     

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-28-most-famous-historical-fiction-books-you-need-to-read/ss-AA1JnDu2?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LGTS&cvid=6886a59066c749988e8dc517995ad6bc&ei=49

     

    September 17, 2025

     

    10 Sci-Fi Books That Are Actually Scientifically Plausible

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    October 2, 2025

     

    Top 10 Most Read Books of All Time

     

     The Bible

    The Bible is widely considered the most read and distributed book in human history. It has been translated into over 3,500 languages, and billions of copies have been printed and shared. With its combination of spiritual guidance, historical narrative, and moral instruction, it’s central to Christianity and has influenced countless aspects of literature and law worldwide.

    2. The Quran

    The Quran, the holy book of Islam, is another one of the most widely read texts in the world. It has been memorized, studied, and recited by millions of Muslims daily for centuries. Its poetic style, teachings, and laws form the foundation of Islamic belief and practice.

    3. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (The Little Red Book)

    This collection of quotes by the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong was published in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution. It was required reading in China and distributed to over a billion people. The book was considered a symbol of loyalty to Mao’s communist ideals.

    4. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

    This seven-book fantasy series has captivated audiences across generations and countries. With over 500 million copies sold globally, Harry Potter’s influence extends beyond literature into film, merchandise, and theme parks. Its universal themes of friendship, courage, and good vs. evil have made it a modern classic.

     

    5. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

    Published in the 1950s, this epic high-fantasy trilogy revolutionized the genre. Tolkien’s richly detailed world of Middle-earth, filled with hobbits, wizards, and dark lords, continues to inspire generations of readers and writers. The books have sold over 150 million copies and remain popular worldwide.

    6. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

    This philosophical novel about a shepherd’s journey to find treasure has touched readers with its messages about destiny, faith, and purpose. Originally published in Portuguese in 1988, it has been translated into over 80 languages and sold more than 65 million copies.

    7. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

    This poignant account of a young Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis during World War II is one of the most powerful memoirs ever written. It has been translated into dozens of languages and remains required reading in many schools, emphasizing the importance of tolerance and remembrance.

    Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

    First published in the early 1600s, Don Quixote is one of the earliest and most influential novels ever written. The story of an aging man’s quest to become a knight is both humorous and tragic, and its themes continue to resonate. It has sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide.

    9. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

    Before The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien introduced readers to Middle-earth with The Hobbit. This tale of Bilbo Baggins’ adventure with dwarves and dragons is beloved for its humor, heart, and moral lessons. It has sold over 100 million copies and remains a staple in children’s and fantasy literature.

    Only one I have not read is

    10. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

    Published in 1937, this self-help classic on success and wealth-building has sold over 100 million copies. It’s credited with inspiring generations of entrepreneurs and motivational speakers. Its influence remains strong in business and personal development communities.

     

    100 of the Best Books of All Time

     

    Book cover depicts hands holding purple flowers; text reads “Anna Karenina,” “Leo Tolstoy,” “Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition.” Black-and-white background with text in white.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1878)

    Ah, Anna Karenina. Lusty love affair or best romance of all time? Most critics pin it as one of most iconic literary love stories, and for good reason. Leo Tolstoy’s sweeping Russian tale of star-crossed lovers is littered with swoon-worthy love quotes like, “He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.” Described by Fyodor Dostoevsky as “flawless,” this one belongs on any book collector’s shelf.

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    Book cover features tree silhouette, green leaves above red background, text reads “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Harper Lee,” “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

    Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird upends the quiet solitude of a segregated Southern town with a story of innocence and virtue, bigotry and hate, love and forgiveness. Eight-year-old Scout Finch and her father, Atticus, find themselves enmeshed in the trial of a Black man accused of raping a White woman. In one of the most deeply sad books, Lee tells the events, revelations, and lessons through the eyes of a young child. Widely read and widely taught, To Kill a Mockingbird continues to spark discussions of race in classrooms and libraries across the country.

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    Looking for your next great book? Read four of today’s bestselling novels in the ime it takes to read one with Reader’s Digest Select Editions. And be sure to follow the Select Editions page on Facebook!

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    Children and dog lean over a sidewalk’s edge with a “Keep Off” sign; text says “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    3. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein (1974)

    The imagination and artistry of Shel Silverstein are on full display in this classic collection of short stories and poems. Where the Sidewalk Ends is truly one of the best poetry books of all time because of its staying power for children and adults alike. Whimsical and masterful, the stories of this American poet, author, singer, and folk artist have something for everyone.

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    Book cover showcases bold “Valley of the Dolls” text with pill-shaped cutouts revealing partial faces, set against a pink background.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    4. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (1966)

    Sex and drugs have a common allure, but they also have a common endgame: a downward spiral. In Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann offers in lurid detail the stories of three young women who want nothing more than to reach the pinnacle of life. But just as they see it in their grasp, they lose it all in a coil of sex, lust, romance, and abandonment. This page-turner is one of those classic beach reads you won’t be able to put down, and it paved the way for similar scintillating vacation books.

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    Book cover displays “The Shining” by Stephen King. A dimly lit wooden doorway marked “REDRUM” creates a suspenseful atmosphere.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    5. The Shining by Stephen King (1977)

    The master of suspense must be included in any list of books you should read in a lifetime. That’s why you’ll find Stephen King’s The Shining here. Brought to life in cinematic perfection by Jack Nicholson, Jack Torrance is a middle-aged man looking for a fresh start. He thinks he’s found it when he lands a job as the off-season caretaker at an idyllic old hotel, the Overlook. But as snow piles higher outside, the secluded location begins to feel more confining and sinister, less freeing and more provoking. Horror fans, take note: This is one of the scariest and best Stephen King books of all time.

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    76 The Little Prince By Antoine De Saint Exupéry Via Amazon© via amazon.com

    6. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)

    The Little Prince is a timeless tale of a prince’s journey from planet to planet in search of adventure. What he finds, however, are interactions with adults who leave him frustrated or dismayed. In the Sahara Desert, he runs into the book’s narrator, and the two start an eight-day journey filled with lessons. Don’t let this book’s size fool you—it’s one of the most compelling short books we’ve ever read. It’s also one of the most widely read classics all over the world. Whether you prefer reading in English, French, or another language, you’re bound to find a copy.

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    The book cover features a gold ring with an eye, intricate designs on black. Text: “The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    7. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)

    In The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, journey to Middle-earth and into the world of Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf the Grey, the dark lord Sauron, and the entire assemblage of Tolkien’s most famous characters and story lines. Frodo is tasked with destroying the One Ring, the most powerful Ring in Mordor, but along the way, his quest is filled with many of Tolkien’s unique and captivating characters, as well as an adventure of epic proportions. Though the world of Middle-earth is entirely made up, the trilogy teases out universal themes of good versus evil that have resonated with readers of all ages and backgrounds. It’s widely regarded as one of the best fantasy books of all time and a must-read for lovers of the genre.

     

    8. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)

    Offred, a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, has been removed from the home, family, and life that she knew only to be forced into service as a housemaid—and a working pair of ovaries. As the population of Gilead falls, a woman’s value becomes contingent upon her fertility and ability to reproduce, and those who can procreate are stripped of their independence. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is one part cautionary tale and one part enthralling narrative. Though written decades ago, it remains chillingly compelling for our time as was proven by audience reactions to it’s on-screen adaptation. While Season 6 of The Handmaid’s tale is yet to be released, you can binge the rest of the show on Hulu if you like both watching and reading. There’s a reason Reader’s Digest counts it among the best feminist books.

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    Book cover features people flying above a landscape, set against a cosmic background. Text reads© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    9. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)

    While this book may have seen an uptick in interest thanks to the 2018 film starring Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, and Reese Witherspoon, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time has long been held as a must-read for its fantastical telling of splitting the fabric of time and space. A Newbery Medal winner, this science-fantasy novel follows troublesome and stubborn Meg Murry as she confronts her father’s mysterious disappearance with a collection of peculiar neighbors: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. Elements of love, trust, and overcoming fear are woven into this enchanting coming-of-age story. We always recommend reading the book before pressing “play,” so once you’ve thoroughly devoured this story, check out the other stellar books made into movies.

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    Book cover features a woman’s portrait gazing sideways. Text reads:© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)

    Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice adorned shelves of many a learned reader in the 1800s and 1900s, but its timeless story and lessons earn it a spot in many home libraries (and on many school reading lists) even today. When eligible young men arrive in their neighborhood, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett must prepare their five eager daughters for the role of a lifetime: wife. While the Bennett sisters’ wit and humor keep the pages flipping, the classic story, which is widely considered one of the best romance novels, also serves as a harbinger for hasty mistakes and erred judgments.

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    Book cover displays the title “All the President’s Men,” with authors Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward; labeled “40th Anniversary Edition” above the subtitle.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    11. All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (1974)

    Political junkies of all stripes will relish the words of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they recount the experiences and events of Watergate. Published just months before President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation, the book outlines all the evidence against Nixon and his cohort of political operatives that the two accomplished reporters unearthed during their investigations. It also marks the genesis of Deep Throat (later revealed to be Mark Felt, the associate director of the FBI), the secretive government informant who helped take down Nixon in the end.

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    12. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (1946)

    Between 1942 and 1945, Viktor Frankl labored in four Nazi death camps. His parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Later in life, Frankl became a psychiatrist and practiced what he coined logotherapy, a theory that our lives are primarily driven by the discovery and pursuit of what we find meaningful. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl shares the horrors he faced in those concentration camps. But in this extraordinary Holocaust book, he also shares the lessons he learned—and later taught his patients—about spiritual revival in the face of such great suffering. Here are some more drama book recommendations to add to your reading list.

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    Book cover displays decorative golden text “Beloved” on a red background, author “Toni Morrison,” indicating a novel with new foreword.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    13. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

    Toni Morrison’s Beloved stares down the horrors of slavery and transforms a narrative you think you’ve read a hundred times into a towering tale of pain, agony, triumph, and freedom. The story of Sethe, the novel’s protagonist, is gut-wrenchingly honest and simultaneously beautiful and hideous. She wears the worries of past decisions and strives longingly toward freedom, the arc for which her entire life story bends. The suspense wears heavy on the reader, and the choices you must weigh alongside Sethe are haunting. The book is a cultural landmark for breaking through the monotony of textbook descriptions and offering a human glimpse at a shameful season in history.

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    Clouds loom over bare trees in a field, with text “Truman Capote” and “In Cold Blood” overlaid in the sky.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    14. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965)

    On Nov. 15, 1959, the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, was turned on end by the savage murder of four members of the Clutter family. The police had no suspects and almost no evidence. Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood recounts in chilling detail the deaths of the family and the investigation that ultimately led to the arrest of two recently paroled ex-convicts. Capote’s work may be a story stuck in time, but its nonfiction narrative reveals a lot about violence and evil that resonates even today. This is often considered a model for the best true crime books, regardless of the time period.

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    Book cover shows boy carrying a rifle on a dirt path. Title: “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    15. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (2007)

    It’s a story so painful, you’d prefer to think it is fiction. But Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone is an entirely true recounting of his years as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, West Africa. With this book, you’ll get a firsthand look at what life is like for the world’s 300,000 child soldiers, many of whom are stolen from their homes and forced into a world of drugs, guns, and murder. In a world made small by 24-hour news and lightning-speed technology, this is a must-read for understanding the plight of fellow humans.

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    Text “DUNE” overlays a cloaked figure walking on red-orange dunes, under a starry sky with a large sun. Text: “NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    16. Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)

    A science fiction novel for the ages, Frank Herbert’s Dune tells the adventures of Paul Atreides—who will become known as Muad’Dib—as he and his family strive to bring humankind’s greatest dream to life while living on a desert planet. Though written in 1965, much of Dune‘s story may be more relevant to 21st-century readers than it was to bookworms who picked it up in the ’60s. It has sparked countless other works in the collection of stellar science fiction books.

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    A sketched portrait depicts a classical figure with detailed lines; below, text reads “Charles Dickens, Great Expectations,” in a minimalist book cover design.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861)

    When Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations, he gave life to some of literature’s most colorful and enduring characters: Pip, Miss Havisham, and Uncle Pumblechook, to name a few. His penultimate novel, Great Expectations details the life and stories of an orphan named Pip, growing up in Kent and London in the early to mid-1800s. It’s a classic and a must-read quite simply because it’s been described as one of Dickens’ best works, an appraisal to which Dickens himself agreed.

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    20 Daring Greatly How The Courage To Be Vulnerable Transforms The Way We Live, Love, Parent, And Lead By Brené Brow© via amazon.com

    18. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown (2012)

    Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, throws everything we know about vulnerability and emotional exposure to the wind in Daring Greatly, one of the most groundbreaking self-help books of our time. After more than a decade of research, Brown wrote this book to dispel the myth that vulnerability is a weakness. Instead, she argues, it’s one of the most accurate measures of courage and the only path to true experiences.

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    A large eye illustration on red background, with “1984” and “George Orwell” written in bold white text.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    19. 1984 by George Orwell (1949)

    George Orwell certainly couldn’t have known how prophetic his words might have been when he wrote the dystopian novel 1984 in the mid-20th century. Great Britain has fallen and given way to Airstrip One, a province of the fictional superstate Oceania. Airstrip One is ruled by perpetual war and Big Brother, a mysterious leader who uses omnipresent government surveillance and a cult of personality to enforce law and order. Winston Smith, the book’s leading character, must navigate the Party, Big Brother, and his thoughts, which grow more criminal by the day.

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    Book cover shows a child standing against a stone wall. Text reads:© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    20. Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (1996)

    In his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, Angela’s Ashes, author Frank McCourt recounts his childhood spent in the slums of Limerick, Ireland: “When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.” McCourt battled poverty, near-starvation, neglect, and cruelty but manages to tell his story with humor, compassion, and self-perpetuating power. His award-winning book is widely considered one of the best memoirs of all time.

    10.9916% OFF$9.21 at Amazon

    Book cover displays “Stephen Hawking A Brief History of Time,” featuring his image and text praising his ability to explain complex cosmological physics.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    21. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988)

    Most science books, even well-written ones, read a bit too much like textbooks. But renowned English physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking manages to turn some of the world’s most profound questions—How did the universe begin? What happens in the end?—into captivating reading. A modern physics guide, this book was perhaps the first to make the most mysterious elements of the universe (black holes and quarks) entirely accessible for the general public.

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    Book with matchbook cover design, featuring “Fahrenheit 451” and author name, Ray Bradbury. Text highlights a 60th anniversary edition on a bold red background.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    22. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)

    Guy Montag’s existence in Fahrenheit 451 might hit a little close to home: He’s a fireman in a futuristic dystopian world whose job is to find and destroy the illegal commodities of a world whose sole focus is television: books. Indeed, Montag believes the printed word is dangerous—until a mysterious neighbor, Clarisse, shows up and opens his eyes to the wonder of the written word. This spellbinding story explores questions about the importance of literature and free speech. If you oppose banning books, this is the novel for you.

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    Book cover features bright red curtain against a sky background, displaying the title “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” by Dave Eggers.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    23. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (2000)

    First released in 2000, Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius became a national best seller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a heartwarming classic. This masterpiece is the memoir of a college senior whose life is turned upside down when he loses both of his parents within the span of five weeks and finds himself the guardian of his eight-year-old brother. Despite that ominous start, the book manages to be wildly funny with an irreverently honest take on learning to live with death.

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    A boy flies on a broomstick through an archway, with a castle and unicorn in the background. Text reads,© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    24. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (1997)

    Welcome to the wizarding world, muggles. In J.K. Rowling’s first installment of the beloved series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, you will be introduced to many of the story’s most important—and entrancing—characters: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and more. But before you get settled into the fun of spells and potions, the action starts right away as Harry finds himself troubled by the feeling his destiny is intertwined with his past. This book landed on our list for its explosive popularity and deep impression on the fantasy genre, as well as its many memorable quotes that will stay with you.

    10.9918% OFF$9.05 at Amazon

    50 Selected Stories, 1968–1994 By Alice Munro Via Amazon© via amazon.com

    25. Selected Stories, 1968–1994 by Alice Munro (1996)

    Alice Munro, one of the most prolific writers of the modern era, captures life’s most honest feelings and moments in these 28 magnificent short stories. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, this short story collection will never cease to surprise you with its eloquent story lines, captivating characters, and endlessly wonderful realism. It’s a book that belongs on any bibliophile’s home bookshelf.

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    The book cover displays overlapping clouds with text. Context: Blue background features endorsements and title, “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green, a bestseller.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    26. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012)

    She thought a cancer diagnosis had sealed her fate and written her life story, but a chance meeting with Augustus Waters turns Hazel Lancaster’s life upside down. Irreverent and bold, The Fault in Our Stars is a funny, captivating, and gut-wrenching story. It’s about learning to feel love, enjoy being alive, and live a bold life despite circumstances beyond your control. No wonder it’s ranked among the best sad books (have the tissue box handy) and best books for teens.

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    Alice stands, arms raised© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    27. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (1865)

    If all you know of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland is the zany but sanitized version of the 1951 Walt Disney animation, it’s time to flip your perspective on its head—much like the Cheshire Cat might flip himself. Scholars have tried to apply political, historical, and ideological theories to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, but it’s quite simply the dreamlike story of learning to grow (or shrink) and explore, told through the eyes of a curious child. Still, its cultural effects have rippled so far that it’s a must-read for anyone with even a hint of literary interest.

    $5.53 at Amazon

    Text “invisible man ralph ellison” is displayed, surrounded by vertical green shapes on a light background.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    28. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)

    A winner of the National Book Award for fiction, Ralph Ellison’s first novel, Invisible Man, spent an admirable 16 weeks atop the New York Times best-seller list. Its early success is due in large part to the relatable nature of its narrator, a young, nameless Black man who has to navigate levels of 1950s American culture that are fraught with hate and bias. Eager for a place in time to call his own, the narrator finds that what he hopes for himself will ultimately remain elusive, just as the truth behind the events that surround him remains ambiguous. The 581-page tome is a bit much for younger readers, but you can still introduce them to issues of race and equality with these children’s books about diversity.

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    29. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (1970)

    If you read this as an adolescent—and considering it’s often taught in schools, there’s a good chance you did—it’s time to reread Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. Awkward and inelegant as they may be, sixth-grader Margaret’s questions and quests (to grow bigger breasts, for example, while also seeking out her preferred religion) lead her to greater understanding and self-appreciation. The book will make you cringe as you recall your own experiences and desires to throw off the chains of childhood while budding into young adulthood. It’s a coming-of-age story that sparked dozens after it, but isn’t the original always the best?

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    44 One Hundred Years Of Solitude By Gabriel García Márquez Via Amazon© via amazon.com

    30. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

    According to the New York Times Book Review, this masterpiece by Gabriel García Márquez is “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” One Hundred Years of Solitude recounts the evolution of an entire fictitious town, Macondo. Through tales of men and women, boys and girls, the author—father of the magical realism literary style—offers a striking picture of the heartbreaking beauty and pain of the human race. Though it also landed on our list of the best books by Latinx authors, its true place is here, among the best books of all time.

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    31. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)

    If all you know of this American literature classic is the colloquial expression about decision-making, pick up Catch-22 for a dark and comedic good read. Yossarian, a member of an Italian bomber crew during World War II, is desperate to excuse himself from the increasingly high number of suicidal missions his commanders force him and his servicemen to fly. The catch comes when he realizes the sinister bureaucratic rule, Catch-22, classifies him as sane—and thus ineligible for relief—if he requests to be removed from duty. The book made waves as an anti-war anthem and representation of the individual versus society.

    19.9945% OFF$11.01 at Amazon

    Book cover features a girl with a headscarf inside a decorative frame, red background; text reads “Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood” by Marjane Satrapi.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    32. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (2000)

    Through this powerful graphic novel, Satrapi tells the story of her childhood in Tehran during the overthrow of the Shah, the rise of the Islamic Revolution, and the destruction of the Iran-Iraq war. As the daughter of two Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Satrapi holds a unique perspective and position in recounting stories of daily life in Iran. Learn, alongside Satrapi, about the history and heroes that define this fascinating country. The book captured readers’ attention for both its modern form—a graphic novel—and important, close-up peek at a country most Americans only know about from the news.

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    Girl hugging a pig, surrounded by farm animals on a book cover.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    33. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952)

    You’re never too old to visit with Charlotte, Wilbur, and Templeton. This heartwarming tale of friendship and dedication follows young Wilbur, a runt of a pig, as he’s spared from one death but subsequently sent to another almost-certain death. Desperate to help the petite porker, Charlotte, a barn spider, hatches a plan that proves genius and life-altering for young Wilbur. Charlotte’s Web remains a touching, great read for families.

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    Book cover displays a yellow skull and crossbones, titled “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, set against a bright red background.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    34. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

    Slaughterhouse-Five is a science-fiction-infused, anti-war novel that follows American soldier Billy Pilgrim. A central event in the story—as well as Vonnegut’s own life—is the firebombing of Dresden. Pilgrim begins to see many of the events in his life as repercussions of that deathly event. Much of Slaughterhouse-Five is autobiographical, but that hasn’t stopped pushes for censorship because of the book’s irreverent tone and unfiltered depictions of sex and profanity. One part futuristic storytelling, one part reflective memoir, Slaughterhouse-Five is often held as Vonnegut’s most important piece of writing.

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    A person holds a red umbrella, standing amidst a lush, yellow-flowered field with tall trees in the background. Text: “Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    35. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (2009)

    Abraham Verghese weaves multiple lush story lines into an opus of secrets, betrayal, love, and redemption in Cutting for Stone. Marion and Shiva Stone, twin brothers born of a secret union between an Indian nun and a British surgeon, are orphaned at a young age by their mother’s death and father’s disappearance. The two, bound together by blood and bond, leave war-seized Ethiopia for New York City only to return later to discover their fates and futures are intertwined with their pasts. The novel was groundbreaking for its depiction of medicine as primarily focused on people rather than procedures.

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    A smiling person reclines with a hand on the head, wearing glasses, suit and tie. Text reads: “THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X AS TOLD TO ALEX HALEY.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    36. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X and Alex Haley (1965)

    The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive work of an era in American history when cultural, racial, and religious ideologies met at a pinnacle. Malcolm X, a firebrand, Muslim, and anti-integrationist leader, reveals the limits he sees in the American Dream and the changes that can be made through a force of will and effort. Fun fact: Coauthor Alex Haley was once an editor at Reader’s Digest.

    9.9917% OFF$8.27 at Amazon

    Man wears reflective sunglasses, smokes cigarette; distorted cityscape seen in sunglasses. Text: “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson. Psychedelic style.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    37. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson (1971)

    Even if you’ve never consumed a hallucinogenic drug in your life, you’ll likely feel a deep relationship to the wild ride many drug users describe after you read Hunter S. Thompson’s rollicking Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The book is the recounting of a wild, long weekend in Las Vegas, where he and his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, are sent to cover a biker’s race in the deserts of Nevada. The drug-addled duo never gets the story—not much of a spoiler—but what did come of the journey is a tour de force of a bygone era.

    18.0045% OFF$9.90 at Amazon

    Book cover displays title “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri, with abstract art background and gold badge noting “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    38. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)

    In this collection of short stories, Jhumpa Lahiri outlines the complex dynamics that exist when Indian traditionalism meets an American culture that often offers little respect for complex cultural dynamics it doesn’t understand. Each character’s story traces recognizable themes—longing, lust, betrayal—but they’re told in a complex story line that’s rich with detail. It’s an important read in our modern, multicultural world.

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    39. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1947)

    Reading The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank is a rite of passage for many adolescents and young adults, but older adults will find a lot to appreciate in this young woman’s wise words. Written during World War II as Nazis carried out their campaign of death and destruction, this journal is a day-by-day accounting of what life was like when a family was forced into hiding. Frank’s humanity and grace in light of her circumstances are inspiring and heartbreaking at once. It’s a deeply moving nonfiction book for kids and adults alike.

