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Poets Booklist

Novels about Poets and Poetry

• Milton in America
  Ackroyd, Peter
  Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0385477082 Date: 1997
  Booklist Library Journal
  Booklist Editors Choice
  John Milton, aging, blind, fleeing the restoration of English monarchy, comes to New England where he soon becomes the leader of the Puritans. Ackroyd has crafted an enjoyable novel that entertains while raising provocative questions - this time about America's founding myths.
• The Love Artist
  Author: Alison, Jane
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 23 ISBN: 0374231796 Date: 2001
  Kirkus
  A darkly brilliant first novel that imagines a missing chapter in the life of Ovid, the most popular author of his day. Why do only two lines survive of his play Medea, reputedly his most passionate work? Between the known details of the poet's life and these enigmas, Alison has interpolated a haunting drama of passion and psychological manipulation.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Debuts
  Updated 1/19/01
• Timbuktu
  Author: Auster, Paul
  Publisher: Henry Holt List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0805054073 Date: 1999
  PW
  Mr. Bones, the canine hero of Auster's remarkable new novel, is the sidekick and confidant of Willy G. Christmas, the brilliant, troubled, and altogether original poet-saint from Brooklyn. Like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, they sally forth on a last great adventure in search of Willy's high school teacher and mentor.
  
  
• Regeneration
  Author: Barker, Pat
  Publisher: Dutton $ ISBN: 0525934278 Date: 1992
  Kirkus
  Set in a British military hospital during WWI, this novel blends fact and fiction, drawing its two protagonists from the pages of history. The author of Union Street (made into the film Stanley and Iris) portrays over whelmed men who try to come to terms with their outrage of a futile war.
  Updated 7.26.04
• The Sot-Weed Factor
  Author: Barth, John
  Publisher: Anchor $ 18.95 ISBN: 0385240880 Date: 1987 (reprint)
  Barth's most distinguished masterpiece, this modern classic is a hilarious tribute to all the most insidious human vices with a hero who is "one of the most diverting . . . to roam the world since Candide".(Time).
  Updated 7.26.04
• Humboldt's Gift
  Author: Bellow, Saul
  Publisher: Viking $ 12.95 ISBN: 0670386553 Date: 1979
  An old friend acts from the grave to give a gentle but resilient middle-aged intellectual an opportunity for triumph over all that makes his life seem staid and superfluous.
  Updated 7.26.04
• The Dog Fighter
  Author: Bokanowski, Marc
  Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060595604 Date: 2004
  LJ
  In a stunning debut novel by 26-year-old Marc Bojanowski that is set in 1940s Mexico, a young man who becomes involved in a brutally violent spectator sport must choose his loyalties in the fight for a city's future.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 4.20.04
• My Life As a Fake
  Author: Carey, Peter
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375414983 Date: 2003
  Kirkus PW LJ
  Using as a springboard a real literary hoax that transfixed Australia in his boyhood, Peter Carey wickedly and ruefully explores how a phantom poet taunts, haunts and otherwise destroys his maker, pursuing him from Melbourne to a seedy, sweaty, bitter ending in the tropical chaos of Kuala Lumpur.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 10.30.03
• Making Love to the Minor Poets of Chicago
  Author: Conrad, James
  Publisher: Thomas Dunne $ 25.95 ISBN: 0312204728 Date: 2000
  Booklist
  In a novel of love, ambition, poetry, and nuclear waste, Conrad imagines an influential poetry professor who insists that a nuclear storage project also include an epic poem.
  
• Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land
  Author: Crowley, John
  Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060556587 Date: 2005
  Kirkus PW LJ
  Spanning three centuries, Lord Byron's Novel interweaves three separate strands into one magnificent tale: the stories of a lost novel by Lord Byron, the daughter who tried to save it, and the woman who discovered her secret.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Epistolary Stars | Poets
  Updated 6.9.05
• Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath
  Author: Moses, Kate
  Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 031228375x Date: 2003
  PW LJ
  This stunning literary debut captures the haunting last months of Sylvia Plath's life and the painful creation of her legendary Ariel poems. Wintering is a deeply felt novel about artistry, marriage, motherhood, and self-understanding.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts | Biographical Fiction
  Updated 1.16.03
• Murder Me Now: Olivia Brown
  Author: Meyers, Annette
  Publisher: Mysterious $ 23.95 ISBN: 0892966955 Date: 2001
  PW Booklist
  Greenwich Village is decked with snow and mistletoe in December of 1920. Prohibition may be the law, but the speakeasies are crowded with writers and artists, friends and lovers. In the midst of all this conviviality, poet-sleuth Olivia Brown once again finds herself drawn into murder; this time it is the mysterious death of a young nanny, who is employed by one of Olivia's friends.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars
  Updated 11/15/00
• The Dream of Scipio
  Author: Pears, Iain
  Publisher: Riverhead $ 27.95 ISBN: 157322202x Date: 2002
  Booklist PW Kirkus
  From the author of An Instance of the Fingerpost comes this anticipated novel that is constructed around Provence in three different centuries, and each has at its heart a love story. Expertly imagined and perfectly realized, The Dream of Scipio is a feat of storytelling.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 5/23/02
• Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z
  Author: Weinstein, Debra
  Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 1400061555 Date: 2004
  LJ
  In a wickedly funny first novel, Weinstein writes about an aspiring young poet and the celebrated mentor who tries to hold her back.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 11.18.03
• Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather
  Author: Willett, Jincy
  Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312311818 Date: 2003
  LJ PW
  The long-awaited novel from the author of the acclaimed collection Jenny and the Jaws of Life. In her darkly comic and unsettling first novel, Willett explores the darker side of human nature with the lightest of touches. She is a writer of astonishing power and talent.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 9.08.03
• The Wood Wife
  Author: Windling, Terri
  Publisher: Tor $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312859880 Date: 1996
  Kirkus
  Maggie Black comes to the Southwestern desert to pursue her passion and her dreams. Her mentor, the acclaimed poet Davis Cooper, has mysteriously died in the canyons east of Tucson, bequeathing her his estate and the mystery of his life--and death. As she reads Cooper's letters and learns the secrets of his life, Maggie comes face-to-face with the wild, ancient spirits of the desert--and discovers the hidden power at its heart, a power that will take her on a journey like no other.
  Updated 7.26.04