Darien Hsu Gee's Recommended Reads
By Damian Barr's Bookshop
Darien Hsu Gee's Recommended Reads
By Damian Barr's Bookshop
An inspiring list of books that have influenced Darien's writing. Listen in to our podcast episode here where she reads from her poetry collection Other Small Histories. Her latest book Allegiance is available in the list below!
The Buddha in the Attic
Julie Otsuka
£9.99 £9.49I'm a huge fan on Julie Otsuka, whose writing is both spare and luminous. She covers a lot of physical and emotional territory in a few pages. I always keep her books nearby for inspiration.
State of Wonder
Ann Patchett
£10.99 £10.44Ann Patchett is one of my favorite authors, and State of Wonder is one of my all-time favorite books. It could be that I'm drawn to stories about longing and loss, and end with exactly what the character needs (rather than wants).
Little Fires Everywhere
Celeste Ng
£8.99Celeste is a brilliant storyteller, and masterful with multiple points of view and the omniscient voice. She writes in such a way that you care about every character, however flawed.
The Galleons: Poems
Rick Barot
£11.99 £11.39Good poetry moves you, great poetry keeps you coming back for more. Rick's poems are all that, and more. I also recommend procuring a copy of his limited-edition chapbook, During the Pandemic, if you can find it.
Peach State: Poems
Adrienne Su
£15.00I will read anything Adrienne Su writes--she is one of my all-time favorite poets. Like me, she stands with one foot firmly in the past of her Chinese heritage and the other in her Americanness. Her work is moving and accessible, smart and funny.
The Big Book of the Dead
Marion Winik
£15.99 £15.19Marion Winik's vignettes of the different people in her life who have died, some close to her, some strangers, is a great craft example of how writers can work (and write) in miniature.
The Incarnations: Betrayal and intrigue in China lived again and again by a Beijing taxi driver across a thousand years
Susan Barker
£12.99 £12.34A sweeping novel with an unexpected twist. I was intrigued how this book played with time and past incarnations, and how we are connected/entangled with one another. It reminds me of the Griffin and Sabine books by Nick Bantock.
Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction
£12.99
The creative nonfiction work of Judith Kitchen (and the legacy she left at the MFA program she founded with husband Stan Rubin) showed me so many ways to play with the short form (flash and micro in particular). This collection of essays is a great introduction, and I recommend any of her own books as well, such as Half in Shade.
Allegiance
Darien Hsu Gee
£12.99"This compelling collection of prose poems charts a woman's peripatetic journey as she struggles to find home in various lands whose inhabitants question or challenge her arrival. A rewarding excursion into a fierce and vibrant life!" - Rigoberto González, author of The Book of Ruin