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    Close-up lips displayed on a book cover, “Lolita” written in elegant script, gold banner indicates “50th Anniversary Edition,” author Vladimir Nabokov at the bottom.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    40. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

    Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita may have first gained fame and notoriety for its infamous accounting of the protagonist’s unnatural (and, many argue, predatory) erotic predilections, but its staying power rests squarely on the breathtaking story that belies the most controversial elements. It’s a requiem about love (and, yes, lust), in all its maddening forms.

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    41. Love Medicine by Louise Eldrich (1984)

    Shakespeare’s Montagues and Capulets can barely hold a handle to Louise Eldrich’s Kashpaws and Lamartines. Love Medicine, a dazzling work of storytelling that takes place on and around a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation, shares the intertwined fates of two multigenerational families. Themes of injustice, betrayal, magic, and mystique surround a beautiful story that, in the end, is all about the power of love. For more entertainment from this era, turn on one of these fantastic ’80s movies.

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    Portrait of a man in a red robe poses against a dark backdrop. Text reads “David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    42. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (2000)

    This laugh-out-loud collection of short stories makes for great leisurely reading. In Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris shares the absurd and hysterical twists he was able to tease out of life’s more mundane and boring events growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina. The book continues as Sedaris moves to France, where he also shares the awkwardly charming stories of learning to live in a city and country that’s not at all familiar.

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    Book cover features smoke swirling overlying silhouette of a ship at the top. Text: “Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Picador.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    43. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)

    Calliope Helen Stephanides was born in Detroit in 1960, the heyday of Motor City, to a Greek American family who lived a quintessentially suburban American life. Moving out of the city, Calliope is faced with the realization that she’s not like other girls. It takes uncovering a family secret (and an astonishing genetic history) to understand why. Middlesex made waves as an audacious story of sexuality that transcends stereotypes of gender, sex, and identity.

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    44. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)

    Saleem Sinai was born at midnight on August 15, 1947. That is precisely the moment India became an independent state. Greeted with fireworks and fanfare, Sinai and 1,000 other “midnight’s children” across India soon find their health, well-being, thoughts, and capabilities are preternaturally linked to one another—and to their country’s national affairs, health, and power. In this magical realism novel, Salman Rushdie offers a timeless, enchanting story of family, heritage, and duty.

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    Cover features twisted tree branches, a thistle illustration, and text: “Steinbeck Centennial Edition, East of Eden, John Steinbeck,” with distant horses and trees.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    45. East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1952)

    We’d be remiss to leave out one of the most beloved American authors of the 20th century: John Steinbeck. In East of Eden, he presents a masterpiece that highlights the tension between good and evil through three generations of the Trasks and Hamiltons. You’ll be swept away by the complex characters and their similarities to Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. Though Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is assigned more often in high school classrooms, East of Eden takes the cake for its sweeping timeline and broader themes. It’s one of the best historical fiction books in existence.

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    46. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis (2003)

    The Oakland Athletics were written off, discarded, and ignored. Yet somehow they became one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball. Was it their throwing talent or their ERA? No, not at all. Instead, as Michael Lewis reveals, the real secret to winning baseball has little to do with skills and more to do with statistics. In what’s been described as “the single most influential baseball book ever,” Lewis reveals the secrets of the A’s and an unusual brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts who’ve identified the real secret to being a winning ball team. This book, which features a decidedly American story about an American tradition, belongs on the bookshelf of any American reader.

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    47. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (1915)

    You might not walk away with a big life lesson after reading W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, and perhaps that’s what makes this novel so irresistible. The orphaned protagonist, Philip Carey, is raring for adventure and love outside his brief stays in Heidelberg and Paris. Soon, he lands in London, eager to explore, and stumbles upon his greatest adventure yet: Mildred. The irresistible waitress and roaming orphan embark on a wildly fanciful but tortured and tormented affair. This book is widely considered a 20th-century English classic.

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    Illustrated face looks contemplative; wears a red flannel in a comic strip style. Background: desert road. Text: “On The Road, Jack Kerouac.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    48. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)

    On the Road recounts a hedonistic cross-country road trip between friends in the aftermath of World War II, a story line inspired by Jack Kerouac’s adventures with friend Neal Cassady. Eager to find meaning and true experiences along the way, the duo seeks pleasures in drug-fueled escapades and counterculture experiences. The book is a must-read for its ubiquitous place among American countercultural classics (much like Catcher in the Rye).

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    Book cover features lush foliage with animals; text reads “Out of Africa” by Isak Dinesen, surrounded by intricate greenery.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    49. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (1937)

    Isak Dinesen—a pen name for Danish author Karen Blixen—recounts life in British East Africa, just after World War II. While the collection of stories is not free of the racial bias and colonial attitudes of the time, Out of Africa gives a glimpse into an area of the world that’s largely overlooked when telling the coming-of-age narrative of modern countries. Fanciful and fascinating, Dinesen’s book portrays stories of lion hunts and life with native populations and European colonizers alongside a beautiful story of raising and freeing an orphaned antelope fawn. It offers readers a glimpse of a very specific place and time in history.

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    Book cover shows a mansion on a rocky island; text reads “Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None.” Stormy sky in the background.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    50. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939)

    In a world rife with paperback mysteries and e-books, Agatha Christie remains one of the most popular, well-known mystery writers of all time. In her vast collection, And Then There Were None frequently rises to the top. It’s a classic whodunit. Ten strangers are invited to a remote mansion on a desolate island. Once they’ve arrived, each guest is accused of murder. So what really happened? And who is responsible? Pick up a copy to find out; it makes a great summer read, after all.

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    51. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth (1969)

    Deemed highly controversial and too explicit when it was first published, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint is a vividly brash look at sexuality, obscenities, masturbation, and identity. The novel is a monologue of “a lust-ridden, mother-addicted young Jewish bachelor” that details many awkward and cringeworthy moments alongside quests for identity. It remains a landmark published piece in American literature, and after you read it, you’ll most certainly never look at a piece of liver the same way.

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    Book cover displays “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson on green background, includes a 50th anniversary emblem. Subtitles highlight its relevance to environmental movement.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    52. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)

    Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published as three installments in the New Yorker in the summer of 1962. The stories—and the book that followed in September of that year—launched the American environmental revolution, as the horrors of DDT, a pesticide commonly used at the time, made their way into the American mainstream. While Carson’s work was successful at eliminating the toxin, her story serves as a lasting reminder—and a good read—about the need for protecting our land, water, and air.

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    53. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005)

    Abraham Lincoln upended the political landscape of the 1850s when he won the Republican presidential nomination over a field of well-known, privileged men. Facing a divided nation and a crumbling war effort, Lincoln soon turned to those exact politicians to help build a team of rivals, a group of people he could turn to for honest accountability, effort, and eventually support and friendship. Team of Rivals is a deeply personal biography of one of America’s most respected leaders, told to show how he humbled himself in order to lead and govern.

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    Two profile silhouettes face left, against an orange backdrop with wave patterns. Text: “HOMEGOING,” “a novel,” “YAA GYASI,” and a quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    54. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016)

    Don’t miss this historical fiction masterpiece that also landed on our list of the best books by Black authors. Readers will fall in love with the riveting story of two sisters with very different fates. One was kidnapped and enslaved. The other married an Englishman and built a life of wealth and prestige. The award-winning book (it won the Hemingway Foundation PEN Award and the American Book Award, among others) delves deep into generational trauma and colonization. It is a must-read for modern bibliophiles.

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    Two women hold parasols, standing in a sunlit, leafy garden. Text reads “Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, Dover Thrift Editions.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    55. The Age of Innocence by Edith Warton (1920)

    This is a tale of love in the time of rigid societal requirements of New York City’s upper class. Newland Archer, an attorney from a respected family, is engaged to May Welland. Despite his betrothal, Archer finds himself taken by Countess Ellen Olenska, Welland’s unconventional cousin. Despite his own personal desires, Archer marries Welland as he has promised but continues to see Olenska. This best-of-both-worlds approach seems to please Newland, but his dreams ultimately come to an end as he’s forced to face the life he wants versus the life society expects him to lead. The book has sparked discussions in book clubs and classrooms for a century.

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    Book cover features superhero figure and city skyline, emphasizing adventure theme. Includes bold text: “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” by Michael Chabon.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    56. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (2000)

    You don’t need pirates and boats to have a swashbuckling thriller of a book. In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the lives and adventures of a curious and meddlesome pair of cousins are explored in exuberant detail. Cousins Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay swing through the glittering streets of pre–World War II Brooklyn, spinning up comic books to feed America’s growing craze. Their hero, Escapist, fights fascists and falls hard for Luna Moth, an ethereal, mysterious, and desirous paramour. Their lives—and their careers—are equally bright and fanciful. The book received an incredible amount of praise from readers and critics. It also became a New York Times best seller.

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    Book cover features a hand about to tip dominoes, with bold title text “The Book Thief” above, and author “Markus Zusak” at the top.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    57. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2005)

    If you’re reading this list, you likely understand the power that a book has to feed and nurture a soul. In that case, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief will be right at home in your hands. In 1939 Nazi Germany, Liesel Meminger seeks meaning and life amid the bombings and death. Her “weapon” of choice? Books and the written word. This is a beautiful, riveting tale that helped make the horrors of World War II fresh again for readers who learned about it from history books. Our editors agree that it’s one of the 100 best books of all time. Want great fiction like this mailed to you every month? Sign up for one of these book subscription boxes.

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    Book cover displays “Rubyfruit Jungle” title in bold, with green leafy background. Text by Rita Mae Brown; quote by Gloria Steinem at the bottom.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    58. Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown (1973)

    Every reader should take the time to read a few of the best LGBTQ books ever published. Rubyfruit Jungle is the perfect place to start. This is Rita Mae Brown’s semi-autobiographical novel about fumbling through her first relationship in sixth grade, landing in New York City’s queer society, and more. It’s a personal, poignant look at what it meant to belong to the LGBTQ+ community in the mid- to late 20th century. The award-winning book is widely recognized as an important contribution to LGBTQ+ and lesbian literature.

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    58 The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao By Junot Díaz Via Amazon© via amazon.com

    59. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2007)

    Oscar Wao is a pleasant nerd living in New Jersey, far removed from the comforts and traditions of the Dominican Republic his mother knows and loves. Wao wants nothing more than to find love—and to be the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. His quest for both plunges readers into mythologies of family curses, immigrant journeys, and the American experience. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a page-turner that’ll find a home with anyone who lusts for love and the human experience.

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    Book cover features an illustrated carousel horse, energetic lines, bright text, and urban skyline. Title: “The Catcher in the Rye.” Author: J.D. Salinger.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    60. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)

    Originally meant for an adult audience, The Catcher in the Rye has become a favorite among adolescent readers and high school literature teachers. The theme of teenage angst and alienation imbue a story of rebellion as the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, looks for acceptance, recognition, and appreciation. Like so many teenagers, Caulfield finds himself facing the decision to leave everything behind, only to face the realization that perhaps his life isn’t as dreadful as it seems. For something totally different, take a bite out of one of these vampire books.

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    61. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride (1995)

    “God is the color of water,” Ruth McBride taught her children, expressing her belief that God’s blessings, values, and grace rise above skin color and race. McBride, a “light-skinned” mother to 12 Black children, brought up her kids in the all-Black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn, sending them to Jewish schools, shuttling them to free cultural events, and eventually shepherding all of them through college and beyond. But McBride’s son, James, discovers that she’s actually a White woman who was born in Poland, and he unearths the many painful reasons she has for hiding from that truth in this powerful, National Book Award–winning memoir.

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    Two figures embrace against a red background; text reads: “Amy Tan, New York Times Bestseller, The Joy Luck Club, a novel.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    62. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989)

    Any fan of women’s fiction has likely read Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. This debut novel tells the story of four Chinese women who move to the United States in search of a better life. As their American-born daughters grow up, the women struggle to reconcile their identities, cultures, and more. It’s a beautiful, important book about mothers and daughters, motherlands and adopted lands. As the world gets smaller and smaller, as more families pack up their belongings to move to a new place, books like these are critical to fostering empathy.

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    Book cover shows a family dining, featuring a table laden with food. Text reads: “Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections, Winner of the National Book Award.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    63. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)

    After 50 years of marriage, Enid Lambert is looking for a little excitement, but it seems the universe is working against her goals. Her husband is frail from disease, and her children’s lives are falling apart or swirling down the drain. In The Corrections, Enid wants nothing more than to bring her whole family together for one last Christmas so she has something to look forward to. What unfolds, however, is nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. The book is brimming with characters who will stick with you, which is what makes it one of the best books to read when you want to deeply feel something.

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    64. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson (2003)

    The 1893 World’s Fair brought the globe to Chicago—but it also brought a cunning serial killer, H.H. Holmes. In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson combines meticulous historical research with a bit of period storytelling to generate a truly captivating nonfiction murder mystery that also shares a lot of history about one of the world’s greatest marvels.

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    The book cover features an elderly man contemplating, with trees and a medal in the background. The text reads: “LOIS LOWRY the giver.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    65. The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993)

    Jonas lives in a Utopian world. Everyone’s role is clear, and everyone fulfills those roles blissfully. Life is a set path that’s followed precisely. When he turns 12, however, Jonas begins to learn the reason his world is very fragile. The Giver is a dystopian story about what you’re willing to give up—and what you’re not—to live a life that’s free of emotions, pain, and suffering.

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    Book cover displays colorful stripes with bold text, “The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdrich. Features “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize” badge.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    66. The Night Watchmen by Louise Erdrich (2020)

    The Night Watchmen snagged the top spot on our list of the best Native American books for a reason. Based on Louise Erdrich’s grandfather’s life, the story is about one Native American night watchman who fights for his right to land and identity in the United States. The book brims with beautiful sentences and a riveting story, but it also received critical acclaim for its important themes and depiction of cultural identity.

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    Cover features a polar bear running across ice under a starry sky. Text: “Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass, #1 International Bestseller.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    67. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (1995)

    Lyra, a bold and brave young woman, takes off into uncharted territories to rescue her friend and other young children from kidnapping by the Gobblers. She also has to help her uncle build a bridge to a parallel world. What she doesn’t realize, however, is that she will face choices that challenge her and require grit she doesn’t know she has. The first in the His Dark Materials series, The Golden Compass is captivating from word one.

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    Book cover features prominent eyes above a cityscape with lights against a deep blue background. Text includes “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    68. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

    The roaring twenties still captivate the imagination of many, so dive into The Great Gatsby for a fantastic story and a historical trip that will leave you reeling. Rich characters and detailed imagery ensconce you in the era and whisk you into a beautiful story of the Jazz Age’s glitzy parties and lusty affections. The book is arguably the most well-known work depicting this time. That’s what places it among the books everyone should read. Not sure what to pick up after you close the book on Gatsby and friends? Choose the best book for you based on your zodiac sign.

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    Book cover shows Henrietta Lacks standing confidently, set against a bright orange cellular background with text detailing her medical story and its aftermath.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    69. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010)

    Henrietta Lacks, a poor Black tobacco farmer, died of cervical cancer shortly after giving birth to her fifth child in 1951. During her treatment, Lacks’ cells were taken without her knowledge, and they became the first immortalized cell line. That cell line has been used by doctors, researchers, and medical companies to develop everything from the polio vaccine to clones. Her cells are one of the most vital health tools of the 20th and 21st centuries and have made companies millions. Lacks’ family, however, knew nothing about this. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a riveting story about race, medicine, ethics, and the search for life.

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    Face showing eyes and mouth with text overlay. “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro, featuring a Nobel Prize sticker.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    70. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)

    Kazuo Ishiguro is on our list of contemporary writers you should have read by now. He won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, and his 2005 publication of Never Let Me Go is at least one reason why. The science fiction story centers on cloned humans living in a boarding school who await their future as forced organ donors. But, of course, clones are humans, too, and the students’ lives intertwine with friendship, love, and lust even as they grow more entrapped by their inevitable role in society. This is a must-read for its portrayal of enduring friendship, its questions about medical science, and its masterful writing.

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    71. The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr (1995)

    Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club is a darkly humorous story of life in east Texas in the 1960s with a family that could give anyone’s family a run for its money. A daddy who drinks too much, a mother who marries too much, and a sister whose mouth could make a grown man blush—these characters are brilliant depictions of hilarious, horrific human foibles.

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    Cover shows a close-up car grille, with text: “Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye.” Below, “Raymond Chandler is a master.” —The New York Times.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    72. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (1953)

    The Long Goodbye is a murder mystery wrapped up in thrill and suspense. Philip Marlowe befriends a down-on-his-luck veteran, but several clever plot twists later, Marlowe’s friendship with the vet leaves him in the eye of investigators and a gangster. Deeply dark and fascinating, The Long Goodbye belongs to a series of novels about investigator Marlowe, and critics quibble about which are the best. You can’t go wrong with any—they’re all must-read books. Next, check out these book recommendations based on TV shows you might’ve watched.

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    Book cover displays title “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11” by Lawrence Wright against a background of monochrome portraits. Pulitzer Prize badge visible.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    73. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright (2006)

    You think you know the events that led to September 11, 2001, but The Looming Tower is a history lesson that is as profound as it is infuriating and painful. In the five decades leading up to one of America’s darkest hours, you will trace the beginning elements of fundamental Islam, the rise of Osama bin Laden, and the terrorist groups that sought to bring down a country.

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    Book cover depicts title “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Oliver Sacks; blue and orange text on cream background, review quote below.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    74. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Olive Sacks (1985)

    Physicians and health care providers could likely fill volumes with the strange, heartbreaking, and obscene things they experience in their practices. In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, one doctor finally did commit those episodes to paper. Oliver Sacks recounts stories of patients with a variety of neurological disorders—including, as the name suggests, a man who mistook his wife for a hat—that leave them physically here but mentally miles away. It’s captivating and heartbreaking, and it helps you understand how doctors connect with the humans behind the diagnoses. For more medical dramas, check out our list of the best doctor shows on TV.

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    75. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (2006)

    Michael Pollan may ultimately be one of the biggest forces for changes in food systems, sustainability, and healthful living. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan shows how the meals we choose to eat impact everything from our health to the world’s ultimate outlook. Nearly a decade after he first published this book, Pollan’s call to deeper thought and conversation about our food systems continues to shift the way we eat, grow, and share our food.

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    Bust of a man emerging from a structure, surrounded by cityscape. Text reads: “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    76. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro (1974)

    New York City has been home to big personalities, but perhaps none have been quite as powerful as Robert Moses. He established much of what the city is today, from its bureaucratic utility companies to its physical layout and infrastructure. He was a force to be reckoned with, taking into his control much of the city’s development and prosperity—that is, until he finally met his match in Nelson Rockefeller. We’ve deemed this essential reading for understanding the history and politics of the Big Apple.

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    Rocket launching with fiery flames, surrounded by thick smoke; book title “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe, and publisher “Picador” are displayed prominently.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    77. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (1979)

    Many words have been committed to paper to commemorate and honor the United States’ race to the moon and the men and women behind those missions. But perhaps no other book can take you deep into the mindset and the tenacity, grit, and courage it took to complete the Apollo missions the way Tom Wolfe did in The Right Stuff.

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    Boy standing at a window, looking contemplative in a black and white photo. Book cover titled “Go Tell It on the Mountain” by James Baldwin.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    78. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953)

    As a gay Black man in the 20th century, James Baldwin inspired generations of readers who relate to any one of his identities. Despite—and sometimes spurred by—the discrimination he faced, he wrote prolifically. While there are many, many Baldwin texts to recommend, Go Tell It on the Mountain landed on this list because of its semi-autobiographical nature. This American classic tells the story of one Harlem man’s spiritual and sexual reckoning.

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    Book cover displays bold title “The Road,” author’s name Cormac McCarthy, and a badge for winning the Pulitzer Prize, set against a dark background.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    79. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

    The Road is a deeply poetic and haunting tale of a father and son, “each the other’s world entire,” and the journey they take across a burned and destroyed America. They have little to their names, save each other, some scavenged food, and a pistol, yet they must fend off the worst of post-apocalyptic America—roaming gangs of thieves, isolation, desolation, and devastation—as they make their way to the coast, where they hope to figure out what’s next.

    18.0050% OFF$8.97 at Amazon

    Book cover features radial black lines, titling “The Stranger” by Albert Camus centered, set against a white background. “Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    80. The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)

    Albert Camus’ The Stranger has long lived a dual life of meaning: In one way, it’s a story of mystery, murder, death, and destruction. In another, it’s a sermon on the absurd and the power of human thought. Camus, for his part, wrote, “I summarized The Stranger a long time ago with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: ‘In our society, any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.’ I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.”

    16.0026% OFF$11.83 at Amazon

    A woman rests, leaning on a tree, on a yellow book cover. Text: “The Sun Also Rises” and “Ernest Hemingway” with a PBS feature.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    81. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

    Ernest Hemingway wrote stories filled with powerful emotions and unforgettable characters in a strikingly simple manner. The Sun Also Rises, which examines the disillusionment, angst, and apprehension of the post–World War I generation, is one of his finest works. In this novel, readers follow the tales and adventures of Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley as they swing through Europe with bewildered expats, seeking out the next great thrill.

    18.0012% OFF$15.81 at Amazon

    The book cover displays large text, featuring the title “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, with a National Book Award sticker.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    82. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)

    Our list of the best books of all time filled up quickly with fiction. But there are a few nonfiction tomes, including Ta-Nehisi Coates’ bible for the Black Lives Matter movement, that cannot be left out. This important book about racism offers a clear understanding of how Black men and women have been ostracized and exploited by formal systems throughout history. What makes the book even more compelling is how it mashes together history and modern memoir. The result is a bold, clear call to upend current racist systems and strive for a truly fair society.

    28.0061% OFF$10.87 at Amazon

    Silhouette soldiers carry gear against a muted blue background. Text:© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    83. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (1990)

    Perhaps the greatest book of fiction on Vietnam, The Things They Carried is a powerful story about war, memory, death, imagination, the importance of storytelling, and the human spirit. Tim O’Brien moves beyond the pain of war to examine the sensitivity and nature that each soldier brought with him on that long journey to Vietnam and the scars that returned with them. It’s a raw, honest look at a war that changed the country.

    18.9955% OFF$8.56 at Amazon

    Book cover features colorful swirling clouds with geometric white lines and text: “THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE” and “HARUKI MURAKAMI.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    84. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (1994)

    A search for a lost cat turns into a search for a lost wife in this prescient, engrossing, and humorous novel. At the intersection of a failing marriage, a dark past, and a secretive underground, Toru Okada encounters an untold number of bizarre people and experiences as he longs for answers that may never come for him—or even for you, the reader. Reviewers have said that though this magical realism book takes time and attention to read, the magnificent tome is absolutely worth it.

    19.0045% OFF$10.45 at Amazon

    Frog sits on typewriter amidst foliage; book cover reads “John Irving, The World According to Garp.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    85. The World According to Garp by John Irving (1978)

    Leave any puritan tendencies at the door when you pick up a copy of John Irving’s The World According to Garp. This story highlights the life of T.S. Garp, the bastard son of a feminist and activist. Garp’s world is a roller coaster of extremes—emotional, physical, and sexual. He faces scenarios so outlandishly awful and painful, you can’t help but laugh, cringe, cry, and cheer. Enjoy the journey!

    8.9980% OFF$1.80 at Amazon

    Skull intricately designed with patterns, centered; surrounded by decorative elements, against a black backdrop. Text reads “HAMLET” and “WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE” above and below.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    86. Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1603) plus rest of the plays

    If you only ever read one of Shakespeare’s plays, let it be this, the tragic tale of a son on a quest to avenge his murdered father. Part of what makes Hamlet so iconic is how it has been retold and referenced in the centuries since it was first written. This work has spawned an entire collection of other pop culture, from Disney’s The Lion King to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard. If you haven’t read it already, grab a copy of this slim little work and prepare to be swept away by madness, intrigue, and bitter fate.

    $7.95 at Amazon

    Book cover displaying the title “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion, featuring minimalistic design and a gold National Book Award winner seal.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    87. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)

    One of life’s truest axioms is that there will be good times and there will be bad times. If you can relate to both, or even if you can’t, Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking is a heart-wrenching story of a marriage, a family, a relationship, and a life that’s good, great, bad, awful, and everything in between. And in the end, isn’t that just a story about life?

