Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Influences: A Quick List

The other day I ran across a list of influences I cited in the past. Writers and musicians who have been some of the strongest influences on my writing. Today I put together a quick list of some of the pivotal collections of their writing that I particularly enjoy, some assembled by the authors themselves, others, simply collected together well.
  • Franz Kafka. The Basic Kafka.
  • Jorge Luis Borges. Labyrinths
  • Samuel Beckett. Endgame. Worstward Ho. Company. 
  • H.P. Lovecraft. Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre
  • Yusef Komunyakaa. Dien Cai Dau. Talking Dirty to The Gods 
  • Heather McHugh. Hinge and Sign 
  • Tadeusz Borowski. This Way for The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.
  • Adrienne Su. Middle Kingdom. 
  • Leonard Cohen. I'm Your Man.  
  • Tom Waits. Bone Machine. 
  • Khalil Gibran. The Madman. 
  • Joseph Campbell. The Power of Myth. 
  • Hermann Hesse. Siddhartha. Steppenwolfe.
  • Shuntaro Tanikawa. Selected Poems.
  • Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The Face Behind The Face.
  • Graham Greene. The Captain And The Enemy.
  • Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Gift From The Sea.
Of course, there's always many, many more, but these are some that come with my highest recommendations.

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