The list is in alphabetical order.
There are two poets that I quite like who made the list:
NEXT LIFE. By Rae Armantrout. (Wesleyan University, $22.95.) Poetry that conveys the invention, the wit and the force of mind that contests all assumptions.
TIME AND MATERIALS: Poems, 1997-2005. By Robert Hass. (Ecco/Harper-Collins, $22.95.) What Hass, a former poet laureate, has lost in Californian ease he has gained in stern self-restraint.
Two other very good poets also made the list:
SELECTED POEMS. By Derek Walcott. Edited by Edward Baugh. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) The Nobel Prize winner Walcott, who was born on St. Lucia, is a long-serving poet of exile, caught between two races and two worlds.
THE COLLECTED POEMS, 1956-1998. By Zbigniew Herbert. Translated by Alissa Valles. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $34.95.) Herbert’s poetry echoes the quiet insubordination of his public life.
See the whole list.
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2 comments:
A fine list. I love the Times's annual Best Books list; it gives me some ideas of what's excellent out there that I might want to check out.
One book I read that's on the list others might want to get -- at their library. Jeffrey Toobin's 'The Nine,' about the Supreme Court, has some wonderful chapters in its middle about John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Weldell Holmes and Harlan's son, John Harlan, are wonderful. The Harlans are endearing and compassionate and insightful; Holmes is brilliant and an ass -- so far as their judicial judgment is concerned.
I am also happy to see that Jan Crawford Greenberg's book about the recent Supreme Court, that came out about the same time, is NOT on this list. It was absolutely the very worst book on the Supremes I've ever read -- and I read them all. It is a book on the Court that Ann Coulter could have written if she could be a little less jokey.
One of my favorite clients, who is much more conservative than I am, is reading The Nine right now and loves it. She's going to loan me the book when she's done.
I look forward to reading it -- I saw Toobin on Charlie Rose talking about he book and loved the discussion.
Peace,
Bill
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