    18.0047% OFF$9.60 at Amazon

    Silhouettes face each other, filled with intricate patterns on a red background. Text reads “Chinua Achebe, THINGS FALL APART,” with a Penguin logo below.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    88. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958)

    More than a century ago, worlds collided on the African continent when European colonizers arrived to establish outposts for their respective queens, kings, and presidents. What happened to the countries, the natives, and the settlers was nothing short of cataclysmic and tragic. Things Fall Apart tells the story of pre-colonial Africa and the great loss the world suffered when these civilizations and traditions were wiped away.

    16.0049% OFF$8.09 at Amazon

    A plane flies over ocean at sunset; text reads: “LAURA HILLENBRAND UNBROKEN: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    89. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (2010)

    The story behind Unbroken is so unbelievable and so improbable, it’s difficult to accept that it’s the real story of Louis Zamperini. Rebellious teenage years gave way to an Olympic career and eventually a stint as a U.S. airman. Zamperini soon found himself stranded in the Pacific Ocean and adrift thousands of miles from help. Where other men may have accepted their fate, he fought with hope, toughness, and humor to triumph. It’s an inspiring read for all.

    22.0064% OFF$7.92 at Amazon

    A group of four girls reads a book together inside a warmly lit room, surrounded by red curtains. Text: “Louisa May Alcott Little Women.”© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    90. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868)

    Is there any other mother-daughter book as iconic as Little Women? Louisa May Alcott’s story of the March sisters—Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy—traverses their lives from childhood to adulthood. It’s a coming-of-age story that remains relevant for women everywhere because of its themes of love, career, and budding identity. No list of the best books of all time would be complete without this truly classic novel.

    9.4979% OFF$2.02 at Amazon

    Book cover displays title “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith in bold white text on an orange background, labeled a national bestseller.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    91. White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000)

    Zadie Smith’s debut novel tells the tale of two women whose lives are forever changed by what they experienced together during World War II. This fast-paced historical fiction story covers a lot of ground: race, ethnicity, religion, class struggles, and more. The powerhouse novel landed on our list for its overwhelming praise from readers and critics alike.

    18.0044% OFF$10.04 at Amazon

    Book cover displays two faceless figures, heads touching; text reads “The Color Purple, A Novel, Alice Walker.” Background is a muted pink.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    92. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)

    When Alice Walker’s award-winning novel was first published in the 1980s, it was quickly censored. The author has said that most of the criticisms come from those who never even cracked open the book. So, what’s all the hubbub about? The Color Purple tells the story of a Black teen in 1930s rural Georgia. It centers around Celie, who writes about her day-to-day life in letters addressed to God. Yes, the book contains sexual themes, profanity, and violence. But its powerful prose has won awards, resulted in film and musical adaptations, and earned a spot on “best of” lists everywhere.

    18.0034% OFF$11.89 at Amazon

    A girl sits on stone steps, surrounded by trees. Text reads: “National Bestseller, Ian McEwan, Atonement.” A quote from John Updike is included.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    93. Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)

    Set in World War II–era England, Ian McEwan’s award-winning Atonement also landed on our list of the best historical fiction of all time. The novel tells the story of Briony Tallis and how her childhood accusation against a family friend changes three lives forever. It’s a romance. It’s a war novel. It’s historical fiction that will grab hold of your 21st-century heart and squeeze it till you cry. Though it’s not a light read, you’ll find yourself flying through the pages until you reach the gut-wrenching finale.

    19.0040% OFF$11.35 at Amazon

    99 Wuthering Heights By Emily Brontë Via Amazon© via amazon.com

    94. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)

    Could a book you read in high school really be considered one of the best books of all time? In the case of Wuthering Heights, yes. Emily Brontë’s classic novel takes a simple love story and smashes it to pieces with deft psychology and a dark Gothic atmosphere. Handsome Heathcliff falls head over heels for his foster sister, Catherine. But when another man enters the scene, their love story takes a manipulative, violent turn. The ripple effects of his jealousy even carry over into the next generation. Whether you end up loving or detesting this classic, dark romance, it’s worth a read.

    $8 at Amazon

    A lion’s face dominates the image, embraced by two children. Text reads:© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    95. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (1950) plus rest of the Narnia stories

    C.S. Lewis wrote and published numerous nonfiction and fiction books throughout his lifetime, but none have seeped so soundly into pop culture as those in the Chronicles of Narnia series. In this, the first installment, Lewis whisks readers through the wardrobe and into a vivid allegory that children and adults have fallen in love with again and again. You’ll see good and evil clash in the fight between Aslan and the White Witch. You’ll see compassion and forgiveness bloom between the Pevensie siblings. And you’ll certainly whet your appetite for more fantastical adventures as you reach the final page. This book is a children’s classic for a reason.

    10.9949% OFF$5.59 at Amazon

    Book cover displays title© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    96. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)

    If you haven’t yet read something by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, it’s time to start. Americanah won the 2013 U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction (joining the likes of Ian McEwan’s Atonement) and captured the imagination of readers all over the world. It’s the story of love, regret, and identity, as experienced by a Nigerian immigrant to the United States. The book simultaneously weaves a beautiful tale while revealing truths about the African diaspora that many American readers might not already know. It’s a new classic and truly one of the best fiction books you’ll read all year.

    19.0048% OFF$9.87 at Amazon

    Book cover displays Zora Neale Hurston’s© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    97. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

    This groundbreaking novel by Zora Neale Hurston took years to get the praise it deserved. Now it’s widely regarded as a landmark book in African American literature. It reveals themes of fate versus free will, gender, and race in the story of Janie Crawford, a young Black girl who must make her own way in 1930s Florida.

    17.9954% OFF$8.21 at Amazon

    Mechanized figure with raised arms below a gear; “Brave New World, Aldous Huxley” text centered. Black-and-white steampunk aesthetic on a book cover.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    98. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

    Walk either through the best bookstores in each state or your local bookstore and it won’t take long to find a shelf full of dystopian fiction. From The Hunger Games and Divergent to The Handmaid’s Tale and The Giver, twisted tales of societies gone wrong have practically become de rigueur. But once upon a time, that wasn’t the case. When Aldous Huxley penned the story of the World State, in which humans were conditioned out of their emotions and ability to bond with others, his ideas were new and somewhat shocking. The parallels to today—medicating oneself to stop feeling, genetic engineering, and instant gratification—make it all the more compelling for modern readers.

    18.9949% OFF$9.60 at Amazon

    Book cover shows title© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    99. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003)

    Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel has been read by millions of people all over the world, clearly marking it as one of the best books of all time. It tells the touching story of two boys in modern-day Afghanistan: one wealthy, the other poor. The timing of the book (published at the height of the country’s presence in American news) buoyed its popularity, but the story is powerful enough to stand on its own. Themes of friendship, redemption, and familial love make it a universal chronicle that will keep readers of all ages riveted until the end. For more deeply moving fiction, join an online book club and discuss your reads with like-minded book lovers.

    18.0034% OFF$11.85 at Amazon

    Book cover shows overlapping colorful dancers; text reads: “national bestseller, jennifer egan, a visit from the goon squad, a novel, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.” Black spine text.© Provided by Reader’s Digest

    100. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010)

    This 2011 Pulitzer Prize–winning book is a series of 13 stories. All are connected by a record company exec named Bennie Salazar (and his assistant, Sasha). The stories intersect through time, revealing each character’s past—and the way time changes us all. It stands apart for its form, quietly shocking characters, and acknowledgment of how the world keeps spinning madly, whether we keep up with the pace or not. It’s a must-read for its insight and trajectory toward modern-day classic status. Need something else to keep you entertained when you finish this book? Press Play on one of the best movies from the past 100 years.

    $12.99 at Amazon

     

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    November 2, 2025

     

    The 20 best sci-fi books of all time – ranked

     

     

    best science fiction books

    Fiction is there to drive us out of our heads, and science fiction even more so: it makes the wildest notions seem pressingly relevant to us, extends our imaginations and our sympathies.

    I’ve not only written many science-fiction (SF) novels myself, but for years I’ve written about SF, championed it, criticised it, taught it (whatever that means) and – God help me – edited it.

    Feminist SF never quite shook off Russ’s influence – ponderous imitations abound – and it’s easy to forget how much sheer fun Russ had with her foundational novel. Long ignored by the anti-feminist crowd, its anti-trans passages are now winning it new opprobrium. Well, to hell with people who won’t let their bubbles be pricked.

    Buy the book

    17. Cat’s Cradle (1963)

    by Kurt Vonnegut

    To write a good spoof, you need a truly hare-brained imagination; SF arises where invention takes on a peculiar life of its own. In Kurt Vonnegut’s fourth novel, a Cold War skit, a writer investigating the development of the atomic bomb uncovers “ice-nine”, a catastrophic polymer capable of solidifying all water. This uncomfortably believable idea – look it up: H2O is odd – pushes Vonnegut beyond satire and into a doomed and hilarious world all of his own.

     

    16. Camp Concentration (1968)

    by Thomas M Disch

    America has declared war on the rest of the world, and sinister army doctors have infected Sacchetti, an incarcerated poet, with a strain of syphilis, seeking to boost his intelligence. On these satirical foundations, Thomas Disch, one of the genre’s great jokers, built a terrifying enquiry into the relationship between language and perception, genius and pain. Anyone tempted to plug a chip into their brain, or microdose their way up to a pressing deadline (ahem), is well advised to nail this book to their desk.

    Buy the book

    15–11

    15. Neuromancer (1984)

    by William Gibson

    It’s hard to say whether William Gibson wanted to satirise his times, or had got drunk on the Kool-Aid. Either way, Neuromancer defined the 1980s. Case, a hacker, is washed-up and neurologically crippled from accessing cyberspace. With nothing to lose, he signs up for one last job: breaking into the heavily guarded computer systems of a powerful corporate dynasty.

    Little does he know, he has become the tool of Wintermute, a rogue artificial intelligence striving to merge with its more powerful sibling and achieve true sentience. Any attempt to précis Neuromancer makes it sound like a bad copy of itself, so let’s try this: before Tenet and The Matrix, before Ready Player One and The Windup Girl, there was this odd, twisted, noirish beast, its skin the colour of television tuned to a dead channel.

    Buy the book

    14. The Dispossessed (1974)

    by Ursula K Le Guin

    By the time you’re taking pot-shots at the human condition itself, you’re less a commentator than a species of philosopher. We follow Shevek, a brilliant physicist (based on Robert Oppenheimer, a family friend of Le Guin), who travels to the capitalist hell-hole planet Urras, while pining for Anarres, his socialist homeworld.

    Yet we don’t: the more Shevak remembers, the more stultifying Anarres seems. Urras is no picnic either: adrift in its shallowness and brutality, Shevak’s loneliness is visceral. How, then, should we live? No point asking Le Guin, who drove critics mad with a novel that insists readers think for themselves.

    Buy the book

    13. Last and First Men (1930)

    by Olaf Stapledon

    Let’s start at the end. Barely warmed by the light of an ageing Sun, the last man reflects on his species’ history: how it evolved, blossomed, speciated and died. Last and First Men isn’t merely a novel; it’s an imaginative history of the solar system across two billion years, detailing the dreams and aspirations, achievements and failings of 17 different kinds of future Homo. At last, extinction beckons: “It is very good to have been man… And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage.”

    Buy the book

    12. Station Eleven (2014)

    by Emily St John Mandel

    Bring that thousand-yard stare back down to earth, and turn it upon our 21st-century lives, and you wind up with books like this one – not that there’s anything quite like Station Eleven. A few days before a flu pandemic ravages humanity, celebrated actor Arthur Leander dies on stage. His friends and family remember and misremember him, living as much in their versions of the past and conceptions of the present as they do the future – and it begins to dawn on us that Leander, by his passing, may just have saved humanity.

    Buy the book

    11. Engine Summer (1979)

    by John Crowley

    In this melancholy and uplifting vision, Rush That Speaks, a young man dedicated to “Truthful Speaking” (harder than it sounds), goes in pursuit of his lost love Once A Day. His quest takes him across strange lands, and among peoples transfigured by disaster and alien visitation into attitudes of rare gentleness. Humanity has adapted in fascinating ways to what, at first, seems a quite hostile environment. Crowley makes a poignant and often heartbreaking drama out of our happy future.

    Buy the book

    10–6

    10. The Time Machine (1895)

    by HG Wells

    On the other hand, you could just frighten the life out of people: The Time Machine is one of the genre’s great, foundational shockers. HG Wells’s nameless narrator builds a machine to take him to the year 802701 AD, where he finds humanity split into gentle, stupid Eloi and cruel, clever Morlocks.

    The Eloi are beautiful, gentle, charming – and tasty, which is why the Morlocks are farming them. Despite what you might have been told, The Time Machine isn’t a political fable. Wells trained under the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, and this is a powerful, well-informed novel about evolution, as Huxley’s generation understood it. Time annihilates any attribute that proves useless to survival – even beauty and intelligence.

    Buy the book

    9. Plague of Pythons (1965)

    by Frederik Pohl

    As society succumbs to a plague of madness, an engineer called Chandler, who committed rape and murder while out of his mind, must fight to clear his name. The plague, in reality, is the doing of mysterious “possessors” who inhabit and manipulate other people as though they were living costumes to be shed at will.

    Chandler falls in with a cult that uses pain to ward off possession, and learns that the possessors are hackers who’ve developed technology that can penetrate the human psyche. But, having fallen under their control once again, how can he stop them? Social media has given this agelessly nasty idea new life: Plague of Pythons is an inadvertent parable for our age.

    Buy the book

    8. The Islanders (2011)

    by Christopher Priest

    So much for moral angst. Sometimes you just want your imagination to let rip. In prose that could be pernickety to the point of bizarrerie, Christopher Priest monomaniacally rearranged two or three foundational ideas into brilliant, haunting sui generis novels such as this. The Islanders is his mischievous and magical gazetteer of the Channel Islands, recast as the Dream Archipelago, in which we drift through a chain of fragmentary consciousnesses, and both time and space prove unreliable. It must be the strangest shaggy-dog story ever written.

    Buy the book

    7. The Stars My Destination (1956)

    by Alfred Bester

    Gully Foyle is uneducated, unskilled, unambitious, cowardly, venal and weak. He’s trapped aboard a derelict spaceship, and the company that should rescue him is leaving him to die. But, after surviving his ordeal, Gully plots a revenge as transformative as it is terrible, as he leaps from world to world, acquiring strength after strength and skill after skill. No one, before or since, matched Alfred Bester for energy or economy; no one, with the possible exception of Quentin Tarantino, has ever shown such love for or commitment to pulp fiction.

    Buy the book

    6. Rogue Moon (1960)

    by Algis Budrys

    Give the imagination enough rope, and you soon end up in a place about which you can’t even ask sensible questions, never mind receive comfortable answers. Thrill-seeker Al Barker is repeatedly copied and his copies teleported into an alien artefact on the Moon, which kills him again and again and again.

    Maybe it’s trying to communicate, but who knows? “Perhaps it’s the alien equivalent of a discarded tomato can. Does a beetle know why it can enter the can only from one end as it lies across the trail to the beetle’s burrow? […] Would the beetle be a fool to assume the human race put the can there to torment it – or an egomaniac to believe the can was manufactured only to mystify it?”

    Buy the book

    5–1

    5. Roadside Picnic (1972)

    by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

    In 1957, a massive explosion at a nuclear waste dump in the eastern Urals contaminated several hundred square kilometres of land. To prevent people wandering into the forbidden zone, the Soviet government turned it into a nature reserve. Fifteen years later, two Russian brothers wrote Roadside Picnic.

    Aliens have visited Earth and left their rubbish behind. Redrick “Red” Schuhart, is a stalker, one of many who illegally brave these abandoned and overgrown “picnic spots” in search of powerful, transformative, toxic and often deadly litter. In some cases, the weirder SF gets, the more it comes to resemble reality.

    Buy the book

    4. Dune (1965)

    by Frank Herbert

    Cast into the wilderness of planet Arrakis by invading House Harkonnen, young Paul Atreides learns the ways of the desert and becomes in one swoop a focus for royalist hopes and religious fanaticism – all while riding on the back of an enormous sand-worm. Dune’s several film and TV adaptations all do a splendid job of conveying the novel’s epic scale. What they can’t do so easily is convey its oddness: like much of Herbert’s best work, Dune is set in a world that has overthrown its own thinking machines, and must now, and for its own survival, breed, drug and otherwise warp individual humans into becoming something very like gods.

    Buy the book

    3. Fiasco (1986)

    by Stanisław Lem

    The trouble with becoming divine is that there’s no finishing line: no point beyond which you magically acquire the wisdom and patience you need to govern your new power. In Lem’s great novel, first published in German translation before it appeared in the original Polish in 1987, idealistic human explorers approach the planet Quinta, which seems to harbour intelligent life. They try to establish contact, but the Quintans are engaged in a war, and refuse to pay any attention to the humans’ arrival. The explorers’ efforts to force the aliens to engage grow increasingly violent, in this bleak, brilliant account of good intentions gone horribly awry.

    Buy the book

    2. Ubik (1969)

    by Philip K Dick

    In the end, wherever we go, we’re stuck with ourselves. Technician Joe Chip is caught in a corporate ambush, and his boss, Glen Runciter, is killed. Reality quickly unravels: objects regress in time, deteriorating into earlier forms, and Joe and his friends find themselves moving backward through the decades. Maybe they’re dead, and Runciter is alive. Runciter certainly seems to think so: he’s constantly turning up in advertisements, pushing “Ubik”, a substance that can temporarily reverse the universal decay. In Dick’s world, we only have each other. The very fabric of reality depends on other people.

    Buy the book

    1. The Day of Creation (1987)

    by JG Ballard

    Mallory is a WHO doctor in war-torn central Africa, where he dreams of bringing water to the parched land. Funnily enough, while digging, he unleashes a powerful, ever-growing river. Becoming obsessed, he names the river after himself and embarks on a journey upstream, through Edenic lands that grow steadily more poisonous and feverish, while the river turns into a force only Mallory can stop.

    The Day of Creation caps a formidable series of explorations of psychological “inner space”, that began with 1962’s The Wind from Nowhere. Ballard’s central insight was that no one experiences reality, only those bits of it that seem relevant. That’s where science fiction starts.

    Buy the book

    Simon Ings’s novels include Wolves and The Smoke

     

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    Bold I read

    • On my list
      1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
      2. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
      3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
      4. Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
      5. *The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry on my list to read
      6. . East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
      7. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
      8. 1984 by George Orwell
      9. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
      10. Watership Down by Richard Adams
      11. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
      12. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
      13. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
      14. *The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
      15. *The Stranger by Albert Camus
      16. 16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
      17. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
      18. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

    19.                Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

    20.                The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

    21. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

    22. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

    23. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

    24. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    25. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

    26. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

    27.* Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert on my list to read

    28.* Ulysses by James Joyce On my list to read not on the basic list though

    29. Dracula by Bram Stoker

    30. A Tale of Two Cities Novel by Charles Dicken

     

    30 Books to read before you die

    20 banned books every reader should experience at least once

    If You’ve Read 5 of These Books, You Might Be Smarter Than Most People

    The 11 best books I read in 2025

    13 Iconic Books Everyone Should Read in Their Lifetime

    50 books for 50 states that should be on your must-read list

    20 Places Every Book Lover Needs To Visit

    30 Books every educated person should read

    7 Most Intellectually Stimulating Books of the Last Century | Watch

    The best books to read this December, according to John Searles

    My Top 10 Books of All Time | Watch

    Five best: Books on the golden years

    The 44 best Greek mythology books of all time, according to librarians

    30 Books Practically Everyone Has Read at Least Once

    20 Short Stories Everyone Should Read at Least Once

    22 Classic Books That Continue to Shape Literature Today

    The 30 Most Popular & Best-Selling Books Ever

    Be the smartest person at the dinner party: Niche nonfiction books to read

    Key insights from a hundred philosophical books reviewed | Watch

    15 Classic Books Everyone Should Read at Least Once

    25 Great Books Today’s Kids Might Never Read

    45 Classic Books to Read Before They’re Banned

    7 Most Influential Fiction Books of All Time

    10 formerly banned books that became school reading staples

    Literary masterpieces everyone loves

    14 classic novels that would spark controversy if written today

    7 of the Most Influential Fiction Books of All Time | Watch

    Philosophical Science Fiction (and Fantasy) You Should Read | Watch

    6 books offering life-changing lessons | Watch

    The 25 Best Historical Fiction Books of All Time

    Looking For Your Next Read? These 10 Novels Are Worth The Time

    10 Classic And Modern European Books Every Reader Should Know

    8 best fantasy books of 2025

    17 Hidden Gems In Classic Literature

    12 Books We Keep Pretending We’ve Read (But Secretly Gave Up On)

    13 Vintage Books Every Collector Should Add to Their Library

    7 Greatest Literary Characters Who Defined Their Genres

    6 Banned Books That Were Once Considered Too Dangerous to Read

    20 book towns in the USA every avid reader needs to explore

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    10 mystery-thriller books we can’t wait to read in 2026

    The 30 Most Popular & Best-Selling Books Ever

    The 30 Most Popular & Best-Selling Books Ever

    Looking For Your Next Read? These 10 Novels Are Worth The Time

    A self-help book from 1884 gets me through the year, one day at a time

     

    Qoutes

     

    Douglas Adams In the Salmon of Doubt Hitchiking the Galaxy One Last Time

     

    “The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” ~ Douglas Adams in “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”

    Neil Armstrong quote

    In 1969, Neil Armstrong described the earth as a “tiny pea, pretty and blue,” which could be obscured by his thumb as he looked down upon us during his mission to the moon. Today, I can see Mars as a bright speck in the night sky and then go inside, turn on my computer and view images sent down from the Mars rover Curiosity, which show vivid scenes of the sprawling landscape up close and personal, bringing to mind the alien terrain I saw during my first voyage on the way to Auburn. http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/24/tech/mars-curiosity-anniversary/

    Anne Kagan in the After life of Billy Finger

    “A shift in perspective makes the particles in your universe dance to new possibilities.” ~ Annie Kagan in “The Afterlife of Billy Finger”

    Waiting for Us by Lawrencealot (December 18, 2014)
    Joyce Kilmer Trees

     

    “What makes you a poet is a gift for language, an ability to see into the heart of things, and an ability to deal with important unconscious material. When all these things come together, you’re a poet. But there isn’t one little gimmick that makes you a poet. There isn’t any formula for it.”
    ~ Erica Jong“One of my secret instructions to myself as a poet is: “Whatever you do, don’t be boring.”
    ~ Anne Sexton“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
    ~ Emily Dickinson“Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.”
    ~ Sylvia Plath

    “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you,”
    -Maya Angelou

    “Find the key emotion; this may be all you need to know to find your short story.”
    – F. Scott Fitzgerald

    “I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That’s like starting in rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.”
    – George R.R. Martin

    Qoutes

    Find yourself someone who talks about you the way he talks about Marcia. Expect your friends to be jealous. Or perhaps a bit concerned.

    An emptiness so vast, the night screams in envy—
    It devours the stars yet still hungers for my sorrow.

    Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.~~ Chief SeattleA house with any kind of age will have dozens of stories to tell. I suppose if a novelist could live long enough, one could base an entire oeuvre on the lives that weave in and out of an antique house. ~~Anita Shreve

    (What a fantastic idea for a book! Hmmmm)

    You may delay, but time will not. ~~Benjamin Franklin

    Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present. ~~Bil Keane

    Time and tide wait for no man. ~~Geoffrey Chaucer

    Lost – yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever. ~~Horace Mann

    The past is but a thread in the tapestry of our future. ~~Nora Roberts, Three Fates

    Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.~~ Chief Seattle

    A house with any kind of age will have dozens of stories to tell. I suppose if a novelist could live long enough, one could base an entire oeuvre on the lives that weave in and out of an antique house. ~~Anita Shreve

    (What a fantastic idea for a book! Hamm)

    You may delay, but time will not. ~~Benjamin Franklin

    Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present. ~~Bil Keane

    Time and tide wait for no man. ~~Geoffrey Chaucer

    Lost – yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever. ~~Horace Mann

    The past is but a thread in the tapestry of our future. ~~Nora Roberts, Three Fates

    Substack

    Medium

    Wattpad

    Spotify

     

     

     

  • Books Read 2024

    Books Read 2024

    Books Read 2024

    Close up of books on desk in library.
    Close up of books on desk in library.

    https://wp.me/p7NAzO-3gN0

    BN 2024 Best List

    time list of best books for 2024

    Books Read 2024

    Cosmos Books Read 2021 Update

    1001 Books to Read Before You Die List

    Cosmos Books Read 2020 Revised

    Books Read 2020Books read 2019

    books read during 2018

    books read

    Ode to Unread Books on my Bookshelf

    Goals:

    read a lot more classic books finish the three volume series, 50 books You Need to Read Before You DIe and Harvard Classics

    Read A Lot More Poetry

    Read At Least One Book A Year in Spanish  starting with Pablo Neruda poems.

    Read At Least One Book A Year in Korean starting with bilingual short stories

    This year I read a lot of books, and lots of individual poems and stories.  I kept track of all my reviews I do daily on fan story and writing com but did not list them here as that was too unreadable and boring to post.

    Total Numerical listing

    books read

    The List – fiction/non-fiction/poetry

    Fiction

    Classics

    1. Virginia Woolf Jacob’s Room
    2. Alcot Little Woman
    3. Balzac, Honoré DE: Father Goriot
    4. Lucy Maud Montgomery The Story Girl
    5. Willa Cather My Antonia
    6. Author Connor Doyle’s The Lost World
    7. Barbusse, Henri: The Inferno REVIEW DUE
    8. Butler, Samuel: The Way OF All Flesh
    9. Brontë, Anne: The Tenant OF Wildfell Hall
    10. Peston and Child the Pharoch Key
    11. Liz Wiehl The Candidate
    12. Grisholm Camino Island

    Flashman Novels

    1. George Mac Donald Fraser Flashman And The Redskins
    2. George Macdonald Fraser Flashman And The Angel Of The Lord
    3. George Macdonald Fraser Flashman On The March
    4. George Mac Donald Frazer Flashman And The Dragon

    Thrillers/Crime

    1. Janet Evanovich To Nines
    2. Liz Wiehl The Candidate Medford Library
    3. John Grisham Camino Ghosts Medford Library
    4. Harlan Coben Think Twice Medford Library
    5. David Baldacci The 6:20 Man Camp H Library

     

    1. Frederick Pohl Collected Stories Medford Library

      1. THE Merchant OF Venus
      2. The Thing That Happen
      3. The Hight Test
      4. My Lady Greensleeves
      5. The Kindly Isle
      6. The Middle OF Nowhere
      7. I REMEMBER A Winter
      8. The Greening OF Bed Stuv
      9. The Map Makers
      10. Spending A Day AT THE Lottery Fair
      11. Celebrating No Hit Inning
      12. Some Joys Under The Star
      13. Servant Of The People

    Anderson Stories

      1. Anderson FABLES THE Almshouse
      2. Anderson FABLES THE Angel

    Poetry

     

    Total: 3,000 poems including fan story review, writing com review and selected classic poems -some listed below.

    Selected Poems by Famous Writers  etc

    Christopher Micheal Nuclear Orange Cupid is the Devil

    I received this book last year for participating in the Poetry Superhighway annual poetry contest.

    Christopher Michael is a published poet who lives in Austin, Texas and has been winning poetry slams since 1989 when he entered his first slam.

    the book contains the following poems ==

    Tea Em Eye

    Haiku

    Father

    Imagine

    The Boys

    Not A Thief

    The Gravityof Pity

    Job Application

    Plugs To Give

    Fakery

    Political Stuff

     

    Glass House

    Mr. Bullet Goes To Work

    Zombie Swarm

    Bee Swarm

    Eye  Am Here For You

    The October Menace

    Herbicide Maniac

    Bacon

    She’s Black

    Flash And America

     

    The Flash and the Fireball

     

    Feeling Her

    SIN

    Theoretical Love

    Baby

    The Muse

    Love And Landmines

    Skeletons And  Corny Jokes

    Dookie Man

    Belly Buttons

    Severed Fingers And Heavy Bags

    The Firestorm

    Razors And Regrets

    The Relapse

    Love Turns Cowards Into Lions

    The Fall Out

    Nuclear Orange

    Fields Of Flammable Fantasies

    Zombie Loss

    I Warned You

    BJ Buckley In January the Geese

    I received this book last year for participating in the Poetry Superhighway annual poetry contest.  Everyone who enters gets a book of poetry for participating.  The contest opens in July and closes around labor day, winners are announced in October. I have also participated in the annual poetry chapbook give away challenge which is held in November.

    There are 26 poems in this book. The poems are based on the author’s lived experience growing up on a farm in rural Wyoming and Montana. A number of the poems are written from the animal’s point of view.  For example, In January the geese, first bear, long division. box with bugs, night herding, pronghorn elegy, rescue last rites.

    the poems are:

    1. Upthrust
    2. in January, the geese
    3. first bear
    4. long division
    5. gates
    6. C store 5:00 AM
    7. fields
    8. burn pile
    9. Sunriver
    10. slamming
    11. hard frost
    12. seed
    13. on Sunday morning
    14. box with bugs
    15. Watchman
    16. Funeral
    17. night herding
    18. Instrument
    19. almost July
    20. instrument
    21. pronghorn Elegy
    22. rescue
    23. towards evening Teton river
    24. infinite haze
    25. September
    26. bad shot
    27. last rites

    Wade Riddle

    I received this book for entering the Poetry Superhighway annual contest

    1. Groove Power Of Summer
    2. Wade Riddle Summer In Santa Monica Power Of Summer
    3. Wade Riddle The Tom Hardy Party Power Of Summer
    4. Wade Riddle Kiss Me Chris Pine Power Of Summer
    5. Wade Riddle Dance To The Beat Of The Beach Boy’s Power Of Summer
    6. Wade Riddle The Power Of Summer Power Of Summer
    7. Wade Riddle L.A. Blue Power Of Summer
    8. Wade Riddle Take Me Home To Venice Beach Power Of Summer
    9. Wade Riddle’s An Ode To A Summer’s Song
    10. Wade Riddle Chocolate Man Children Horror

    Lawrence  Ferlinghetti A Coney Island of the Mind

    I Am Waiting

    1. Junkman’s Obbligat0
    2. In Goya’s Gardens
    3. Autobiography
    4. The Changing Ligh
    5. Sometime During Eternity
    6. The World Is a Beautiful Place to Drown In
    7. The Great American Poem

    9 Poem #1 10

    TS Elliot

    The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  ,

    The Waste Land

    Franz Kafka Surreal Prose Poems

    1. An Imperial Message
    2. Pekin And The Emperor
    3. The News Of The Building Of The Wall: A Fragment
    4. The Great Wall And The Tower Of Babel
    5. The Building Of The Temple
    6. Prometheus
    7. Poseidon
    8. The Sirens
    9. The New Attorney
    10. The Building Of A City
    11. The Imperial Colonel
    12. The Green Dragon
    13. The Tiger
    14. The Truth About Sancho Panza
    15. Robinson Crusoe
    16. My Destination

    Maya Angelous

    Insomniac

    When You Come

    Passing Time

    A Conceit

    The

    Gwendolyn Brooks

    We Real Cool

    Charles Bukowsk

    i And The Moon And The Stars And The World

    Emily Dickison

    A Book

    Faith” Is A Fine Invention

    Ronald Dahl

    Hot and Cold

     

    Robert Frost

    Two Roads Diverge

    Road Not Taken

    Nothing Gold Can Stay

    A Question

    The Rose Family

    After Apple-Picking)

    The Death Of The Hired Man.

    Mending Wall.

    Birches

    Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening.

    Tree In My Window.

    Directive.

    Langton Hughes

    My People

    Dreams

    Suicide’s Note

    Mother to Son

     Spike Milligan

    A Silly Poem

    Ogden Nash

    Word To Husbands

    Dorothy Parker

    A Very Short Song

    Edgar Allen Poe

    Anabel Lee

    Vikram Seith

    All You Who Sleep Tonight

     

    William Carlos Williams

    the red wheel barrel

    This Is Just To Say

     

    Villanelle

     W.H. Auden’s

    “If I Could Tell You”

     

    Elizabeth Bishop’s

    “One Art”

     

    Leonard Cohen

    “A Villanelle for Our Time”

    Edmund Gosse “

    Villanelle”

    Dylan Thomas

    “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”

    Vision and Prayer

    Jean Passerat’s poem

    “Villanelle (I Lost My Turtledove),

    Wilde’s

    “A Villanelle”

    Interlocking Rubiyat

    Carol Ward Day

    Fitzgerald

    Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

    Mike Montreuil

    Yesterday

    Jainrohit

    Rubaiyat

    concrete Poems

    Lewis Carrol

    l The Mouse’s Tail  

     

    E.E. Cumming

    sr-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

    Senryu

     

    Al Pizzarelli

    the Fat Lady

     

    Anon. Senryu

    (early 18th century)The bird set free,

    •  He shuts His Eyes

    (early 18th century) Last Night

    • Sazanka

    Losing his job

    (early 18th century) “Make a profit

    Alexis Rotella

     

    Trying to forget him

     

    George Swede

     

    Unhappy wife

    Marlene Mountain

     

    The leans on the gate going staying

    Anita Virgil

    After the child’s funeral –

    Jack Kerouac’s Kicking the Icebox

     

    Chatuska Russian LImerick

    Annyomous  Mother, Spare Me, Don’t Scold Me
    Kolkhoz Life

    Time Got Shifted By An Hour

    Political And Anti-Religious Propaganda

    We Remember Lenin’s Words

     Margaret Atwood

    Siren Song

    Robert Hayden

    a  Plague of Starlings

    Ava Hofmann’s

    [A woman wandered into a thicket]  ,

    Natalie Diaz

    From the Desire Field 

    Ruth Fainlight

    The Prism 

    1. B. Shelley

    Ozymandias 

    Shakespeare

    Sonnet 138

    .Annyomous

    Beowulf  ,

    William Blake

    The Tyger

    Robert Burns

    A Red, Red Rose

    John Keats.

    Ode to a Nightingale

    Daddy

    Dr love Jesus

    ABC to my imaginary friend

    Camusat

     Finding Truth

    Stuart Witt

    Precedent

    George Herbert

    Easter Wings

    Patty Mazurka

    Your Last September

    Ubi Sunt Poems

     

    Francis VIllon  ubi sunt  “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” (“Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past”)

    “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”

    Thomas Nashe’s

    “Adieu, Farewell, Earth’s Bliss,”

    Sir Philph Sidney

    “Astrophel  Stella CII: ‘Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes?’”,

    Mark Strang

    “Where Are the Waters of Childhood?”

    James Macpherson‘s

    ”          translation” of Ossian. The eighth of Macpherson’s Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760)

    Fingal (1761)

    Temora (1763),

    Pete Seeger

    Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

    Paula Cole’s 1997 hit song

    “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone.”

    Bonnie Tyler’s 1984 hit,

    “Holding Out for a Hero”,

    Joseph Heller’s 1961

    novel Catch-22,

    Martin Amis’

    The War Against Cliché

    Irish Rose

    Frosted Fantasy ABC Poem

    Ava Hofmann’s

    [A woman wandered into a thicket]  ,

    Natalie Diaz

    From the Desire Field 

    Ruth Fanlight

    The Prism 

     Choka Yamanoue no Okura

    Eating Melons

     

    Limericks

     

    Dayton Voorhees

    There Once Was A Man From Nantucket

    Edward Lear

    There Was An Old Man In A Tree,

    There Was An Old Man With A Beard,
    There Was A Young Lady Of Ryde,
    There Was An Old Man Of Quebec,
    There Was A Young Lady Whose Bonnet,
    There Was A Young Belle Of Old Natchez

    There Was A Young Lady Of Station,

    Hickory Dickory Dock

    There Was A Small Boy Of Quebec,
    A Demi-Young Author Named Jong

    Our Novels Get Longa And Longa

    WH Auden

    Limerick

    Lewis Carroll

    Lucy O’Finner

    William Shakespeare

    Othello

    Japanese death poems

     

    As the Nigerian Naira steadily falls, the economy crumbles

    Yuan Chonghuan

    A life’s work totals to nothing

    Xia Wanchun

    I have been on the path of the war for three years

    Yang Jisheng Bear

    righteousness and the way on a shoulder of iron,

    Wen Tianxiang

    Confucius speaks of perfecting nobility

    — Zen monk Kozan Ichikyo (1283–1360)[11]

    Fujiwara no Teishi,

    If you remember the promises between us,

    Tadamichi Kuribayashi

    Unable to complete this heavy task for our country

    Takarai Kikaku

    Falling ill on a journey

    Moriya Sen’an

    Bury me when I die

    Korean death poems

    Seong Sam-mun

    What shall I become when this body is dead and gone?
    As the sound of drum calls for my life,

     

    Jo Gwang-jo (조광조;

    I loved the king as if he were my father

    Chŏng Mong-ju

    Should this body die and die again a hundred times over,

    Hwang Hyun

    Birds and beasts cry in sorrow and the mountains and oceans frown

    Matsuo Basho

     Old Pond

    Groot

     

    Piet Hein

    Missing Link

    Road To Wisdom

    Prescription

    Timing Toast
    Circumscripture

     

    Best American Poetry 2023

     

    Will Alexander the Polish mathematics

    Michael Ania covering standups.

    Ray Armitage fortune

    WHR then we get the dialectic fairly well.

    Martin Bell and a definite player

    Charles Bernstein people

    Mark Bibbins from 13 balloons

    Lee Ann Brown as an American

    Kamryn Alexa Castro Yes

    Mariane Chan the shape of Biddle City

    Victoria Chang World’s End

    Maxi         ne Chernoff the Songbird Academy

    Kwame Dawes Photo Shoot

    Alex Demetrio the years

    Stuart Disc hell after the exhibition

    Timothy Daniel Instagram

    Boris Dayak Days at the Races

    Joana Fuhrman 330 College Avenue

    Amy Gerstle Night Herons

    Peter Gizzi revisionary

    Herbert Gold’s other news

    Terrene Hayes Strange as the rule of grammar

    Robert Herston All Right

    Paul Hoover abominations, afternoon

    Shirley Jackson’s Best Original Enigma

    Patrica Spears Jones the Devil’s wife explains 45.

    Ilay Kaminsky, I ask that I not die.

    Vincent Katz’s A Marvelous Sky

    John Keen Straight No Chaser

    Miho Kinas’ Three Shrimp Boats

    Wayne kepstrum Misran Master Craftsman

    Yusef Komunyakaa from the autobiography

    Michale Lay I meant to

    Dorothea Lasky Green Moon John Yao zone

    Bernadette Ayer Pi Day

    Maureen Mc Lane Moonrise

    Yusef Michael tablet 6

    Stephen Paul Miller dating Buddha

    Susan Mitchell Chaplin in Palma

    Backus more extraordinary life

    diesel to social in several invoices

    Elliot Mullen as I wander lonely in the cloud Kathy and also the facts.

    Eugene Austin Husky from the fainting feeling Sonnets You Go Out Tomorrow.

    Sunday game

    Marine Owen in space surface tensional force

    John Phillips’s film theory

    Catholic bullet round front shirt

    Caroline Marie Rodgers phone number two my kind of feminism

    Jerome Sarah’s Something I’m Not Hot takes in Spiderman her dark drama.

    Turkey Tim civils all the time

    Diana’s success little few state

    David Shapiro lost all of Jesus.

    Mitch Siskin only tough woes

    Amanda Smeltz Green goddess girls in blacks Cole Swensen’s various gloves out

    Arthur Sze wildlife season OK

    Diane Thiel Listening in Deep Space

    Rodrigo Toscano Full House

    Tony Trigilio The Steeplejack

    David Trinidad the poems attributed to Him May Be by Different poets.

    Anne Waldman’s three poems form 13 Moon Kora

    Sarah Anne Wallen, I can see Mars.

    Elizbeth Winch and What My Species Did

    Terrence Winch Gear Sizzle

    Jeff Cyphers Wright Sweepstakes

    John Yau Song for Mie Yum

    Geoffrey Young Parrel Bars

    Jeffrey Young parallel bars

    Matthews’sZaprudar the empty grave of Zza Zaza Gabor

    Harvard Classics

    The volumes are:

    Bolded read

    Franklin, Woolman, Penn

    Plato, Epictetus,

    Marcus, Aurelius Meditations

    (3) Bacon,

    Milton’s Prose,

    Thomas Browne

    (4) Complete Poems in English: Milton

    (5) Essays and English Traits: Emerson (

    6) Poems and Songs: Burns (7)

    Confessions of St. Augustine. Imitation of Christ

    (8) Nine Greek Dramas (9) Letters and Treatises of Cicero and Pliny

    (10) Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith

    (11) Origin of Species: Darwin

    (12) Plutarch’s Lives (13)

    Aeneid Virgil (14)

    Don Quixote Part 1: Cervantes

    (15) Pilgrim’s Progress. Donne

    Herbert. Bunyan, Walton

    (16) The Thousand and One Night

    (17) Folk-Lore and Fable. Aesop, Grimm,

    Andersen

    Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales

    (18) Modern English Drama

    (19) Faust, Egmont Etc. Doctor Faustus, Goethe, Marlowe

    (20) The Divine Comedy: Dante

    (21) I Promessi

    Sposi,

    Manzoni

    (22) The Odyssey: Homer

    (23) Two Years Before the Mast. Dana

    (24) On the Sublime French Revolution Etc. Burke

    (25) Autobiography Etc. Essays and Addresses:

    J.S. Mill,

    T. Carlyle

    (26) Continental Drama

    (27) English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay

    (28) Essays. English and American

    (29) Voyage of the Beagle: Darwin (

    30) Faraday,

    Helmholtz,

    Kelvin,

    Newcomb,

    Geikie

    (31) Autobiography: Benvenuto,

    Cellini

    (32) Literary and Philosophical Essays: Montaigne,

    Sainte Beuve,

    Renan,

    Lessing,

    Schiller,

    Kant,

    Mazzini

    (33) Voyages and Travels

    (34) Descartes,

    Voltaire,

    Rousseau,

    Hobbes

    (35) Chronicle and Romance:

    Froissart,

    Malory,

    Holinshed (36)

    Machiavelli,

    More,

    Luther

    (37) Locke,

    Berkeley

    , Hume

    (38) Harvey,

    Jenner,

    Lister,

    Pasteur

    (39) Famous Prefaces

    (40) English Poetry 1: Chaucer to Gray

    (41) English Poetry 2: Collins to Fitzgerald

    (42) English Poetry 3: Tennyson to Whitman

    (43) American Historical Documents

    (44) Sacred Writings 1

    (45) Sacred Writings 2

    (46) Elizabethan Drama 1

    (47) Elizabethan Drama 2

    (48) Thoughts and Minor Works: Pascal

    (49) Epic and Saga (

    Federalist Papers

    50 Masterpieces You Have to Read Before You Die

     

    Started reading the first one of Volume 3

    Bolded indicates I have read it.

     

    Vol 1 starts with Volume One

    Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
    Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
    Austen, Jane: Emma
    Balzac, Honoré de: Father Goriot
    Barbusse, Henri: The Inferno
    Brontë, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
    Brontë, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
    Brontë, Emily: Wuthering Heights
    Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Tarzan of the Apes
    Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh
    Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
    Cather, Willa: My Ántonia
    Cervantes, Miguel de: Don Quixote
    Chopin, Kate: The Awakening
    Cleland, John: Fanny Hill
    Collins, Wilkie: The Moonstone
    Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
    Conrad, Joseph: Nostromo
    Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
    Crane, Stephen: The Red Badge of Courage
    Cummings, E. E.: The Enormous Room
    Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe
    Defoe, Daniel: Moll Flanders
    Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
    Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
    Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
    Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: The Idiot
    Doyle, Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
    Dreiser, Theodore: Sister Carrie
    Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Musketeers
    Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo
    Eliot, George: Middlemarch
    Fielding, Henry: Tom Jones
    Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary
    Flaubert, Gustave: Sentimental Education
    Ford, Ford Madox: The Good Soldier
    Forster, E. M.: A Room With a View
    Forster, E. M.: Howard End
    Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
    Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: The Sorrows of Young Werther
    Gogol, Nikolai: Dead Souls
    Gorky, Maxim: The Mother
    Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon’s Mines
    Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D’Urbervilles
    Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
    Homer: The Odyssey
    Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables
    Huxley, Aldous: Crome Yellow
    James, Henry: The Portrait of a Lady

    Volume 2

    – Little Women [Louisa May Alcott]
    – Sense and Sensibility [Jane Austen]
    – Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy) [J.M. Barrie]
    – Cabin Fever [ B. M. Bower]
    – The Secret Garden [Frances Hodgson Burnett]
    – A Little Princess [Frances Hodgson Burnett]
    – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland [Lewis Carroll]
    – The King in Yellow [Robert William Chambers]
    – The Man Who Knew Too Much [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – The Woman in White [Wilkie Collins]
    – The Most Dangerous Game [Richard Connell]
    – Robinson Crusoe [Daniel Defoe]
    – On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition [Charles Darwin]
    – The Iron Woman [Margaret Deland]
    – David Copperfield [Charles Dickens]
    – Oliver Twist [Charles Dickens]
    – A Tale of Two Cities [Charles Dickens]
    – The Double [Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
    The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes [Arthur Conan Doyle]
    – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [Francis Scott Fitzgerald]
    – A Room with a View [E. M. Forster]
    – Dream Psychology [Sigmund Freud]
    – Tess of the d’Urbervilles [Thomas Hardy]
    – Siddhartha [Hermann Hesse]
    – Dubliners [James Joyce]
    – The Fall of the House of Usher [Edgar Allan Poe]
    – The Arabian Nights [Andrew Lang]
    – The Sea Wolf [Jack London]
    – The Call of Cthulhu [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
    – Anne of Green Gables [Lucy Maud Montgomery]
    – Beyond Good and Evil [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]
    – The Murders in the Rue Morgue [Edgar Allan Poe]
    – The Black Cat [Edgar Allan Poe]
    – The Raven [Edgar Allan Poe]
    – Swann’s Way [Marcel Proust]
    – Romeo and Juliet [William Shakespeare]
    – Treasure Island [Robert Louis Stevenson]
    – The Elements of Style [William Strunk Jr.

     

    Vol 3  finished keeping for the historical record

    This book contains the following works arranged alphabetically by authors’ last names.

    Started with volume 3 then will go back and do volumes one, two, and the Harvard classics. The goal is to finish all of these by the end of next year.  I almost finished Volume One.  Will do some of the WC reading books as well.

