Book picks similar to
Cain by Luke Kennard


poetry
university
the-goats
spokenword

Jacob's Room


Virginia Woolf - 1922
    The life story, character and friends of Jacob are presented in a series for separate scenes and moments from his childhood, through college at Cambridge, love affairs in London, and travels in Greece, to his death in the war. Jacob's Room established Virginia Woolf's reputation as a highly poetic and symbolic writer who places emphasis not on plot or action but on the psychological realm of occupied by her characters.

A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works


Jonathan Swift - 1729
    Gulliver’s Travels is, of course, his world renowned masterpiece in the genre; however, Swift wrote other, shorter works that also offer excellent evidence of his inspired lampoonery. Perhaps the most famous of these is A Modest Proposal, in which he straight-facedly suggests that Ireland could solve its hunger problems by using its children for food. Also included in this collection are The Battle of Books, A Meditation upon a Broomstick, A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operations of the Spirit and An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England.This inexpensive edition will certainly be welcomed by teachers and students of English literature, but its appeal extends to any reader who delights in watching a master satirist wield words as weapons.

What Maisie Knew


Henry James - 1897
    And when both take lovers and remarry, Maisie-solitary, observant and wise beyond her years- is drawn into an entangled adult world of intrigue and sexual betrayal, until she is finally compelled to choose her own future. Published in 1897 when Henry James was becoming increasingly experimental with narrative technique and fascinated by the idea of the child's-eye view, What Maisie Knew is a subtle, intricate yet devastating portrayal of an innocent adrift in a corrupt society.

Mothering Sunday


Graham Swift - 2016
    For almost all of those years she has been the clandestine lover to Paul Sheringham, young heir of a neighboring house. The two now meet on an unseasonably warm March day—Mothering Sunday—a day that will change Jane's life forever. As the narrative moves back and forth from 1924 to the end of the century, what we know and understand about Jane—about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, remembers—expands with every vividly captured moment. Her story is one of profound self-discovery, and through her, Graham Swift has created an emotionally soaring, deeply affecting work of fiction.

Flaubert's Parrot


Julian Barnes - 1984
    Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 Flaubert's Parrot deals with Flaubert, parrots, bears and railways; with our sense of the past and our sense of abroad; with France and England, life and art, sex and death, George Sand and Louise Colet, aesthetics and redcurrant jam; and with its enigmatic narrator, a retired English doctor, whose life and secrets are slowly revealed.A compelling weave of fiction and imaginatively ordered fact, Flaubert's Parrot is by turns moving and entertaining, witty and scholarly, and a tour de force of seductive originality

Crave


Sarah Kane - 1998
    It received its English premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London in September 1998.

A House of Pomegranates


Oscar Wilde - 1888
    This collection includes the following tales:"The Young King""The Birthday of the Infanta" "The Fisherman and his Soul""The Star-child"Readers of all ages will be delighted by these fanciful tales.

The Guest Cat


Takashi Hiraide - 2001
    A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife — the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens….As Kenzaburo Oe has remarked, Takashi Hiraide’s work "really shines." His poetry, which is remarkably cross-hatched with beauty, has been acclaimed here for "its seemingly endless string of shape-shifting objects and experiences,whose splintering effect is enacted via a unique combination of speed and minutiae."

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience


Unknown
    SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT is one of the most important alliterative poems of Medieval literature

Preacher vol. 1-9


Garth Ennis - 1996
    The entire run has been collected in nine trade paperback editions. The final monthly issue, number 66, was published in July 2000.Preacher follows the story of Preacher Jesse Custer, his best friend, and his girlfriend, as they explore a world that fuses Southern culture and supernatural elements, especially religious ones, in a way that is highly provocative, exploratory, and controversial.Preacher draws on movies, particularly Westerns, for many of its stylistic elements.

frank: sonnets


Diane Seuss - 2021
    These poems tell the story of a life at risk of spilling over the edge of the page, from Seuss’s working-class childhood in rural Michigan to the dangerous allures of New York City and back again. With sheer virtuosity, Seuss moves nimbly across thought and time, poetry and punk, AIDS and addiction, Christ and motherhood, showing us what we can do, what we can do without, and what we offer to one another when we have nothing left to spare. Like a series of cels on a filmstrip, frank: sonnets captures the magnitude of a life lived honestly, a restless search for some kind of “beauty or relief.” Seuss is at the height of her powers, devastatingly astute, austere, and—in a word—frank.

Dart


Alice Oswald - 2002
    Using these records and voices as a sort of poetic census, she creates a narrative of the river, tracking its life from source to sea. The voices are wonderfully varied and idiomatic - they include a poacher, a ferryman, a sewage worker and milk worker, a forester, swimmers and canoeists - and are interlinked with historic and mythic voices: drowned voices, dreaming voices and marginal notes which act as markers along the way.

The Malevolent Volume


Justin Phillip Reed - 2020
    In these poems, Reed finds agency in the other-than-human identities assigned to those assaulted by savageries of the state. In doing so, he summons a retaliatory, counterviolent Black spirit to revolt and to inhabit the revolting.

Rise Up: The #Merky Story So Far


Stormzy - 2019
    Rise Up is the story of how he got there. It’s a story about faith and the ideas worth fighting for. It’s about knowing where you’re from, and where you’re going. It’s about following your dreams without compromising who you are.Featuring never-before-seen photographs, annotated lyrics and contributions from those closest to him, Rise Up is the #Merky story, and the record of a journey unlike any other.______________________'A very important book. The voices we hear from - young, gifted and largely black - are all too rarely heard. These are people who typically have to listen to a daily diet of media negativity about their communities without the opportunities to respond. ... It is truly inspiring to read about the accomplishments of Team Stormzy, realised largely without money or expertise, but with bucketloads of intelligence and hard work.' BBC (WILL GOMPERTZ)

The Complete Poems


William Blake - 1827
    His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint Experience - which juxtapose poems such as 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger', and 'The Blossom' and 'The Sick Rose' - to highly elaborate, apocalyptic works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Throughout his life Blake drew on a rich heritage of philosophy, religion and myth, to create a poetic worlds illuminated by his spiritual and revolutionary beliefs that have fascinated, intrigued and enchanted readers for generations.