This month, we’re focusing on the Dewey 800s—literature, rhetoric, drama, essays, poetry, and criticism. On the recommended list, you’ll find over 100 titles including essential writing guides (such as Lamott’s Bird By Bird, Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, and McCann’s Letters to a Young Writer); Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies; the Ancient Greek plays of Aeschylus and contemporary drama by August Wilson and Sam Shepard. You’ll discover the collected works of Audre Lorde, Dorothy Parker, Edgar Allan Poe, and John Updike. Also featured are the canonical works of American poets Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Bishop, and Billy Collins, the love poems of Pablo Neruda, and selected haiku of Basho. We hope you’ll refresh your shelves with these inspiring core titles—and please let us know how which books are paramount to your community of readers and writers!