    – What’s Bred in the Bone [Grant Allen]
    – The Golden Ass [Lucius Apuleius]
    – Meditations [Marcus Aurelius]
    – Northanger Abbey [Jane Austen]
    – Lady Susan [Jane Austen]
    – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz [Lyman Frank Baum]
    – The Art of Public Speaking [Dale Breckenridge Carnegie]
    – The Blazing World [Margaret Cavendish]
    – The Wisdom of Father Brown [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – Heretics [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – The Donnington Affair [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – The Innocence of Father Brown [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
    – Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [John Cleland]
    – The Moonstone [Wilkie Collins]
    – Lord Jim [Joseph Conrad]
    – The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe [Daniel Defoe]
    – The Pickwick Papers [Charles Dickens]
    – A Christmas Carol [Charles Dickens]
    – Notes From The Underground [Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
    – The Gambler par Fyodor [Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
    – The Lost World [Arthur Conan Doyle]
    – The Hound of the Baskervilles [Arthur Conan Doyle]
    – The Sign of the Four [Arthur Conan Doyle]
    – The Man in the Iron Mask [Alexandre Dumas]
    – The Three Musketeers [Alexandre Dumas]
    – This Side of Paradise [Francis Scott Fitzgerald]
    – Curious, If True: Strange Tales [Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell]
    – King Solomon’s Mines [Henry Rider Haggard]
    – The Hunchback of Notre Dame [Victor Hugo]
    – Kim [Rudyard Kipling]
    – Captain Courageous [Rudyard Kipling]
    – The Jungle Book [Rudyard Kipling]
    – Lady Chatterley’s Lover [David Herbert Lawrence]
    – The Son of the Wolf [Jack London]
    – The Einstein Theory of Relativity [Hendrik Antoon Lorentz]
    – The Dunwich Horror [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
    – At the Mountains of Madness [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
    – The Prince [Niccolò Machiavelli]
    – The Story Girl [Lucy Maud Montgomery]
    – The Antichrist [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]
    – The Republic [Plato]
    – The Last Man [Mary Shelley]
    – Life On The Mississippi [Mark Twain]
    – The Kama Sutra [Vatsyayana]
    – In the Year 2889 [Jules Verne]
    – Around the World in Eighty Days [Jules Verne]
    – Four Just Men [Edgar Wallace]
    – Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ [Lewis Wallace]
    – Jacob’s Room [Virginia Woolf]

     

    Sci-Fi short stories

    Goal read one to four stories per week

    The Big Book of Science Fiction is a massive anthology of science fiction stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It covers the history and evolution of the genre from the early 20th century to the end of the millennium, featuring works from over 30 countries and many languages. The book contains 105 stories, ranging from classics by H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ursula K. Le Guin, to lesser-known gems by W.E.B. Du Bois, David R. Bunch, and Liu Cixin. The book also includes comments from the editors and the authors, offering insights into their creative process and vision. The book is divided into 11 sections, each with a thematic focus and a chronological order. Here is the table of contents for the book1:

    Introduction: Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

    The Lens of Time: Science Fiction as a Way of Seeing

    H.G. Wells: “The Star” (1897)

    Lu Xun: “The New Overworld” (1902)

    Sultana’s Dream: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1905)

    Albert Robida: “The Triumph of Mechanics” (1908)

    Miguel de Unamuno: “Mechanopolis” (1913)

    W.E.B. Du Bois: “The Comet” (1920)

    Claude Farrère: “The Fate of the Poseidonia” (1923)

    Edmond Hamilton: “The Star Stealers” (1929)

    David H. Keller: “The Lost Language” (1934)

    Stanislaw Lem: “Solaris” (1961) excerpt

    Jorge Luis Borges: “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940)

    Cixin Liu: “The Poetry Cloud” (1997)

    Invasions

    Edgar Rice Burroughs: “A Princess of Mars” (1912) excerpt

    Leslie F. Stone: “The Conquest of Gola” (1931)

    Stanley G. Weinbaum: “A Martian Odyssey” (1934)

    John W. Campbell Jr.: “Who Goes There?” (1938)

    Ray Bradbury: “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” (1949)

    Katherine MacLean: “Pictures Don’t Lie” (1951)

    William Tenn: “The Liberation of Earth” (1953)

    J.G. Ballard: “The Voices of Time” (1960)

    Dino Buzzati: “Catastrophe” (1966)

    James Tiptree Jr.: “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972)

    Joanna Russ: “When It Changed” (1972)

    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: “The Spontaneous Reflex” (1973) excerpt

    Octavia Butler: “Bloodchild” (1984)

    James Patrick Kelly: “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995)

    Monsters

    H.P. Lovecraft: “The Dunwich Horror” (1929)

    Ray Bradbury: “The Foghorn” (1951)

    Jerome Bixby: “It’s a Good Life” (1953)

    Julio Cortázar: “Axolotl” (1956)

    J.G. Ballard: “The Drowned Giant” (1964)

    R.A. Lafferty: “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” (1966)

    Terry Carr: “The Dance of the Changer and the Three” (1968)

    Harlan Ellison®: “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967)

    Lisa Tuttle & George R.R. Martin: “The Storms of Windhaven” (1975)

    John Varley: “Air Raid” (1977)

    William Gibson: “New Rose Hotel” (1984)

    Ted Chiang: “Story of Your Life” (1998)

    Experiments

    Alfred Jarry: “Elements of Pataphysics” (1911)

    Karel Čapek: “R.U.R.” (1920) excerpt

    Stanisław Lem: “How Erg the Self-Inducting Slew a Paleface” (1955)

    William S. Burroughs: “Excerpt from Naked Lunch” (1959)

    J.G. Ballard: “Chronopolis” (1960)

    Philip K. Dick: “Beyond Lies the Wub” (1952)

    Boris Vian: “Froth on the Daydream” (1947) excerpt

    Joanna Russ: “Useful Phrases for the Tourist” (1970)

    George Alec Effinger: “Two Sadnesses” (1973)

    John Sladek: “Solar Shoe Salesman” (1974)

    Dafydd ab Hugh: “The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk” (1986)

    Generation Ships

    Don Wilcox: “The Voyage That Lasted 600 Years” (1940)

    Judith Merril: “Daughters of Earth” (1952)

    Brian W. Aldiss: “Non-Stop” (1958) excerpt

    Robert Silverberg: “Sundance” (1969)

    Pamela Zoline: “The Heat Death of the Universe” (1967)

    Gene Wolfe: “A Cabin on the Coast” (1984)

    Bruce Sterling: “Swarm” (1982)

    Geoff Ryman: “The Unconquered Country” (1984)

    New Worlds

    Cordwainer Smith: “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” (1961)

    Samuel R. Delany: “Aye, and Gomorrah …” (1967)

    Ursula K. Le Guin: “Vaster Than Empires and Slower” (1971)

    James Tiptree Jr.: “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” (1976)

    Frederik Pohl: “The Gold at the Starbow’s End” (1972)

    Angélica Gorodischer: “Of Navigators and Traitors” (1973) excerpt

    John Crowley: “Snow” (1985)

    Iain M. Banks: “A Gift from the Culture” (1987)

    Greg Egan: “Learning to Be Me” (1990)

    Future War

    Jack London: “The Unparalleled Invasion” (1910)

    Edward Bulwer-Lytton: “The Coming Race” (1871) excerpt

    George Griffith: “The War of the Viruses” (1895)

    Philip Francis Nowlan: “Armageddon 2419 A.D.” (1928)

    E.E. “Doc” Smith: “The Skylark of Space” (1928) excerpt

    Olaf Stapledon: “Star Maker” (1937) excerpt

    Robert A. Heinlein: “Solution Unsatisfactory” (1941)

    C.M. Kornbluth: “Two Dooms” (1958)

    Joe Haldeman: “Hero” (1972)

    Harry Harrison: “The Streets of Ashkelon” (1962)

    David R. Bunch: “Moderan” (1967)

    Harlan Ellison®: “A Boy and His Dog” (1969)

    James S.A. Corey: “Rates of Change” (2011)

    Virtual Reality

    Stanisław Lem: “The Seventh Sally or How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good” (1965)

    Philip K. Dick: “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966)

    John Brunner: “The Vitanuls” (1967)

    Roger Zelazny: “For a Breath I Tarry” (1966)

    Robert Silverberg: “Passengers” (1968)

    Rudy Rucker: “Software” (1982) excerpt

    William Gibson: “Burning Chrome” (1982)

    Pat Cadigan: “Pretty Boy Crossover” (1986)

    Neal Stephenson: “Snow Crash” (1992) excerpt

    Humanity 2.0

    Olaf Stapledon: “Odd John” (1935) excerpt

    C.L. Moore: “No Woman Born” (1944)

    Cordwainer Smith: “Scanners Live in Vain” (1950)

    Algis Budrys: “Who?” (1955)

    James Blish: “Surface Tension” (1952)

    Gregory Benford: “Blood Music” (1983)

    Bruce Sterling: “Mozart in Mirrorshades” (1985)

    Vernor Vinge: “True Names” (1981)

    Ted Chiang: “Understand” (1991)

    Alien Minds

    Arthur C. Clarke: “The Sentinel” (1951)

    Isaac Asimov: “The Last Question” (1956)

    Clifford D. Simak: “Desertion” (1944)

    James H. Schmitz: “Grandpa” (1955)

    Frank Herbert: “Try to Remember!” (1961)

    Philip José Farmer: “Sail On! Sail On!” (1952)

    Stanisław Lem: “Solaris” (1961) excerpt

    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: “Roadside Picnic” (1972) excerpt

    Karen Joy Fowler & Pat Murphy: “Rachel in Love” (1987)

    Ian McDonald: “The Tear” (2008)

    After the End

    Walter M. Miller Jr.: “The Darfsteller” (1955) J.G. Ballard: “The Terminal Beach” (1964) John Wyndham: ”

     

    Substack

    https://open.substack.com/pub/jakecosmosaller/p/books-read-2024?r=3i9lm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

    Medium

    View at Medium.com

    Wattpad

    #2024 #books #classics #lists #reading

  • 81 words Anthology World Record

    81 words Anthology World Record

    81 words author
    81 words author81 words Anthology World Record

    81 words Anthology World Record

    Most contributing authors published in a Flash Fiction Anthology: world record set by 1000 Authors

    Jun 15, 2022

    81 World Stories Published

      Note: I am so pleased to have been included in this project. They published my story,  “Dreams Do Come True ” as author 942 on page 478

    ” In 1974,Sam had a dream that changed his life forever.

        He fell asleep in a class and saw the most beautiful woman in the universe talking to him.  She haunted his life for years.  He went to the ends of the world to find her. 

    Then one day, in 1982, she walked off a bus, out of his dreams and into his life, to become his wife three months later.  That is the beginning of the rest of the story.”‘

    As you may know this is based on my true love story.  For more details see the following:

    Dreamgirl re-published

    Joy Links Forever Just Published Dream Girl and Cheating Death Twenty Times

    Where to Find Cosmos’s Work on the Web updates

    dreams

    City Limits Publishes Love Poems

    “Dreams Do Come True”

    81 Words Flash Fiction Anthology

    New York CIty  New York, United States–The ’81 Words Flash Fiction Anthology’, a book containing 1,000 stories written by 1,000 authors, contains 1,000 stories that are exactly 81 words in length, the result of almost seven years of hard work and the generosity of writers living all over, sets the world record for The Most Contributing Authors Published in a Flash Fiction Anthology, according to the WORLD RECORD ACADEMY,

    The world record book was published by Victorina Press, an independent UK publisher that follows the principles of biodiversity (the cultural diversity applied to the writing and publishing world, developed by a group of Chilean independent publishers). Because there are authors from many different countries featured in the book, this felt like the perfect project for them to be involved with.

    “I’d like to thank VP’s Managing Director, Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes, and the rest of the Victorina Press team (Sophie, Jorge, Page, and Amanda) for supporting this project and publishing the anthology, says Christopher Fielden, the book’s Editor.

    “Their involvement adds credibility to the unofficial world record attempt and will help the book (and every author featured in it) gain more exposure.”

    “The challenge was conceived by Adam Rubinstein, a self-professed educational basket-case from the ’70s who says he finds his sense of meaning and well-being through creativity.

    “The 81 Words writing challenge was originally launched on 81words.net. It became part of my website and I soon developed the challenge into a world record attempt for the most contributing authors published in an anthology. The 81 Words Flash Fiction Anthology was published.”

    The 81 Words Flash Fiction Anthology contains 1,000 stories submitted to the 81 Words writing challenge.

    The 81 Words Flash Fiction Anthology contains 1,000 stories written by 1,000 authors who submitted their work to the 81 Words Writing Challenge run on Chris Fielden’s website. Each story is exactly 81 words in length.Chris Fielden web site

    April 2022, the 81 Words Anthology was shortlisted in the ‘Best Anthology’ category of the Saboteur Awards, run by Sabotage Reviews. And on 14th May 2022, the book was announced as the winner.

    Victorina Press also won the ‘Most Innovative Publisher’ category.

    Testimonials from Amazon:

    “I loved Lee Kull’s devilish story. I wonder what that sly herbalist will concoct in future readings for her next heavy-handed victim!”

    I have been pleased the variety of stories all told with just 81 words. Not only are the stories diverse, but the authors are too. Ranging in age from 4 years to many more lived years, the authors come from all over the world. It’s a terrific book to leave out in a waiting area or by your throne for an enjoyable few minutes of very short and entertaining distraction. I highly recommend this book.”

    “The quality and variety of stories in this book are magnificent and I love the mini-biography for each author after their short story. I am author No. 533 but hadn’t read any of the other work until I purchased it on launch day and although I knew the quality of writing would be good I had no idea how high the standard would be.

    Well done to all involved and thank you to those who have purchased.”

    A  lot of work has gone into creating this anthology of tiny stories so well done Chris Fielden. Well done to all the authors too – 81 words isn’t a lot to work with to create a rounded story. A great book to dip into and would make a good Christmas present……and it supports the Arkbound charity too.”

    Porcceds from book sales will be donated to the Arkbound Foundation, a charity that aims to widen access to literature and improve diversity within publishing by running projects that empower people from disadvantaged backgrounds and deprived communities to get their voices heard.

    Where to Buy

    The book can be bought from all of Amazon’s websites. You can find it by searching for the book by name or the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN):  B09JZXVYL8

    You can buy paperback copies of the book from Victorina Press here:

    https://www.victorinapress.com/product/81-words-flash-fiction-anthology/

    You can also buy paperbacks from Amazon here.

    The 1,000 Writers In The Anthology

    note: I am number 942.

    Here is a (rather epic) list of the 1,000 contributing authors featured in the anthology. There are more than 1,000 writers in the book because some of the stories were written by two-person author teams. As mentioned further up this page, all the details are in the introduction of the book. Here is the list, presented alphabetically based on first name/initial:

    1. A. Rubin
      A. Gustafson
      A.H. Creed
      Aaron McDermott
      Abby Shue
      Abhi Shan
      Abigail Rowe
      Abigail Williamson
      Adam Bevan
      Adam Down
      Adam Rubinstein
      Adam Waters
      Adam Wright-Johnson
      Adele Evershed
      Adrian Hall church
      Adrian Nichol
      Aerin Bernstein
      Ahmad Abu Sharkh
      Aigbonoga Omoh
      Aishwarya Harikumar
      Akindu Perera
      Alan Barker
      Alan Barker [Note: same name but a different human being to the previous Alan]
      Alan D. Przybylski
      Alan Dale
      Alan Greaves
      Alan Pattison
      Alan Ridley
      Alcuin Edwards
      Aleah Bingham
      Alex Blair
      Alex Fullerton
      Alexandra Klyueva
      Alexio Gomes
      Ali Bounds
      Ali Clarke
      Alice Hale
      Alice Payne
      Alice Penfold
      Alicia McGrath
      Alicia Sledge
      Alicia Yau
      Alison Clary
      Alison Reese
      Alison Wren
      Alistair Forsyth
      Allen Ashley
      Ally Cook
      Alyson Faye
      Amanda Garzia
      Amanda Huggins
      Amanita Peridot Festoon
      Amberlie Robinson
      Amelia Brown
      Amisha Bansal
      Ana D.
      Anastasia Bromberg
      Anastasia Mosher
      Andre Othenin-Girard
      Andrew Ball
      Andrew Carter
      Andrew Dawkins
      Andrew James Spence
      Andrew Jones
      Andrew McGill
      Andrew Perry
      Andrzej Christopher Marczewski
      Andy Langdale
      Angela P Googh
      Angelique Dusengimana
      Ani Martin
      Ania Kovas
      Anita Goveas
      Ankush Vijay Chawla
      Anna Capstick
      Anna Ferrar
      Anna Sanderson
      Anne Copeland
      Annie Francis
      Annika Franke
      Anu Roy
      Arlene Everingham
      Arthur KC Chan
      Arya Amlani
      Ash Gray
      Ashleigh Whittle
      Ashley Kim
      Ashley Scott
      Ashley Vohrer
      Ashutosh Pant
      Austrian Spencer
      Ava Groth
      Avery Pryce
      Ayesha Hassan
      B. K. Bolen
      B. P. Garcia
      B.C. Ong
      Barbara Eustace
      Barnaby Page
      Barry Rhodes
      Barry Smith
      Bart Elbey
      Bec Lewis
      Becky Benishek
      Bekk Escott
      Benjamin Noel
      Bernard Hicks
      Bernard Muslin
      Bert Velthuis
      Beth Greenwood
      Beth Kander
      Betty Hattersley
      Betty J Burton
      Blake Holcomb
      Blerina Kapllani
      Boaksey
      Brett Elliott-Palmer
      Brian Johnstone
      Brian Mackinney
      Brianna Damplo
      Bridget Blankley
      Bridget Scrannage
      Bridget Yates
      Brinkinfield
      Brittany Holmes
      Bruce Millar
      Bruce Wyness
      Bryan Keefe
      Byron Coulson
      C. H. Connor
      C.R. Berry
      Caiden Lang
      Caleb Jansen
      Cameron Crebs
      Campbell Hinshelwood
      Carl Palmer
      Carla Vlad
      Caroline Cowan
      Caroline Wright
      Carolyn Roden
      Carolyn Ward
      Carrie Hewlett
      Cath Allwood
      Catherine Broxton
      Catherine Cade
      Catherine Harkness
      Cathi Radner
      Catrin Rutland
      CB McCall
      Ceris Brewis
      Charles Bonkowsky
      Charles K Manila
      Charles Lee
      Charles Murphy
      Charles Osborne
      Charlie Taylor
      Charlie Turner
      Charlotte Ella Read
      Charlotte Farrell-Banks
      Charlotte Ward
      Charlotte West
      Cheah Yin Mee
      Cheryl Buck
      Chip Jett
      Chloe Frost
      Chloe Nkomo
      Chloe Testa
      Chris Black
      Chris Cantor
      Chris Espenshade
      Chris Green
      Chris McLoughlin
      Chris Pritchard
      Chris Tattersall
      Christian Andrei Nuez Laplap
      Christian Obaitan
      Christianna Sahadeo
      Christina Burton
      Christina M. Y. Chow
      Christine Bukania
      Christine Hursell
      Christine Kingshott
      Christine O’Donnell
      Christine Reeves
      Christine Tapper
      Christopher Fielden
      Christopher Searle
      CJ Nicol
      CJ Wigg
      CL Wearne
      Claire Allinson
      Claire Apps
      Claire Gagnon
      Claire Gee
      Claire Lee
      Claire Schön
      Claire Taylor
      Claire Temple
      Clara Baird
      Clare Owen
      Clare Tivey
      Clarrie Rose
      Cleiton Pinho
      Colette KrielColleen Hue
      CompletelyBoofyBlitzed
      Constance Bourg
      Crilly O’Neil
      Cristina Bresser
      Cynthia Akagi
      Dan McConnell
      Daniel L. Link
      Daniel McClaskey
      Danielle Linsey
      Danny Macks
      Darci-Leigh Robinson-Askew
      Darren Hackett
      Dave Firth
      David Batteiger
      David Brewis
      David Conway
      David Don
      David Guilfoyle
      David Heaton
      David John Griffin
      David Lowis
      David McTigue
      David Rhymes
      David S Mitchell
      David Silver
      David Turton
      David Vargas Alfonso
      David Viner
      David Wright
      Dean Hollands
      Debaprasad Mukherjee
      Debbie Rolls
      Debbie Singh
      Deborah Wroe
      Dee La Vardera
      Dee Tilsley
      Denis Joseph
      Denise Senecal
      Derek McMillan
      Devin Greene
      Devon Goodchild
      Dez T.
      Diana Senechal
      Diane de Anda
      Diane Harding
      Dianne D. Pingalo
      Dimiana Wassef
      Dinesh Shihantha De Silva
      Dionne Burton
      Diontae Jaegli
      Don Bartlome
      Don Marler
      Dorothy Francis
      Doug Forrest
      Doug Hawley
      Douglas J. Shearer
      Dr. Sriharsha Sripathi
      DT Langdale
      Duane L. Herrmann
      E. F. S. Byrne
      Edmund Piper
      Edward Mortenson
      Edward Rouse
      Edwin Stern
      Eileen Baldwin
      Elaine Carlyle
      Eleanor Dickenson
      Elena Zhuang
      Elizabeth Lamb
      Elizabeth Stanley
      Ella Cass
      Ella Wilson
      Elliot Cambrey
      Em Daurio
      Emily K Martin
      Emily Knight
      Emma Burnett
      Emma Nokes
      Emma Robertson
      Emma Stammeyer
      Emma Wilson
      Erin Hardman
      Esosa Kolawole
      Evelyn Hawke
      Everest Pen
      Evie Nicol
      Ezeh Michael Ogonna
      Fabio Crispim
      Farzaneh Hajirasouliha
      Fay Franklin
      Fee Johnstone
      Felix Castrillon
      Femi S. Craigwell
      Finlay Thomas Tweedie
      Fiona Aitken
      Fiona Campbell
      Fiona Flower
      Fliss Zakaszewska
      Franca Basta
      Frances Tate
      Francesca Pappadogiannis
      Francisca Staines
      Frank Daurio
      Frank Havemann
      Frank Hubeny
      Frank Radcliffe
      G. Gaurav
      Gail Everett
      Gary Couzens
      Gary McGrath
      Gavin Biddlecombe
      Gemma Bevan
      Gemma Martiskainen
      Geoff Freedman
      Geoff Holme
      George Cornilă
      Gillian M Seed
      Gillian Macleod
      Ginger Marcinkowski
      Gitanjali Escobar Travieso
      Glen Donaldson
      Glo Curl
      Gloria Ames
      Glynis Ann Downey
      Gordon Williams
      Gowravy Ravanan
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      Toni G.
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      Wyatt Payne
      Yabo Anderson
      Yelena Kart
      Yvonne Clarke
      Yvonne Mastaglio
      Zoe J Walker
      Zoey Rowan

     

     

  • February Flash Fiction Updates

    February Flash Fiction Updates

    February Flash Fiction Challenge

    The February Challenges Updates

    I have completed ten flash fiction pieces as part of the Writers Digest Flash fiction challenge. I have posted two of them below, “Deam Girl” and “Timeless Love Stories.”  I also completed two micro flash stories for the Writing Com micro flash contest, and daily haiku for the Poetry Magum Oopus challenge.  Enjoy.

    Day 1 Keys
    Day Two Prompt Circular
    Day three Prompt limitations
    Day four mystery
    Day Five: A Dream that Came true
    Day Six: a character who tries to be
    Heartful”
    Day Seven: Workplace conflict
    Day Eight: re-gifting
    Day Nine Grim reaper
    Day ten romance story

    I have finished ten flash fiction pieces so far this month.

    Hidden Keys to The Universe.
    End of The Beginning, Beginning of The End.
    A Man Has to Know His Limitations.
    Where Did All the Blacks Go?
    Dream That Came True.
    Sam Adams Crisis of Conscious
    Sam Adams Workplace Conflict Leads to a Bad Day.
    Sam Adams reignites the War on Christmas
    Timeless Love story

    My posted entry for week one:

    “Dream Girl”

    Published in ‘Dreams and the Unexplainable” by the Chicken Soup for the Soul publishers. Also on my blog, the world according to cosmos.

    Line count 816

    You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

    The dreams started when I was a senior at Berkeley High School in 1974. About a month before I graduated, I fell asleep in a physics class after lunch and had the first dream:

    A beautiful Asian woman was standing next to me, talking in a strange language. She was stunning—the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was in her early twenties, with long black hair, and piercing black eyes. She had the look of royalty. She looked at me and then disappeared, beamed out of my dream-like in Star Trek. I fell out of my chair screaming, “Who are you?” She did not answer.

    About a month went by, and then I started having the dream repeatedly. Always the same pattern. Early morning, she would stand next to me talking. I would ask who she was, and she would disappear. She was the most beautiful, alluring woman I had ever seen. I was struck speechless every time I had the dream.

    I had the dream every month during the eight years during which I went to college and served in the Peace Corps. When I joined the Peace Corps, I had to decide whether to go to Korea or Thailand. The night before I had to submit my decision, I had the dream again and she made me sure that I knew she was in Korea waiting for me.

    ll she said was when I asked again as always who are you? Where are you?”

    “I am in Korea”

    After the Peace Corps, I still hadn’t met my dream woman. I got a job working for the U.S. Army as an instructor and stayed in Korea. I kept having the dream until I had the very last one: She was standing next to me, speaking to me in Korean, but I finally understood her. She said, “Don’t worry, we will be together soon.”

