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Put on a shirt old man! |
In an effort to put together a more targeted plan for
reading, I came up with what I consider my own personalized MFA plan. It’s a
list of books I have been planning to read...at some point. Some of these I picked because of
the writing style, some for subject matter, and some are classics. For me, they’re
all important in one way or another. I should point out this list doesn’t include
any books I’ve already read and many of these books were chosen because I had
some interest in digging deeper into the subject, style, or mechanics so if some
of the authors on here aren’t familiar…well, there you go.
Year 1:
Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms,
For Whom the Bell Tolls
John Steinbeck: To A God Unknown, In Dubious Battle, Of Mice
and Men
William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying, The Sound and The Fury,
Light In August, Absalom, Absalom!
Larry Brown: Fay, Joe, Dirty Work
Lajos Egri: The Art of Dramatic Writing
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I looooove to smoke. |
Year 2:
Joyce Carol Oates: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been
(short story collection)
Tim O’Brien: Going After Cacciato
Raymond Carver: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (short story collection)
Flannery O’Connor: A Good Man Is Hard To Find, Everything
That Rises Must Converge (short story collection)
Great Writing Series (5 Books): Revision, Setting, Dialogue,
Plot & Structure, Character & Viewpoint
Cormac McCarthy: The Orchard Keeper, Suttree
Richard Wright: Black Boy, The Outsider
Harry Crews: A Feast of Snakes, Body, Car, Scar Lover, The
Knockout Artist
Thomas Bullfinch: Bullfinch’s Mythology
Joseph Campbell: The Heroes Journey, Pathways to Bliss
Neil Strauss: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Don’t Try this
at Home
Blake Snyder: Save the Cat
Linda Seger: Making A Good Script Great
Edward Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Republic
Charles Bukowski: Hollywood, Hot Water Music
Thom Jones: Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment
Isaac Babel: Red Cavalry and Other Stories
Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon, Beloved, The Bluest Eyes,
Jazz
Mario Vargas Llosa: Time of the Hero, Conversations in the
Cathedral
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Leaf Storm, 100 Years of Solitude, Memories
of My Melancholy Whores
Mary Shelley: The Last Man
Charles Dickens: Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Bleak
House
Ernest Hemingway: Across the River and Into the Trees, To
Have and Have Not, Garden of Eden
William Faulkner: The Reivers, Sanctuary
John Steinbeck: Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden,
Travels with Charley, The Moon Is Down ![]() |
Seriously, you're going to read this in a year?! |
Feel free to drop me a line with any suggestions, or books you'd put on your MFA reading list!