We’re joined by the amazing poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert to discuss some of the books that we think about all the time. We each share three books that are always on our minds and discuss the many reasons some works become such and important part of who we are.

Which ones would you pick?

Shownotes

Books

* Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa Gabbert

* The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert

* The Word Pretty, by Elisa Gabbert

* The Hurting Kind, by Ada Limón

* 77 Dream Songs, by John Berryman

* The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith

* A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster

* Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks

* Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith

* Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

* Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

* Middlemarch, by George Eliot

* Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, by Cal Newport

* An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, by George Perec, translated by Marc Lowenthal

* A Month in Sienna, by Hisham Matar

* How to Cook a Wolf, by M.F.K. Fisher

* A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein

* Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

* Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann

* The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

* Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

* Too Serious Ladies, by Jane Bowles

* Sabrina, by Nick Drnaso

* Emma, by Jane Austen

* The Wild Iris, by Louise Glück

* Survey Says, by Nathan Austin

* The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

* So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell

* Atonement, by Ian McEwan

* The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Ruth L.C. Simms

Other

* Elisa Gabbert’s Poetry Column in The New York Times

* Every book I read in 2024, with commentary, by Elisa Gabbert

* Lost Highway, d. David Lynch

* Mulholland Dr., d. David Lynch

* Episode 36: Epic Books

* Backlisted Podcast on Notes from Underground

* Episode 25: Jane Austen

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

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