    Why was that the last time I had the dream?

    Because the very next night, the girl in my dream got off the bus in front of me. She went on to the base with an acquaintance of mine, a fellow teacher, and they went to see a movie. I saw her and found the courage to speak with her.

    We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet that weekend.

    The next night, she was waiting for me as I entered the Army base to teach a class. She told me she was a college senior, and she had something to tell me. I signed her on to the base and left her at the library to study while I taught, and then we went out for coffee after class.

    She told me she was madly in love with me, and that I was the man for her. I told her not to worry as I felt the same.

    That weekend, we met Saturday and Sunday and hung out all day. On Sunday night, I proposed to her. It was only three days after we had met, but for me, it felt like we had met eight years ago. I had been waiting all my life for her to walk out of my dreams and into my life, and here she was.

    Her mother did not want her to marry a foreigner. One day, about a month after we met, she invited me to meet her parents. I brought a bottle of Jack Daniels for her father, and drank the entire bottle with him. He approved of me, but her mother still had reservations.

    After a Buddhist priest told her my future wife and I were a perfect astrological combination, she agreed, and we planned our wedding.

    The wedding was a media sensation in South Korea. My wife explained it to me years later. At the time, I was overwhelmed just by the fact that we were getting married and I didn’t fully understand how unusual this was.

    My wife was of the old royal clan, distant relatives to the former kings of Korea. In the clan’s history, only two people had ever married foreigners: my
    wife, and Rhee Syngman, who was the first President of South Korea. My father, who was a former Undersecretary of Labor, came out for the wedding, which fueled even more media interest.

    Our marriage defied the stereotypical Korean-foreign marriage where the women
    married some hapless GI just to escape poverty and immigrate to the U.S. We were the first foreign/Korean couple to get married at a Korean Army base. Over 1,000 people came to the wedding, and my father was interviewed on the morning news programs.

    This all happened thirty-nine years ago, and I am still married to the girl in my dreams. Now in my dreams, she watches over me when we are apart.

    Another  submission  (February 10) prompt to write a Romance story

    from my unpublished Novel, ‘Timeless Love stories”

    General Zoran (Sam Adams) and Lady Zarina ( Maria Lee’s timeless love story began 5,000 years ago when General Zoran, the red Sirian reptilian governor of the Atlantis colony,  met Zarina the leader of the Green Sirian opposition party.  Zoran was related to the royal family back home, the seventh son of the emperor, and was the royal governor of the Atlantis colony.  The colony had 1.5 million Sirians, (red Sirians, green Sirians, canines, felines, primates, and insectoids) and two million human slaves.   The red Sirians considered humans to be savages and treated the local slaves badly.  The other races were more sympatric as were the Green Sirians, all faced discrimination from the dominant Red Sirians who were the traditional elite in the homeworlds.

    Twenty Five years after the colonization, Zoran faced a dilemma.  The human slaves were turning out to be a problem. They were intelligent, cunny, devious creatures, and deeply religious worshiping a multiple of Gods. Some thought that Sirians were Gods, most thought that they were evil devils from a mythical place called Hades.

    The central question for General Zoran and the central command had what to do with the humans.  The Policy line that the Central headquarters had laid down, was for Atlantis to establish itself as a Bridgehead and then after 10 years or so millions of colonists would arrive.  This was the policy line, and he was supposed to carry it and not question it. Questioning orders and doctrine in his opinion usually did not turn out well.  He hoped someday to become Emperor as he was in the imperial line of succession, but he would have to kill his seven siblings.  His siblings were all also governors and various planets and senior positions.   Once their father died, they would probably be as usual a short Civil War, and one of the siblings would emerge as the emperor and he was determined to be the emperor, the losers would have to be executed and their family members as well. Just the way things happened in the Sirians Empire.

    When these profound troubling thoughts filled his head as he drank his morning coffee, preparing for his first meeting with Lady Zarina the new head of the green political party.

    When Zarina and Zoran met, it was love and hate at first sight. Zarina was a stunningly beautiful woman, very competent highly intelligent, and very sexually aggressive.  In short, she was a kind woman that was his fatal attraction, and he knew it.

    Zarina was an activist, working to improve conditions for the local human subjects. As such her work concerned Zoran.  Zoran was agnostic overall about the human subject thing, thought that they needed the labor but that perhaps humans could and should be treated better.  And Zoran sometimes regretted the “final solution” thinking that perhaps a policy of assimilation might have worked given time.

    Zoran and Zarina had a long passionate talk about humanity and the Sirian treatment of humans.  Zoran was instantly attracted to her but also felt that she was too idealistic and naïve about the humans, although she had changed his mind and his heart a bit.

    For the reptiles of his social class, arranged marriages were the norm, it was overdue time to get married.  General Zoran had not yet married but had several potential mates selected for him from his ambitious mother, the second wife of the Empire.  All he had to do was say yes to the proposed match and they would join him after getting married back home.  He was due to return for a visit in a few weeks anyway.

    Zarina was the leader of the Green Sirians and they were openly talking about revolting against the established leadership and establishing a free Republic of humans and Sirians on earth – outside of the Empire.  Zoran was determined to crush the rebellion but that would mean he would never be able to be with her as she was now his mortal enemy.  And he did not want to lose but allying with her would complicate his plans to become Emperor.  Perhaps he could go along with her, revolt against the Empire then persuade her to join him in rebuilding a more just Empire?  She was extremely ambitious too and came from one of the most prominent opposition political factions.

    They met and soon had a torrid love affair.    Both found the other to be quite different, exciting, ruthless, ambitious, and very sexy. They were very different and yet shared Zoran’s Imperial ambitions.  She convinced him to stand with her and declare the birth of the Free Earth Republic as they called it.

    Unbeknownst to Zoran, his siblings had heard of his and Zarina’s plans and were determined to destroy him and his Imperial ambitions.  The leader of the Red Sirians, his deputy, and a man he had considered to be his best friend betrayed him and led the coup against General Zoran and the hated Zarina who was widely seen as having corrupted General Zoran with her dangerous thoughts and actions.

    Zoran and Zarina’s love story ended when Zarina and Zoran were assassinated by his elder brother who declared himself the emperor. The word was in – the earth was forbidden to all Sirians immigration and would be monitored for the next five thousand years.   And just before they died, their last words were

    “See you in the next life my timeless love” and they vowed to defy the laws of nature and man and find each other in the next life as they both had begun to believe in reincarnation which was a minority opinion among the largely atheistic Sirians.   That line and the knowledge that they were true soul mates destined to meet again and again sustained them throughout the next 5,000 years of history and they came back over and over again until finally in 1982 they overcame their cursed fate.

    Writing Com Flash Fiction contest  – Sign-up now CLOSED!!!

    What is micro fiction?

    A micro-fiction piece is a story told in 300 or fewer words. For our purposes, we limit the word count to 100.

    It’s a subset of flash fiction, which limits stories to 1000 words.

    Ernest Hemingway wrote the most famous micro-story. He used only six words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

    The challenge of writing a micro-story is to make every word count. You must pick meaningful words and build strong sentences.

    The structure of a micro-story:

    Like any other fiction piece, a micro-story has a sequence: a beginning, a middle, and an end.

    It includes a twist or a conflict: either it’s a change in the character (character arc) or a twist in the plot.

    The micro-story also has a scenario, which doesn’t need much detail – you don’t have enough length to incorporate descriptions.

    Start with the conflict

    In a micro-story, there is no space for descriptions, backstory, or character-building; you start writing in the middle: straight to the conflict.

    Focus on the character arc

    Flat characters offer nothing to readers. Something must happen to your character: a drastic event, a deep emotion, a discovery. He/she must end the story differently from when it started.

    In the end, the character should feel or do something different than he/she was doing before.

    Write your story as long as you wish

    Like any other first draft, yours will be a micro-story told with many unnecessary words.

    To elaborate your micro-story, write everything that comes up in your mind: describe the emotions, the scenarios, the characters. The goal is to form the story inside of you, to feel it.

    By writing everything down, you’ll be able to choose what’s relevant and what’s not.

    Chose only one POV

    Micro-fiction uses a single point of view [POV]; there’s not enough word-counting to swap POV without losing the coherence of the story.

    Choose either the 1st limited or 3rd person limited POV as they perform better in connecting the reader to the characters.

    Cut the fluff

    Now that you wrote the first draft, it’s time to cut!
    The remaining wording in your story will be the ones that matter, that add value and significance to your story.

    Polish each sentence

    The last step in writing a micro-fiction story is to polish the sentences.

    Each word must contain meaning: an emotion, an action, a detail. The sentences should also have a meaning, but also as part of a whole, it actively builds up the story.

    Ensure your first and last sentences are the strongest. They are the entrance and the exit of the story. The first sentence will hook readers to continue reading; the last one will make them chew on your story. And even re-read it, to savor it one more time.

    Create an appealing title

    The title is the presentation, the promise of what’s coming: the title is the first impression of your story.

    Name your story, revealing the theme, but not giving away any event. Note: The title does not count toward your total word count.

    Enjoy the process and keep practicing.

    Writing micro-fiction is a challenge, but — in my modest opinion — one of the best challenges in the writing set.

    Once you try it, you will come for more. With practice, your first drafts will become shorter; they will be the closest version of your final draft.

    Writing micro-fiction it’s an effective way to hone your writing skills: it demands focus and the use of strong verbs and emotional words. Your writing will develop into a sharper and more concise version.

    My first  entry

    “Sam Adams Swears It Was Self Defense”

    “Well, Sam Adams, you are in a lot of trouble. Better tell us what happened. How did you end up killing Bill Lee?”

    “Well, I should speak to a lawyer and the Embassy first, but what the H.

    Bill Lee and I had a relationship so to speak, we were frenemies. I known him for a long time since we were children and I knew that he was a real bad dude at heart.
    We had gone to the Cosmos Bar that night to have a drink. When he attacked me, I responded of course., It was self-defense. and that’s how the fight started.

    my second week entry

    Bullseye

    Sam Adams one strange day woke up and found that he had been transported to another time and place. He did not know where he was, and why he was there.  He was now a member of a military scouting team behind enemy lines engaged in a battle.  Somehow he knew the language, and everyone seemed to know him. He was wearing a bow and arrow.  They encountered the enemy, giant orcs. He watched the other archers, then got into combat mode.  He instantly reacted scoring a bullseye killing his first enemy. They pushed on finally conquering the enemy lines.

    Poetry Magnum Opus February Haiku Challenge

    February is Haiku Month

    Tinker posted a topic in Playground

    …Reading that February is Haiku Month was the spark that I needed to ease in. So here I am on February 1, 2022, Chinese New Year – The Year of the Tiger. Maybe a haiku a day for 28 days will

    get me going. You are welcome to join me if you feel so inclined. I missed this community. ~~Tin…

    free but requires registration  Tinker’s list of poetry forms is quite comprehensive!

    My haiku for February 1

    What is Groundhog Day?
    Why does seeing his shadow
    Mean early Spring?

    My haiku for February 10

     

    The whole universe
    Is divine if we can see it
    Like the cosmic cat

    Author note:

    I am not conventionally religious, but I am somewhat spiritual. I believe the whole universe is alive and filled with the divine spirit. Cats are spiritual creatures who know.  Most humans are blind to the divine all around us. The prompt was to write a spiritual Haiku.

    This week’s event is to write a SPIRITUAL HAIKU

    . You can write about your personal religion or philosophy WHATEVER IT MAY BE. Please use a picture that you like and that is relevant to the poem. ============================================================================== MODERN HAIKU is the English adaptation of Classic Haiku. It’s written in one to four lines with no strict syllable count, but brief and often with a long/short or short/long asymmetry. These poems use a pause usually marked by a dash before the satori (an insightful twist to ponder). Images don’t need to be taken from nature, though they often are. Seasonality is optional, though often featured. Alliteration and metaphor are okay. Never rhymes. the em-dash ( — ) is used to emphasize an interruption in speech before the satori. Haiku usually doesn’t have a title but in fanstory we have to have one. ============================================================================== CLICK HERE to read MODERN HAIKU RULES– The Haiku Foundation of America ============================================================================== EXAMPLE: ============================================================================== … inhale division ============================================================================== … exhale loving unity – ============================================================================== … one breathe for one world ==========================================================

    The End

  • Where to Find Cosmos’s Work

    Where to Find Cosmos’s Work

    Where to Find Cosmos’s Work

    Cosmos poetry and fiction now on poetry soup

    Cosmos Books Read 2021 Update
    Poetry Soup Poems 2016-2019
    The Great Poetry E-Book Free-For-All

    Starting in 2016 when I retired, I began posting my work on various sites and began getting my poetry, fiction, and essays published all over, including of course on my flagstaff blog post, The World According To Cosmos. Here is where you can find my work. I generally try to update my postings once a week. The blog entry is copied to LinkedIn, Twitter, and Tumblr automatically, the rest I have to manually add so it may take a while before everything is in synch. Also, since last summer, I have been podcasting weekly, using the Anchor podcast platform.  I am now also writing on Medium and Wattpad. Starting next year, I hope to add regular vblogging on YouTube, advice on what software to use for that would be greatly appreciated. Please follow me on all these sites

    All Poetry  https://allpoetry.com/Jake_Aller

    Ariel chart ariel chart

    Blog Lovin  https://www.bloglovin.com/@jakecosmosaller3

    Comma Full  https://commaful.com/play/jakecaller/

    Cosmos funnel https://cosmofunnel.com/user/67910/followed/content

    Creativity webzine creativity webzine

    Fan Story https://fanstory.com/mypage.jsp

    Good Reads for reviews https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9329357-jake

    Instagram https://www.instagram.com/authorjakecosmosaller/

    LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakealler/Medium

    Medium https://medium.com/@authorjakecosmosaller/about

    Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/authorjakecosmosaller/_saved/

    Poetry circle https://poetrycircle.com/forum/members/jakecosmos.6777/

    Poetry nook  https://www.poetrynook.com/user/jake-aller

    Poetry magnum opus https://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/?_fromLogin=1

    Poetry Soup poetry soup

    Swenk https://sweek.com/profile/1222095/74088

    Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jakecosmosaller

    Twitter https://twitter.com/aller_jake

    Two Drops of Ink two drops of ink

    Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/user/jakecaller

    Writing com r https://jcosmos.Writing.Com/

    PodCasts

    Anchor; https://anchor.fm/jake-cosmos-aller

    Breaker https://www.breaker.audio/the-world-according-to-cosmos

    Radio Public  https://radiopublic.com/the-world-according-to-cosmos-6va7D1

    https://open.spotify.com/show/6IdqYlys0fX4igW1EJD9D3otify

    You Tube -Not active will start in New Years

    Publication Listing

    A partial listing, work in progress.

    Imaging The End Of The World Ariel Chart: International Literary Journal
    No More Coffee Blues Ariel Chart: International Literary Journal
    What Am I DNA Results Ariel Chart: International Literary Journal
    End Times Ariel Chart: International Literary Journal
    Imagining End Of The World Ariel Chart
    Just Another Night In The City Of Angels Ariel Chart

    The Revolution Is Coming Beatnik Cowboy, The
    I’d Rather Not Mess With Sam Between Hangovers

    A Million Ways To Say I Love You Blessed With Love Poems
    I Still Want You Blessed With Love Poems
    Ode To Valentine Day Blessed With Love Poems
    Love Explained To A Space Alien Blessed With Love Poems

    Slime Patrol To The Rescue Blue Nib Literary Magazine, The
    The Fog Blue Nib Literary Magazine, The

    Dream Girl Cherry-House Press Dreams Anthology

    Dream Girl Chicken Soup For The Soul Series

    Chains That Bind Me City Limits Publication
    Dream Girl City Limits Publication

    Various Creative Talents Unleashed

    How I Married the Girl Of My Dreams Creativity Webzine
    Meeting God in The Lake Creativity Webzine
    Cosmic Cat from Berkeley Creativity Webzine
    Meeting God in Bombay Creativity Webzine
    Cosmic Dog from Goa Creativity Webzine
    Buddha Cat Creativity Webzine
    The Story of How We Met Creativity Webzine
    Fate Intertwined Creativity Webzine
    Wild Things Happen Creativity Webzine
    God Drinks Coffee Creativity Webzine
    Requiem for an Era Creativity Webzine
    Howling at the Moon Creativity Webzine

    Creativity Webzine
    The Truth Shall Set You Free Creativity Webzine

    My Name Is Nobody Down In The Dirt
    Strangeness In The Air Down In The Dirt
    Snarling Cup Of Coffee Down In The Dirt
    Charles Bukowski Road Not Taken Down In The Dirt
    Fallen Dreams Litter The Ground Down In The Dirt
    Hitchhiking Tales Down In The Dirt
    Howling at the Moon Down In The Dirt
    3-5-7 Love Poem Down In The Dirt
    If You Have Been Around Down In The Dirt
    Foreigner Walking The Seoul Wall Down In The Dirt
    Old Man Visiting His Wife’s Grave Down In The Dirt

    Awaiting The Judgement Every Writer Horror Contest
    Mad Bag Piper Of Berkeley Every Writer Horror Contest
    Coffee Poem
    Bad Craziness *

    Kimchi Blues Eskimo Pie
    Kimchi Blues Friends of Korea website

    A New Year’S Visit To The Oregon Coast Excavation
    Casino Thoughts Excavation

    Winter Haiflu Failed Haiku

    Indian Casino Thoughts Fiends Of Korea

    Lone Foreigner Walking The Wall Of Seoul Former People, a Journal of Bangs and Whimpers
    A New Year’s Visit To The Oregon Coast Former People: A Journal Of Bangs And Whimpers
    Indian Casino Thoughts Former People: A Journal Of Bangs And Whimpers
    Casino Thoughts Former People: A Journal Of Bangs And Whimpers
    Former People: A Journal Of Bangs And Whimpers
    Four Coffee Poems Former People: A Journal Of Bangs And Whimpers
    Four Coffee Poems Former People: A Journal Of Bangs And Whimpers
    Four Coffee Poems Former People: A Journal Of Bangs And Whimpers
    Four Coffee Poems
    Fiction Dream
    Fiction Dream
    Corona Virus Haiku Fiction Dream
    Fiction Dream
    Just Enough For Coffee

    One Moment, One Day Fourxfour Poetry Journal

    Met My Fate In Bar Room Face From Addict To Advocate

    Various Haiku Journal

    Hill Rag Hello Bonzai

    One Night In Bombay Hello Poetry

    Cosmic Cat Ode To Coffee
    Cosmic Dogs
    Meeting God In A Lake Horror Sleaze Trash
    Meeting God In Bombay
    Signs Of The Apocalypse Hypertexts, The
    Hypertexts, The
    Getting Lucky Hypertexts, The
    Waiting For The Day Hypertexts, The
    Rising Storm Hypertexts, The
    All Tired And Burned Out 2020 Go Away
    Toilet Gate Fitting Metaphor For Trump Era Ink Pantry (Website)
    A Dream Journey Ink Pantry (Website)
    Insanity Lives Ink Pantry (Website)
    Interview Ink Pantry (Website)
    Morning Bright, Evening Delight Ink Pantry (Website)
    Reality Hits Ink Pantry (Website)
    Cheating Death 22 Times Ink Pantry (Website)
    Cheating Death 22 Times Ink Pantry Acadamy of Hearts and Minds ‘

    Cthulhu’s Revenge Ink Pantry (Website)
    Escape From Hell Ink Pantry (Website)
    Ghoul Haunted Woodlands Of Weir Ink Pantry (Website)
    The Bench Ink Pantry (Website)
    2019 The Year That Was Ink Pantry (Website)
    Dreams Ink Pantry (Website)
    Fate Ink Pantry (Website)
    The Oyster Speaks Up Ink Pantry (Website)
    The Terrifying Teens Ink Pantry (Website)
    Ink Pantry (Website)
    Just An Unhinged Lunatic Ink Pantry (Website)
    Ink Pantry (Website)
    Total Successor Or Total Failure Ink Pantry (Website)
    2021 Haiku
    General Corona Appears In A Vision Inner Circle Writers’ Group Anthology Series
    Cancel Culture Run Amuck
    Journal Of Expressive Writing
    Journal Of Expressive Writing
    Ghosts Of Old Saigon Journal Of Expressive Writing
    Ghosts Of The Chu Chi Tunnels Journal Of Expressive Writing
    Seeing Ghosts
    The Cosmic Cat From Berkeley
    The Cosmic Dog From Goa Kelp Journal
    Cosmic Cat Kelp Journal
    Kelp Journal
    Agnostic Dyslectic Wonders If There Is A Dog Kelp Journal
    Cosmos’s Cosmic Calendar Kelp Journal
    It’s A Dog’s Life For Me Kelp Journal
    The Cosmic Dog From Goa
    2021 Dawns 21 Haiku Literary Yard
    Dear Republicans, What Is Wrong With You? Literary Yard
    The Revolution Next Time Literary Yard
    Zombie Ideas Do Not Die Literary Yard
    There Is A Great Sense Of Unrest Literary Yard
    Lone Foreigner Hiking The Seoul City Walls Literary Yard
    Literary Yard
    Literary Yard
    Dream Love Questions Sekoku Local Gem
    15 Day Challenge Local gem
    Halloween poetry collection Local Gem
    Dear Microsoft Why I Left You Lotus Eater
    Local Gems Poetry Press
    A Million Ways To Say I Love You Blessed with Love
    Ode To Love On Valentine’s Day Blessed with Love

    One Night in Bangkok Man in the Street

    Market Rules Us All Minnie’s Diary: A Southern Literary Review

    The Virus King Cried Muse

    Fake Jake Nthanda Review
    Fake Smiles Nthanda Review

    White Lady
    The Opiate
    God’s Confession Scarlet Leaf

    Opiate
    Bad Craziness
    Otherwise Engaged
    Cats
    In Seach Of America Outlaw Poetry
    It Is A Gun Situation, Mr. President Outlaw Poetry
    Prayer Works Outlaw Poetry
    I Don’t Get It Outlaw Poetry
    Dear Governor Abbot Outlaw Poetry
    When Will This Madness End – Short Version Outlaw Poetry
    Lost And Found Outlaw Poetry
    My Mother’s History Outlaw Poetry
    Conversation With Teddy Roosevelt Outlaw Poetry
    Watching Cats Hunt Outlaw Poetry

    End Of America Outlaw Poetry

    Watching The News As 110,000 Americans Die Plethora Blogazine
    Wearing A Mask Is Not A Political Statement Plethora Blogazine
    Wearing Masks Saves Life Plethora Blogazine
    Who Are You Going To Believe, Me Or Your Lying Eye Plethora Blogazine

    Back Of The Bus The Poet on the Road
    Bus Ride The Poet on the Road Poet The Poet on the Road
    Cross Country Trip Part One The Poet on the Road
    Hitchhiking Tales The Poet on the Road
    Buddha Cat Poet, The
    Meeting God In A Lake Poet, The
    Best Friend For 60 Years Poet, The
    My Memory Bank Poet, The
    Best Friend In The Universe Poet, The

    Cats Poetryezine
    Buddha Cat Poetryezine
    Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay Poetryezine
    Walking By A Winter’s Frozen Lake Poetryezine
    Playing The Piano At The End Of Time Poetryezine

    Mad Mask Fear Poetryezine
    News Is Grim Poetryezine

    Poetry And Covid
    Various Poetry And Covid

    Snarling Cup Of Coffee Chapbook Poetry Nook Weekly Contest

    Merry Christmas From ATT Poetry 24
    Mr. President, It Is A Gun Situation Poetry 24
    Poetry 24
    The Best Is Yet To Come Found Poem Poetry 24

    Evergreen Trees Pure Haiku

    Falling Rain Qutub Minar Review
    Qutub Minar Review
    Gathering Storm Clouds Random Poetree
    Nebulous Night Of Darkness Random Poetree
    Dejavu All Over Again Random Poetree
    Failure Is Not An Option Random Poetree
    General Failure Reading Disk Drive Raven Cage Zine
    On Failure Raven Cage Zine
    Raven Cage Zine
    270,000 Corona Ghosts Crash The President’s Party Raven Cage Zine
    Corona Ghosts Crash The Party Raven Cage Zine
    Partying While People Die Raven Cage Zine

