This summer, instead of listing the usual batch of hot summer books (you can find those anywhere), we asked a diverse and completely arbitrary group of Portland arts luminaries what was on their summer reading lists. The results were fascinating: old classics, new releases, re-reads, and titles that shed light on some very interesting personalities. We wish we could list 1000, but here are the 32 artists, poets, writers, actors, musicians, dancers, and comics who shared their reading lists with us.
Harlan Baker
actor/director/historian
The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper
The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas
Darien Brahms
musician
Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy:
A Lost Generation Love Story by Amanda Vaill
Genet: A Biography of Janet Flanner by Brenda Wineapple
Sarah Braunstein
author (The Sweet Relief of Missing Children)/faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program
Schroder by Amity Gauge
Women in Their Beds: New and Selected Stories by Gina Berriault
Kimberly Convery
visual artist
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Jason Cornell (a/k/a Brzowski)
musician/painter
Japanese Demon Lore: Oni from Ancient Times to the Present by Noriko Reider
The Year of Dreaming Dangerously by Slavoj Zizek
Travis Curran
stand-up comic/writer/actor
Maine Beer: Brewing in Vacationland by Josh Christie
Attempting Normal by Marc Maron
Alicia Eggert
visual artist
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
Daniel Fuller
curator (ICA at MECA)/visual artist
Hang On To Your Hot Lights by Nick Paparone and Rory Parks (Publication Studio, ICA)
Role Models by John Waters
Alina Gallo
visual artist
Arab Spring: End of Postcolonialism by Hamid Dabashi
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid
Tavia Gilbert
narrator/voice actor
Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites by Kate Christensen
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
James Herrera
actor/designer (Mad Horse Theatre Company)
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Tanja Hollander
visual artist
Difficult Men by Brett Martin
Sweet Heaven When I Die by Jeff Sharlet
Derek Jackson
visual + conceptual artist/musician (Hi Tiger)
Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz by Cynthia Carr
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany
Amy Jorgensen
installation artist
Arboretum by David Byrne
The Book of Books: 500 Years of Graphic Innovation by Mathieu Lommen
Christopher Livengood
English teacher/musician (Video Nasties)
Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski by Klaus Kinski
The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Will Mallett
musician (Mallett Brothers Band)
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard
Connor McGrath
stand-up comic/actor
Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of KISS by Peter Criss and Larry “Ratso” Sloman
Attempting Normal by Marc Maron
David Meiklejohn
filmmaker
The Black Unicorn by Audre Lorde
Mr. Benson by John Preston
Rosa Noreen
belly dancer/co-director of Bright Star World Dance
Border Passage: From Cairo to America — A Woman’s Journey by Leila Ahmed
Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende
Liz Pettengill
dancer (Collective Motion)
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
I Was a Dancer by Jacques D’Amboise
Alzenira Quezada a/k/a Lady Zen
poet/singer/writer
A Poet’s Craft by Annie Finch
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Mike Rich
visual artist
Flip the Script by Christian P. Acker
When We Wuz Famous by Greg Takoudes
Justin Richel
visual artist
The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing’s Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living by Scott Nearing and Helen Nearing
The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird
Galen Richmond
electronic artist/musician (Computer at Sea)
MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill
Gaelle Robin
poet
Nevada by Imogen Binnie
Kissing Dead Girls by Daphne Gottlieb
Michael “Miek” Rodrigue
musician
Life by Keith Richards and James Fox
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Holly Seeliger
school board member
Apple Cider Vinegar: For Weight Loss and Good Health by Cynthia Holzapfel
Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield by Jeremy Scahill
Martin Steingesser
poet
Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life, the Diaries 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork by Etty Hillesum
Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke
Shoshannah White
visual artist
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey
The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman
Timothy Wilson
visual artist
The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
Jonathan Wyman
music producer and mixer
Making Records by Phil Ramone
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Emily Jane Young
writer/co-director of Word Portland reading series
Mythology by Edith Hamilton
This One is Mine by Maria Semple