    Fake Calls Rejected Manuscripts
    Hell Is Here To Stay Rejected Manuscripts
    Rejected Manuscripts
    Fake Mosquitos
    Lost River Sandha Review
    Old Cars Are King Of The Road Again River Sandha Review

    Reflections Rosette Maleficarum
    Dragon Flies In My Mind Rosette Maleficarum
    One Crazy Day Rosette Maleficarum
    2019 The Year That Was Rosette Maleficarum

    Dreams Scarlet Leaf Review
    Fate Scarlet Leaf Review
    The Oyster Speaks Up Scarlet Leaf Review
    The Terrifying Teens Scarlet Leaf Review
    Scarlet Leaf Review
    Green Trees Don’t Make It Scarlet Leaf Review
    Slowly Unperceived Reality Scarlet Leaf Review
    Slowly Unperceived Reality Scarlet Leaf Review

    Brain Fever Scryptic defunct
    Evil Within Scryptic defunct
    Mocking Laughter Scryptic defunct
    Black Vultures Scryptic defunct

    Dream Lover Scryptic
    Dream Tanaga Scryptic
    Rafting To Hell Scryptic
    Satanic Torture Scryptic

    Worlds Within Worlds Sick Lit Magazine

    Green Trees Don’t Make It Sick Lit Magazine
    Siren Song Of Doom Sick Lit Magazine

    Various Sixfold
    Corona Poems Soft Cartel
    Dora The Galactic Explorer Soft Cartel
    Every Day I Turn On The News
    Chaos Spillwords Press
    Mocking Faces Spillwords Press

    Just Enough For Coffee Spillwords Press
    Waiting For The Grim Reaper’S Decision Spillwords Press

    The Virus King Cried Subterranean Blue Poetry

    Cosmic Cat From Berkeley Swenk
    Cats Swenk
    The Buddha Cat Of Edsall Road Swenk
    Demon Cat Swenk
    Cat Fight In Incheon Swenk

    Love Haiku The Universe Journal
    Night Terrors The Universe Journal

    Jack Daniels Failed Intervention Unlikely Story

    The Trial Of The Poet Tiger Shark
    Life In-Between Tiger Shark
    Love Haiku Tigershark
    I Like My Coffee Tigershark
    Love Haku 1 Tigershark
    Lost And Found Tigershark

    The Virus King Cried Tigershark

    1984 Is Here To Stay Tuck
    The Dogs Of War Are Howling Tuck

    Just Enough For Coffee Tuck
    Donald Trump And The Vulgarians Rise To Power Tuck

    Lost And found Two Drops Of Ink
    Strong Wine Two Drops Of Ink
    Voices Of My Doom Two Drops Of Ink
    Dora The Galactic Explorer Two Drops Of Ink
    Last Year Of American Greatness Two Drops Of Ink
    Mocking Faces Two Drops Of Ink
    Morning Light Two Drops Of Ink
    Wild Man Sits In Gilded Cage Two Drops Of Ink
    Climate Change Two Drops Of Ink
    The Lion King Speaks Up Two Drops Of Ink
    Wild Things Run Amuk Two Drops Of Ink
    Wild Things Run Amuk Two Drops Of Ink
    Yesterday Morning Two Drops Of Ink

    Howling At The Moon Two Drops Of Ink
    No More Coffee Blues Two Drops Of Ink
    Ode To Coffee Two Drops Of Ink
    Slease 2 Two Drops Of Ink

    Snarling Cup Of Coffee Ugly Writers, The
    When Will This Darkness End Ugly Writers, The
    Ugly Writers, The
    Buddha Cat Universe Journal, The
    Cats Universe Journal, The
    Cats Fighting In Incheon Universe Journal, The
    Cosmic Cats Universe Journal, The Universe Journal, The
    Demon Cat Universe Journal, The

    Best Friend In The Universe Whispers Defunct
    Life’s Journey Whispers Defunct
    Life In Between Whispers Defunct

    News Is Grim Writer’s Egg Magazine
    Wearing A Mask Is Not A Political Statement Writer’s Egg Magazine
    Corona Ghosts Crash The Party Writer’s Egg Magazine
    Politicians Lying As People Lay Dying Writer’s Egg Magazine
    Thanksgiving Thoughts Writer’s Egg Magazine
    Writer’s Egg Magazine
    American Dream Writer’s Egg Magazine
    Miscellaneous Publication Sites Writer’s Egg Magazine
    Writer’s Egg Magazine
    3 Am Nightmares
    Your One Phone Call
    Coffee Desires Miscellaneous Publication Sites

    God Does Not Talk To Idiots Triferta Poem A Thon
    Huricanes From Hell Triferta Poem A Thon
    It Can’t Happen Here Triferta Poem A Thon
    Kim Vs. Trump Twitter War -In Memorial Of Kim Il Sung’s The Great Leader’s Birthday Triferta Poem A Thon
    Masters Of The Universe Triferta Poem A Thon
    Microsoft How I Hate You Triferta Poem A Thon
    More Coffee Blues Triferta Poem A Thon
    No More Coffee Blues Triferta Poem A Thon
    Triferta Poem A Thon
    Rambling Man Triferta Poem A Thon
    Rambling Man -Where Do I Belong? Triferta Poem A Thon
    Rapid City Nowhere Triferta Poem A Thon
    Suburban Laundromat Blues Triferta Poem A Thon
    The Storm Is Coming Triferta Poem A Thon

    Facing Life’s Challenges Together Triferta Poem A Thon
    Fires Buring Bright Triferta Poem A Thon
    God Drinks Coffee Triferta Poem A Thon
    Imagining End Of The World Triferta Poem A Thon
    Incheon 2016 Triferta Poem A Thon Triferta Poem A Thon
    Looking Out My Window Triferta Poem A Thon
    Lost And Found Triferta Poem A Thon
    My Soul Wants To Fly Triferta Poem A Thon
    Rapid City Nowhere Triferta Poem A Thon
    The Revolution Is Coming Triferta Poem A Thon
    Wagontire, Oregon Triferta Poem A Thon
    Walking Through The Woods Of Time Triferta Poem A Thon
    Zombie Apocalypse Triferta Poem A Thon
    Heading To Memphis Triferta Poem A Thon
    One Mystic Shrouded Night Triferta Poem A Thon
    Idiots In High Places Triferta Poem A Thon
    Cosmos’s Cosmic Calendar Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Landlord Blues Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Berkeley California Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Chains That Bind Us Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Changes Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Coffee Revolution Triferta Poem A Thon
    . COSTCO Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Dental Torture Blues Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Emperor Donald The Ist Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Everything Will Be All Right Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Ghosts From World War 11 Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Life Is Wonderful Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Lithia Springs Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Love Jones Triferta Poem A Thon
    . My Daily Hot Coffee Fix Triferta Poem A Thon
    . No More Coffee Blues Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Pane E Circus 2017 Redux Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Sandwich Choices Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Secret Agency Man Triferta Poem A Thon
    . The Decline Of America Triferta Poem A Thon
    . The Dogs Of War Are Howling Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Voices Of My Doom Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Walls Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Watching Cats Hunt Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Where Do You And I Begin? Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Why I Am Not A Christian Easter Thoughts Triferta Poem A Thon
    . August Moods Triferta Poem A Thon

    . Capitol Hill In The Spring Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Spring Love Thoughts Triferta Poem A Thon
    . Spring Time In Oregon Triferta Poem A Thon
    . The Falling Rain Triferta Poem A Thon
    “Dental Blues” Triferta Poem A Thon
    “Meeting God In The Lake” Triferta Poem A Thon
    “The Cosmic Cat In Berkeley” Triferta Poem A Thon
    “The God Dog In Goa” Triferta Poem A Thon

    Lost And Found Triferta Poem A Thon
    1984 Lives On Triferta Poem A Thon

    Decline Of America Scarlet Leaf Review
    Dogs Of War Howling Scarlet Leaf Review
    My Mother’s History Scarlet Leaf Review

    Donald Trump And The Vulgarians Rise To Power Tuck
    Imagining The End Of The World Tuck
    No More Coffee Blues * Hill Rag

     

    A Million Ways To Say I Love You Blessed Love Poems
    American Dream  Your One Phone Call
    Best Friend In The Universe Whisphers
    Black Vultures Scryptic

    Additional Publication Vendue Need to be Confirmed

    Conversation With Teddy Roosevelt
    Strong Wine
    Watching Cats Hunt
    Dragon Flies In My Mind
    The Shape Of History
    Voices Of My Doom
    Cats
    Rapid City Nowhere
    Reflections
    . Yesterday Morning
    Suburban Laundromat Blues

    Blue Blues

    Brain Fever
    Capital Hill In The Spring
    Cats Hunting
    Chains That Bind

    Charles Bukowski Road Not Chosen

    Coffee My Secret Lover
    Coffee Revolution
    Coffee The Drink Of Revolutionaries

    Confucian Thought For The Modern Era
    Decline Of America
    Dogs Of War Howling
    Donald Trump Our Compassionate Dear Leader
    Dream Girl
    Enemy Of The People
    Fallen Dreams Litter The Ground
    God Drinks Coffee

    How I Married Girl Of My Dreams
    Howling At The Moon
    I Like My Coffee

    Jesus Must Die Again

    Lost And Found
    Donald Trump And The Vulgarians Rise To Power
    Strong Wine
    The Shape Of History
    Yesterday Morning
    Corona Ghosts Stalk The President
    Corona Virus Stalks Me
    General Corona Leads His Troops
    A New Year’S Visit To The Oregon Coast
    Love Conquers Hate

    Bus Fantasy

    Snarling Cup of Coffee Chapbook Poetry Superhighway

     

    April 2021 chapbook Poetry Superhighway

    Writers Digest April 2021 contest

    April 2020 contest

    All poetry
    Duane’s poetry
    Fan story
    Poetry Circle
    Hello Poetry
    Poetry Nook
    Poetry Mangum Opus
    Sweek
    Writing com

    The End

     

     

  • Escape from Hell Story

    Escape from Hell Story

    Escape from Hell
    By

    Jake Cosmos Aller

     

     

    Comment: This is based on a dream that I had.  Part of the story is true.  I did dream of meeting my wife eight years before I met her. see the following for more details, or buy the book, “Dreams and the Unexplainable” available through the Chicken Book for the Soul publishers. End Comment

    Duane Poetree Poems 2016-2019
    Dreamgirl re-published

    This is based on a true story. Jake Lee, my oldest friend told me this story and I went along with him to Hell and back to retrieve his wife.  My name is Matt J and I was the second in command of this operation. I have changed the names, places and some specific incidents to protect both the guilty and the innocent. To begin with, you must understand this. Hell is a real place, with real demons and real punishments.  It is a lot worse than any of us imagine and it is both more real and unreal at the same time. It exists and does not exist at the same time in a weird parallel universe., where time in Hell and time on earth don’t correspond.

    Once someone dies and goes to Hell he continues to live on in a manner of speaking; he does not really die but he cannot live in this world during the light of day. They become the undead and are like the vampires of legend (who do exist but that is another story). So, those condemned to hell, live on in eternal torture and turmoil and they also must work. Hell is full of workers working as slaves to keep the machinery going. And Hell is a growing place – most people on earth end up there. Running hell requires lots of workers. And being a slave in Hell is no picnic my friends.

    Despite its reputation as a lawless place, it is a very legalistic place. Satan employs an army of lawyers (no shortage of fresh lawyers) and bureaucrats to run his domain. Despite his rules and regulations and lawyers, hell is mostly a horribly run bureaucratic nightmare run by evil, mendacious, corrupt and incompetent demons. But, there are a few loopholes to the rules, and a few strange quirks to the law and even Satan obeys these special rules.

    One of them is rule number 214 B of the Galactic code. The code governs the operation of the universe and is a very legalistic document. Rule 214 B states that, if a sentient being, a human being, arrives in hell by mistake because of a screwup in the computerized system that runs both heaven and hell and the whole other computer systems that run this world, and someone from our world gets to hell and back out with their loved one in tow, both the falsely condemned and the lover who rescue them are entitled to live a long life in this world and then automatically arrive in heaven. This rule is almost never enforced because almost no one on our world has ever figured out how to get to Hell, and once there has never figured out how to get back out. Many have died trying and end up in hell for their pains.

    But there are ways, my friends. There are ways. Jake found the way and this is his story.

    Jake was a tall youthful-looking man for a man in his 60’s. He still had hair and intense blue eyes and although he walked with a bit of a limp, he was in fairly good shape and worked out every day. Jake had retired from a lifetime of government service and was living in SF as a pensioner. He had dreams of being a writer but was not getting too far with his various novels. One day his spouse went to the store and was blown up when a suicide bomber blew up the car in front of her. Just another victim of the constant terrorism that had bedeviled the world since before the second gulf war.

    Jake was devastated. He could not imagine life without his spouse. They had been married for almost 35 years by then and he was looking forward to the remaining years together. They had no children but still had lots of friends from around the world from their days in government service and from the old neighborhood that he had grown up in.

    Dreaming Angela Was In Hell

    That night, Jake had a dream that would haunt him the rest of life.  Every night the same image – his wife was in Hell and was screaming while being tortured by demons wielding whips and chains. She was yelling repeatedly that she was not supposed to be there. Her tormentors, five or six demons wearing red suits and white ties, laughed and said that she was right – it was a screw up in the computer programs that sent her there. She was due in heaven but hey once she was there what could they do about it? She might as well get used to the idea.

    The cost of fighting the screw up would be millions of dollars and where was she going to get the money, anyway?  Hell had no currency other than smuggled money and the loan sharks took most of the loan in interest.  There were lawyers in Hell but they had to be paid upfront, and all the various functionaries had to be paid off.  And God and Satan had a non-interference rule, once someone arrived they were entitled to stay.  and God’s lawyers did not offer legal aid.  There were just too many cases and so there was nothing to be done.  The devils said, and the torture started again and she faded away.

    Meeting Angela in a Dream

    The dream continued night after night. Jake believed the dream was real because this was the second dream of meeting his wife he had in his life. . When he was in high school he had fallen asleep in a physics class and had a dream where he saw standing next to him the most beautiful woman in the world. She disappeared from his dream and he fell down to the ground yelling “ who are you?” as the class erupted in laughter at Jake’s strange antics. He had the dream as he called it for seven years. When he had to decide where to go in the Peace Corps, Korea or Thailand, he had the dream again and knew she was in Korea waiting for him.

    A year after the Peace Corps ended Jake was preparing to return to the States for graduate school when he had the final dream. In the dream, she told him

    “. 걱정마, 자기야, 우린 영원히 함께 할거야
    geogjeongma, jagiya, ulin yeong-wonhi hamkke halgeoya

    Don’t worry, baby, we will be together soon forever.”

    They met that night and got married two months later. Jake always recalled the dream and therefore he knew that his wife was somehow trying to communicate to him and he knew that this second dream was as real as the first dream had been.

    Hell is Real

    is hell real

    Jake decided to do a little research into this hell business. He got on the internet and read as much as he could find as much as he could find out, and hit the occult bookstores in the City and in Berkeley, and even on the dark net. After a few weeks of reading everything he could find on the subject concluded that were three basic schools of thought:

    Hell was a myth and did not of course exist (majority opinion)

    Hell might have existed in ancient times but not in this enlightened modern era. (minority opinion)

    Hell existed and was real. Only problem was almost no one ever went there voluntarily and came back. (this was the majority belief among the occult writers and other assorted nut
    cases).

     

    Jake took to visiting all the various occult bookstores in the city and elsewhere. He became obsessive about finding out everything that had ever been written about hell. He continued haunting these stores and visiting all the various internet sites that he began to be well known as the “man who wants to rescue his wife from hell.” Jake will tell people the story repeatedly and most people thought he was a harmless old man gone batty because he had lost his wife in the terrorist bombing.

    Most of his friends advised him to forget about it and get on with his life. They told him to get back to work on his novels. Some tried to fix him up with women but he refused all such requests. He was truly a man obsessed.

    He finally found a few obscure references to the way to hell in some writings in the Necronomicon (Al Asif) by the mad Arab poetry, Abdul Aliased, and other longed banned occult texts as well as references in various occult publications and writers including Crowley and others, and Christian and Islamic writings. He also read the founder of the Church of Satan claimed he had been to hell and back. After consulting these references, Jake decided he could locate Hell. Jake sat down on Saturday night and did a final re-reading of all his many volumes of material on Hell. His apartment was filled to the rim with books, articles, print outs of web pages and the like. Jake worked all night and at last, he shut down his computer. He poured himself a cup of coffee and looked at what he had written.

    Entrances to Hell

    where is hell

    Jake decided he had a decent plan of action. He had learned from his readings of rule number 214 B and decided to pull it off. The last attempt that was successful was in the 19th century. Hell, it seemed had several portals that interconnected with this world. One theory was that hell existed in a parallel universe as did Heaven. There were several places where Hell interconnected with Earth. Quite a few sites came to mind, some of them were even listed on various internet sits as “gateways” to hell. What distinguished them all was they were in neighborhoods and regions of the earth where evil things seem to happen for no reason. In other words, the gates to hell ran through neighborhoods denounced as “hell holes.” And every big city had them. Some more than others.

    You see the demons and other lower-level functionaries of hell occasionally needed to get out of hell. The rules were that they could leave hell once a month on the full moon but had to be back in hell by sunrise.  They had to get special passes which were rewarded to the devil of the month as well as a form of leave.  If they did not make it back in time they were condemned to hell themselves as an ordinary inmate, not as demon functionary. And in hell you did not want to be a “defrocked devil” so to speak as the other inmates would make your life a living hell and of course your fellow demons would mock you forever as a looser.

    So, the devils would dress up as humans and leave hell and wander the dark corners of big cities, and engage in crime and random violence including rape, robbery, drunken brawls and the like. But they needed cash to do so. Hell did not run on currency; everything was paid for by the State. It was, in a way, a perfect communist society. and thus the devils were always looking for ways to gain illegal cash, most favored US dollars.

    Most hell holes ended up in the U.S. for some reason.  NYC, LA, SF, Las Vegas, Chicago, Moscow, London, Tokyo, Bangkok, Manilla were the key hell holes of choice.  Las Vegas was highly sought out as the devils had some special abilities and could manipulate cards and machines without detection and return with lots of cash that they could loan out to the loan sharks for a pretty profit.

    One day Jake came upon a description of hell written by a man who had gone to Hell to find and locate his wife. He managed to get out of hell alive but without his wife. He had a very detailed map of hell. According to this book, published in the 40’s, Hell had a stop on the NYC City subway line, deep underneath the Hell’s Kitchen area of NYC.  That was probably the easiest access point as Satan and his henchmen often went to NYC to conduct business as Satan ran a number of businesses in the world.  The book, Hell is real, was a best selling occult/Christian book in the 40’s and 50’s but had long been out of print.  Jake found it at an occult book seller in Berkeley which specialized in books on Hell and the underworld.  The owner of the book store encouraged Jake in his mad quest.

    The author also described the details of Hell’s horrific, terribly corrupt bureaucracy. He said everything was for sale, and the currency of choice was US dollars. Many of the lower echelon officials dreamed of escaping Hell and many manage to bribe their way out for a weekend of fun in NYC or the other dozen hell holes in the world.  But NYC was the number one choice for the devils on a pass. That is why NYC and the other hell holes have always had very strange crimes reported now and then. The denizens of hell while on earth look like humans but are very wild, violent, and crazy, as if they are very high, and most of them are.  Most devils and demons were once human beings who received promotions to devil status while in Hell.  So they come out and commit horrific crimes and then disappear at sunlight, and they received bonus points for killing people who were due in hell anyway.   Most were given targets to kill while on their hell pass.

    He said that the first light of the sun instantly vaporized the undead unless they had taken special drugs beforehand.  Those vaporized arrived back in hell where they faced torture for failure to return on time. He said this accounts for the various stories about vampires, werewolves, devils, trolls, goblins, and monsters of all sort.  Most were devils out for a night of wilding in the big city.   But there were also agents of Hell on earth who took special drugs to prevent being vaporized.  These Hell demons worked for Satan in his various criminal enterprises and worked with the underground in furtherance of Satan’s plans. He also said that Satan and Hitler had both died and were brought back by the devil himself. Both Hitler and Stalin were working on a secret plot to open a permanent portal to the netherworld. But God and his secret police discovered the plot and told Satan that was in violation of numerous rules governing the operation of Hell.

    Denizens of hell could escape to the surface at night but must return to Hell at dawn. That was the rule. Satan had to abandon project 666 which would have brought Stalin and Hitler and an army of demons to the surface to rule the world ushering in Armageddon. God put a stop to that nonsense for now. For some reason, though Satan loved the 30’s and all his guards dressed in zoot suits and spoke 30’s English, German or Japanese. That is why in Hell all the guards wear 30’s gangster clothing as that was Satan’s favorite period of world history.

    Jake read another old legend dating back centuries that stated that there was only one known way to enter hell and come out alive. As an addendum to rule 214 B, rule 212 (A) 6 (c) provided that if rule 214 B otherwise applies, i.e. someone is in hell by mistake, and if their relative goes to hell to retrieve said lost relative and manages to return to the surface he will be given 50 years additional life as well as 50 years for his spouse, child or parent. But of course, if he fails to return to the surface he will join his spouse in hell forever. And only a few brave mortals had ever attempted the journey. This was a bylaw written by Satan himself as Satan appreciate such acts of selfless courage.

    Jake called together about 10 of his friends from all over the world and explained the situation to them. They all said that he was crazy but what the hell. It sounded like a lark so they were in. Jake told them that he believed Angela was there and he had to try to rescue her. Jake reminded them that he had met Angela in a dream when he was in high school, and his dreams often came true.

    So, they got everything together. Jake had bought ten zoot suites complete with fedora hats, and had managed to find some antique but serviceable Tommy guns through a friend of his who had contacts in the underworld.  The story was slowly making the rounds that there  was this crazed American who was convinced that Hell was real and his wife was there, and damned fool that he was he was going to rescue her.

    Of course, no one believed this story, including those human agents of Satan that lived everywhere lurking among the gangsters and criminal elements running various criminal enterprises supplying Satan and his top staff with luxury goods, especially fine whiskey and drugs. The agents of Satan, who called themselves” Hells’s Demons” all had a laugh, imagining a crazed old man trying to break into hell. But no one wanted to report that story through official channels as the paperwork would be well “Hellish” and no one wanted to be tasked with finding this crazy old man and bring him in for questioning. Satan and his demons had a soft spot for such tales.

    Several of the demons vowed secretly to help Jake out if he ever made it through the portal and send the word out unofficially to be on the lookout for this crazy old man and let him be and not report the incident. And thus Hell Central HQ never heard the story, officially, thank God.
 Finally the day came. Jake had consulted several astrologers, tarot card readers, mediums and they all agreed that the plan was audacious but doable. Jake had to crash through the subway gate, tell the guards that if they let him in he would bring them out and pay them in real currency. Jake thought that should work. He had the clothes, looked the part of internal inspectors (the feared Hell Secret Police, the Gestapo of the underworld). One of Jake’s occult book store contacts made up some official-looking identity cards that identified us as special agents undercover on the surface world who had to interrogate a suspect deep inside. Our cover story was that we had to bring her to the surface to identify a traitor to the satanic cause.  All my contacts in the occult world thought that might really work given Satan’s business enterprises in NYC, but no one really knew as no one had ever come back alive.

    Jake’s books advised taking millions of dollars with him so he could bribe his way into hell and back out again. Jake decided he needed two to four million dollars. He put up his property, liquidated his assets and had about 4 million in cash. It took some time to get all the cash together. Due to various anti-crime and anti-money laundering bills, it was very difficult to withdraw large amounts of cash. And Jake knew that if he told the true story, well no one would take him serious and the word might somehow reach Hell’s Demons and therefore Hell HQ might learn of the plot. Jake had to finally go to a loan shark and pay for his cash with cashier’s checks. But he finally had the cash in hand, in 20 dollar bills.


    Jake’s plan was simple – recruit 10 of his oldest and best friends to come with him on his rescue mission. He knew that none of them would believe him until they entered the gates of hell but he was sure they would stick with him to the bitter end. He figured that the immunity from future stays in hell would apply to them as well as to him. Jake started talking with his friends and eventually recruited ten people to his crusade. They, of course, thought he was crazy but perhaps he was telling the truth and besides it beat the hell of staying at home enjoying retirement.

    Jake called his gang of followers together for a planning meeting. 10 people showed up. General G. Patrick, ex-marine, was the first to show up. He thought that Jake was crazy and had been since high school, but hey if he wants to play a game, he was in.

    Bob, the retired actor, showed up next. He also was quite amused by the whole thing but thought what the heck. It might be fun.

    Keith came in next with his wife, Maggie.  Keith was a minor millionaire developer., ex-con man and ex-felon.   He was the one who had introduced Jake to the money launderer.

    Matt and his wife were there as well. Matt was a retired financial planner and was a logistics whiz. Jake planned on making him second in command.

    David S was also a real estate developer and planner.  He was also into the occult and had helped Jake find source materials.   Jim D was a computer wizard who also had studied Hell stories for a book he had written and was considered one of the word’s leading authority on the legends of Hell. He believed Jake and helped find the maps to Hell that they needed to relied upon.  Jim D had introduced Jake to his friend, Sara S, who ran the occult bookstore, and she rounded out the team.

    Jake started the meeting off.

    “Guys, thanks for coming. I know I have been boring the “hell” out of you, pun intended, for the last four or five months. But, what you don’t know is that I have found the gates to hell and have located where my wife is. I also know you don’t believe me when I tell you the dreams I have been having.

    I went to CAL  and had them record my dream onto a disk using the technology that they have just  developed.  I’d like to play it for you. Afterwards, you can decide if you wish to come along on the adventure of the century or not. For if we succeed in proving Hell exists, and come back alive we will be the most famous explorers in history and of course, we will also be exempted from ever having to go there again.

    Angela is in Pit number 572 Sector Bravo, Unit 524.”

    So, let me play the dream.”

    Jake puts the disk in the computer and plays the program. His wife appears in a pit of flames. There are four or five demons like creatures whipping her and telling her to work harder.

    She is mining something out of the wall. There are hundreds of people in the mines, most of them standing in a pit of burning flames. She is screaming, “I am not supposed to be here. There must be a mistake. I demand to see the manager.”

    The head demon walks over,

    and barks out, what is your name?

    “Angela Lee.”

    “I see” he says, consulting a palm-held computer.

    “Oh, here we are. Yeah, you should be in the other place. Must be one of those computer glitches. Well, it is too complicated to fix and too much paperwork. If you had some money on you, say 100,000 dollars perhaps I could fix it. But where in hell are you going to get that kind of cash?”

    He laughs and laughs.

    Angela turns and screams out “Help me. Save me from Hell. I am in Pit number 572 Sector Bravo, Unit 524.”

    The head demon laughs and the demons start whipping her again and again.

    The image fades away.

    Jake turns to his friends and says,

    “I have had that dream every night since she died. As you know I dreamt about meeting her for 8 years before I met her and so I believe she is telling the truth and that she is in hell in that pit and that if we can make it to hell and bribe her head demon we might make it back alive with her. So, whether or not you believe me, I want you to join me on this crusade. Are you in or not?”

    Entering Hell

    We set off on our big adventure one Friday afternoon at rush hour and entered the subway system. We assemble at the appointed spot in the subway system and chanted the mantra from one of the books of hell. A doorway opens in the air and we climb through.

    satanic rituals open at your risk

    The door closes behind us and we find ourself in a mirror image of the subway entrance. A bored booth attendant dressed in a gothic black suit, looks at us and comes to attention when he notices our attire.

    ‘“What can I do for you inspector? “.

    Jake tells them we are on a special mission and must locate an Angela Lee who was sentenced six months ago. He looks it up on the computer and hums and haws.

    “Well hells bells. There is a woman here by that name but the book also says she should be in the other place. Must be one of those infernal computer glitches. But what the hell can you do about that shit?”
    ‘

    Jake turns to him and says,

    “Bernie, my friend. Here’s the deal. Here is 500 dollars and a pass to the outer world for you if you help us, and 500 more when we return. No questions asked or reported. Do we have an understanding. Nod if you agree. “

    He nods, grins and says

    “You got it my man. I heard about you and your quest.  Lots of us are secretly rooting for you.  Your outfits are good.   If anyone asks for paperwork, tell them the only paperwork they will see is green and show them the money.  That usually works.  If not, shoot them.  They will be out for a few days.  We can’t die as we are the undead . Good luck and all that shit. You will need it. Take the A train to Hell Central, get off and transfer to the B train and stay on to the central coal pit, then get off and tell the chief super there Kim the Korean dude in charge that Bernie – that’s me – says you  are okay. He will need to be paid 100 thousand in cash in 20 dollar bills. If you have the cash, go ahead otherwise come back tomorrow. He will help you find your lady but you got to know that if HE, the MAN downstairs, finds out you will all fry. I Ain’t putting my neck on the line for you guys not at all.”

    And her immediate pit boss, Mr. Black will need at least five G’s to look the other way and you may have to bribe a few others so I hope you have lots of cash and are serious dudes. If you ain’t you better leave now before I am required to report this shit. I will give you gents ten minutes to get the hell out of here. “…

    We thank Mr. Bernie and enter the next A train. The train leaves the station and we  gasp as we enter Hell passing through the central hell sign.

    Miles and miles of open pits with fires burning everywhere and sounds of people screaming in endless agony. All along the streets of the city are filled with desperate looking people, dressed in rags. Guys in zoot suits dressed like us walk about shooting people for fun. The dead die again but come back to life so to speak minutes later in even worst pain. There are bars on every corner selling all sorts of illegal drugs and prostitutes are everywhere promising all sorts of sexual delights for a price.

    Some of our company, the guys are talking about stopping off for a drink or two. Matt stop them and remind them of the mission and say that if they as much drink a drop of hell booze they will never be allowed to leave. That shuts everyone for a while.

    The train soon becomes a roller coaster and goes up and down up and down. People get on and off but everyone avoids looking at us as our attire convinces everyone that we are part of Hell’s feared internal security Gestapo, the Hell Secret Police, headed by Hitler and Stalin. Robert waives his Tommy gun in the air a couple of times when people get too close.

    They get off at Hell Central which is a mirror image of Grand Central but incredibly crowded, noisy, smoky and smelly as hell. They finally find a way out and transfer to the B line, and it takes them deep into the cavernous pits of hell.  Jake had heard a story that Satan had a deal with the coal companies where he mined coal using slave labor and export the coal to a mine somewhere in Pennsylvania coal country where it was brought to the surface. The coal companies sold it at market rates and kicked back the profits. The same person told Jake that Satan had lots of connections with politicians, businessmen and the like and his spies were everywhere on earth. Satan was plotting to take over but somehow never quite made it. The other side he said also had their angels on earth as well. Good and evil were ever in constant battle and good seemed to have more magical power than evil. But Satan was gaining his power. Part of it was that no one believed in him anymore which gave him plausible a deniablility, a phrase he had taught the CIA, which he had set up  as part of his secret army on earth.

    His agents, the Hell Demons were everywhere and had long ago bought off the political classes. 
 They kept going deeper and deeper into the bowels of hell. The stench was overpowering but they were all wearing masks infused with garlic which was supposed to prevent them from becoming overpowered by the demonic stench.  Finally, after two hours they entered the coal company site. They walk up and demand to see Mr. Kim the super and Mr. Black site supervisor of Sector 572.. Robert waives his Tommy gun around.

    The Negotiation

    Jake screams out and yells saying,

    “Get Mr. Kim and Mr. Black here right now, if you do there is a thousand dollars in unmarked bills waiting for you. If not, well you know what we can do to you. Mr….”

    “Barry White, sir. Right away sir.” He picks up a phone, and Jake’s snatches it away, saying

    “Get them in person, no phone calls. We are not here and you have not seen us. This is a top secret Q code word mission, you understand? So get them right now or I will report this unfortunate refusal to carry out a directive from the Central HQ.”

    ‘The super comes out, a big, burly Korean guy.

    Jake said

    ‘“Mr. Kim, Bernie from the Hell central station says hi and that you would be cool. We have something for your services after we conclude his business. We are on a top secret mission and your cooperation will be noted and rewarded. You catch my drift?”

    Yeah, Bernie’s cool. We were Hell mates came into together into the service. What can I do for you fine gentlemen and ladies?

    He leers at the ladies in our group.

    They glare back.

    Jake said,

    “Well it is very need to know. Q code word you know.  All I can tell you is we have secret orders to bring Angela Lee to the surface to identify a traitor to the Satanic mission on earth. This comes from HIM you know what I mean?”

    “HIM? Q level?  Well let’s see what I can find. Well let me see. I need some paperwork.”

    Jake points the gun at him, saying

    “This is urgent top-secret work, covert shit code word q level and all and we would pay you 100 g’s in Earth money if you bring the girl out and look the other way. We will need a 24 pass to cover her travel and keep you from getting into too much trouble.”

    He looks at Jake and says make it “150 g’s and you got a deal”

    . Jake  and Mr. Kim finally settle on 100 K for Mr. Kim, and 40 K for Mr. Black and 5 G’s for each of her cell mates.  a total of 160 K.  Jake says to Matt,

    “Bernie was right on mark. We need to take him with us in case we run into any problems exiting Hell”.

    Mr. Black calls an assistant and says take these gentlemen to sector 577. That is where we would find the lady. He turns to us and says,

    ““Look I can lose her for a day or so. You must have her back within 36 hours or all sorts of heads
    will roll. If she is not back within 36 hours, I will have to report this and will have to report this highly irregular action.. I ain’t being demoted to being one of them hell no. I ain’t. You understand me, Dude?

    He says,

    “You need to give me 10,000 more so I can bribe some more people so we can keep this on 2T.  No need for the MAN to know about it until you complete your “mission”.

     

    Breaking Out of Hell

    He then says he has some TV to watch and would give us 30 minutes to get her and get back on the train. I tell several of my group to stay behind with Mr. Black, and take the train after we leave.  Jake, Pat, Robert, Keith, and Matt, get on the mini-tram and go into the pits with the guard, Mr. Ramesh, a former Indian customs official

    He turns to Jake and says in gujarati,

    “હેય, હું તમને યાદ કરું છું. તમે બોમ્બેમાં રહેતા હતા વિઝા આપતા કોન્સ્યુલેટમાં કામ કરતા હતા. હા હું તમને યાદ કરું છું. Hēya, huṁ tamanē yāda karuṁ chuṁ. Tamē bōmbēmāṁ rahētā hatā vijhā āpatā kōnsyu lēṭamāṁ kāma karatā hatā. Hā huṁ tamanē yāda karuṁ chuṁ. Hey, did’nt you used to work in Bombay at the US consulate doing visas? I remember you.”

    Jake said

    “હા, હું ત્યાં deepંડા છુપાયેલા રહેતો હતો, તમને તેની સાથે સમસ્યા થઈ છે, મારા ભાઈ?
    Hā, huṁ tyāṁ deepṇḍā chupāyēlā rahētō hatō, tamanē tēnī sāthē samasyā tha’ī chē, mārā bhā’ī?yeah, I was undercover at the time poising as a US diplomat? You got a problem with that? “

    Jake slips him 2 g’s and he smiles and says

    “મારા ભાઈ, આ બધી સમસ્યાઓ હલ કરે છે. તમે કોણ છો તે હું પહેલાથી જ ભૂલી ગયો છું, અને મને કોઈ પરવા નથી. ગમે તે ડ્યૂડ.
    “Mārā bhā’ī, ā badhī samasyā’ō hala karē chē. Tamē kōṇa chō tē huṁ pahēlāthī ja bhūlī gayō chuṁ, anē manē kō’ī paravā nathī. Gamē tē ḍyūḍav.“My brother, This solves all problems. I have already forgotten who the fuck you are, and I don’t care. Whatever dude. ”.

    Rescuing Angela

    They find Angela staying in a pool of stagnant water. She is haggard, tired, and looks like shit. She is digging coal out with a shovel.

    They walk up to her , telling her to play along and not reveal she knew them. they were there to rescue her.

    Jake start yelling at the guards,

    “We need to take this prisoner for questioning.”

    One of the guards looks at them,

    “Back the fuck up right now or we shoot your ass. Your choice”

    He turns to pick up his intercom and Robert shoots him.

    He drops dead and we know it will take a day or so for him to recover. The four other prisoners in the work detail beg us to take them with us. I tell them my mandate was only bring out Angela for questioning, but we would give them each 5000 g’s to keep quiet and forget what they had seen.

    They take the money and say that

    “Angela was a great woman and was always talking about her husband. We could not figure out how she got here. Maybe just a screwup in the computer files. Happens all the time. And we know not to question you guys.  Just not a good thing to do at all. So, yeah, your top-secret mission shit is safe with us

    They get on the track to the main office. When they get there, they decide they should take out Ramesh and Mr. Black for the time being. They thank them and then shoot them saying it was for their own good.
 They get on the train and head back to Hell Central.

    When they get back to the exit they find Mr. Bernie waiting.

    “ Hey dude. There are some police men here who want to talk to you. Apparently there has been a disturbance back at the mine. Some guards were shot. “

    Jake decides to bluff.

    He walks up to the head police Sergeant and barks out

    “Sergeant listen carefully. I will only say this once. We are on a covert mission for the MAN downstairs. I do not have to answer to anyone other than the MAN downstairs. If you interfere it would be painful as I would have to shoot you first, then turn you over to our torture specialists, and I pointed out several of our more macho looking guys in the group.

    So what will it be?”

    “Well lets see some paperwork”

    Matt told them the only paper they would be given would be greenbacks. They demanded 5000 g’s a piece and were adamant. Matt gave them 5,000 apiece and then shot them dead.

    Jake turns to Bernie, “you coming?”

    He said “hell yes. Fuck this job”

    They say the mantra and find themselves in the NYC subway early in the morning.

    Jake tells

    “Bernie you have until dawn to get back. We have the special agent antidote. You need to take it now, otherwise when sun comes up you will be vaporized. Take it.”

    He said

    Yeah, I head of that shit,” and pops the bill. And he runs off in search of the nearest bar.

    Hell’s Reception Committee Clears Jake and Angela of all Charges

    When they leave the subway, they are faced with a reception committee. Two special agents from hell are standing there looking at us. They take us to a safe house in Harlem.

    Finally, they meet the agent in charge of NYC.

    He looks familiar,

    “I say, didn’t you used to work for the US government as a diplomat.”

    He said

    Yeah, I did. Back in the day when I was a human being before ending up in Hell working for Satan. He looks at me and says

    “Holly shit, I recognize the two of you. I always wondered what would happen to you. Okay, now that I know you are human beings you had better tell me the truth and you know I hate your guts. And I know you are a lying scumbag and should be in hell someday.”

    I said,

    “Okay, David here’s the God’s truth”

    and Jake tells him the whole story. When he finished, David gets on the computer, and looks up the special rules and says,

    “ Holly shit. You are right. You are your friends all are given 50 bonus years at your same age and you will all be going upstairs when you die. Listen, as a favor to us don’t publish this story. You know what kind of trouble that could cause us? Okay old friend?”

    Jake promised him that he would never publish this story, but hey he lied. They were never friends, more enemies than anything else. Jake hated David, and the feeling was mutual.

    Jake and Angela make it back out of hell and back to SF. His friends all made it out too, and Satan honored rule number 214 B.

    A few months later, Jake dies and find himself in heaven. He is met by at the gateway to heaven by Mike, a big, muscular, burly bouncer who serves as the gatekeeper to heaven. He has a big sign up saying welcome to Mike’s place the best bar in the limbo zone. The bar is filled with people waiting to determine whether they are going to go to heaven or hell. Mike says as Jake enters that it may take a few days before things are sorted out. Jake is directed to a table where he is given a choice of accommodations – i.e. simple, dormitory-style rooms outback, with meals and drinks included.

    Jake Becomes A Secret Agent for God

    Jake gets his bed organized and goes back to the bar and has a beer and sit down and chat with his fellow inmates. Some have been there for days, some weeks and some years. Apparently, it takes a long time to process the paperwork, and then you must go through a trial. Once the trial is over with you either go to heaven (10 percent) back to earth in a new life, 50% or to hell the remaining 30%. Most people get a second or third chance in life to learn how to be good. If you end up most of the time doing the right thing you end up in heaven, on the other hand, if most of the time you end up doing the wrong, evil thing you end up in hell. Most go back to do it again and again until they get it right. God is merciful but has his patience and the devil must get his due.

    Mike comes back and says,

    “Well, you are famous in these parts. God was most impressed with your work and Satan as well. So, we are sending you back to earth where you will be given 50 years at your current ages, to work for us as unofficial agents, doing uncover work working against the enemy now that you’ve been there.  You can go again as you have a get out of Hell free card.

    The End

  • books read during 2018

    Jake Cosmos Aller 2018 Reading List

    I read a lot this year, completed 85 books, and started book reviews on Good Reads. As usual a very eclectic reading list. My goal for 2019 is 100 books including a lot more poetry, and short stories as I continue my publication quest, and I’d like to read a couple of books in Spanish and at least one in Korean. Would love to see what other people have read this year. One of my highlights was reading the entire “Oz” series, and re-reading Wind in the Willows.” The Oz stories have a hidden agenda, as the Land of oz is depicted almost like a communist paradise. I wonder why these books were not condemned at the time as being dangerously subversive?

    Drop me a line and lets chat about favorite books read.

    1. William Oday Darwin Protocol
    2. Steve Richer – the Kennedy Secret
    3. Steve Doucette The Space Ship Next Door
    4. Richard Dawkins the God Delusion
    5. David Baldacci End Game
    6. Blake Crouch Dark Matter
    7. Joe Hill Snap Shot
    8. Joe Hill Loaded
    9. Joe Hill Aloft
    10. Joe Hill Rain
    11. John Le Carre A legacy of Spies
    12. James Patterson Humans Bow Down
    13. Preston and Childs The Cabinet of Curiosities
    14. JL Bourne Tomorrow War YS too right wing a point of view but still decent
    15. Milton Collected Poems
    16. Nathan Van Coop In Times Like These
    17. Austin Dragon Liquid Cool
    18. Kim Stanley Robinson New York 2140
    19. William Johnstone The Doomsday Bunker
    20. David Cay Johnson Its Even Worst Than You Think What the Trump Administration is Doing to America
    21. Chris Fleur Little Blue
    22. Steven Vincent the Foundation
    23. Dinsel Noell White Rabbit
    24. Brad Taylor Ring of Fire
    25. Stephen Coots Liberty Last Stand
    26. Harry Turtledove Armistices The Hot War
    27. Seoul Survivor 2017-2018
    28. Brendan Dubois Resurrection Day
    29. Rachael Lee Crimson Code
    30. Graham the Wind in the Willows
    31. Stuart Woods Unbound
    32. John Grisham Sycamore Row
    33. John Grisham The Whistler
    34. Mike Bose Hidden Agenda
    35. Austin Dragon After Eden
    36. Alex Lukeman the Solomon Scroll
    37. Al Li Not a Memory Exactly
    38. Mt McGuire Few Are Chosen
    39. Mt McGuire The Wrong Stuff
    40. Nick Thacker The Jefferson Legacy
    41. Nick Thacker Relics
    42. Austin Dragon Blood Hollow
    43. Austin Dragon Through these Streets Darkly prequel to Liquid Cool
    44. Ernie Howard Midnight Portals – Short Stories
    45. Lost Templar Tom Harper
    46. James Becker Lost Treasures of the Templars
    47. Lincoln Cole Everett Exorcism
    48. Johann David Wyss Swiss Family Robinson
    49. Tom Harper Lost Temple
    50. James Becker Lost Treasure of the Templars
    51. William Shakespeare King Henry V – also saw at OSF
    52. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
    53. The Marvelous Land of Oz
    54. Ozma of Oz
    55. Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz
    56. The Road to Oz
    57. The Emerald City of Oz
    58. The Patchwork Girl of Oz
    59. Tik-Tok of Oz
    60. The Scarecrow of Oz
    61. Rintitink in Oz
    62. The Lost Princess of Oz
    63. The Tin Woodman of Oz
    64. The Magic of Oz
    65. Glinda of Oz
    66. Stuart Woods Unbound
    67. Stuart Woods The Money Shot
    68. David Baldacci The Fallen
    69. Randy Wayne white Caribbean rim
    70. Stephen King Full dark no stars
    71. Nick Jones the Unexpected Gift of Time
    72. Austin Dragon Tek Fail
    73. Ernest Dempsey Earnest Templar
    74. Lonely Planet guide Korea
    75. Lonely Planet Guide Seoul
    76. Howard Pyle Adventures of Robin Hood
    77. Brandon Ellis Atlantis
    78. Stephen Hawking Brief Answers to Big Questions
    79. Randy Wayne White Mangrove Lightning
    80. James Patterson Never Never
    81. Victor Cha the Impossible State
    82. Rick Wilson Everything Trump Touches Dies
    83. Steve Berry The Bishop’s Pawn
    84. AC Fuller The Anonymous Source
    85. Matthew Mather Darknet

     
    Reviews – Partial list

    Jake Aller’s Reviews > Tik-Tok of Oz

    Tik-Tok of Oz (Oz, #8)
    by
    L. Frank Baum
    Recommended for: fans of the oz books

    always loved the Oz Books. This is the sixth of the 24 I have read. I think I will go ahead and binge read the rest of the series. This particular book was a fun quick read and introduces the Tik Tok man the Shaggy Man, Cap Bill and Trot It also has a veiled satirical look at the society of the early 20th century. Oz is depicted almost as communist utopian society! Ruled by a benevolent dictator.
    Update: finished reading the rest of the series. The social criticism is there, buried here and there. I am surprised that the Oz stories were not banned by social conservatives!!!!

    The Solomon Scroll (The Project, #10)
    by
    Alex Lukeman (Goodreads Author)

    not too bad a thriller. In the genre of Don Brown’s thriller with a nice twist, involving an ancient religion, and some supernatural elements as well. An interesting nexus between Catholic conspiracies and Islamic terrorist organizations. The love scenes could have been drawn out a bit more. but overall I’d give it a solid B and would read more from this author in the future.

    Jake Aller’s Reviews > The Wind in the Willows

    The Wind in the Willows
    by
    Kenneth Grahame
    I first read this when I was 6 years old. Re-read it at age 62. Still fresh and lively and full of great language and vivid images. Strong characters especially Toad, Rat, Badger and the Mole. My favorite is probably the Rat. I can identify with him. There were several tangents that would have made a great sequel particularly the sea rat’s offer to Rat to join him on a voyage to the Southern seas.

    I also like the basic story line that humans and animals all lived together in relative harmony and understanding. That was a nice story line in and of itself. All in all, I can see why this story has remained a classic story.

  • latest publication credits

    latest publication credits

    here is the latest updated list of my publications. most are available on line. I’ve included when available. I would be happy to share a copy of any of these poems or stories with you, just send me a message. Feedback welcomed as always.

    publication list

  • where to find my stories

    i have my stories published on-line at various places. All poetry, Poetry Soup, Cosmosfunnel, Fan Story and Writing.com have published some of my stories and poems Creativity Webzine and Ariel Chart have published a few of my stories and Two Drops of Ink just published my latest short story. See next posting.

    Ariel chart ariel chart
    Two Drops of Ink two drops of ink
    Creativity webzine creativity webzine
    All Poetry all poetry
    Cosmosfunnel cosmos funnel
    Poetry Soup poetry soup
    fan story
    Fan story
    Writing.com writing.com

    My goal is to eventually post my stories here as they get published.
    and as always feedback is welcomed.

    enjoy

  • cosmos poetry and fiction now on poetry soup

    poetry soup has published many of my poems and short stories over the last two years. it is also a great site. Here’s a link to my work !