Claudia Putnam: Writer/Poetry & Prose

Category: Reading

  • Standout Reads 2016

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    Claudia Putnam
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    Late again… But you were probably needing some books to read this summer. In case you’re bored, here’s the best of what I read last year: Fiction The Sport of Kings, CE Morgan. Ha. After the exquisite gem of Morgan’s first novel, what did her readers expect? It’s always difficult to come out with the…

  • Standout Reads 2015

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    Claudia Putnam
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    Finally! Just squeaking by before the end of the first quarter… here’s my list of the best books I came across LAST year. As always, this list has nothing to do with release dates. Honestly, I was a little disappointed with what I read in 2015. I pulled in a couple from 2014, because there…

  • Standout Reads 2012

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    Claudia Putnam
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    This year I had more time to read than usual and so I have a lot to say. Again, I’m listing the books that popped for me of those I read in 2012; they may or may not have been published in the last year. Also, as usual, I probably forgot to OneNote several striking…

  • Advice from a Master

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    Claudia Putnam
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    Some years ago I took a master class with the poet Marvin Bell. I’d been galvanized by an interview I read in American Poetry Review. The interview (not linked) was accompanied by a selection of Bell’s Resurrected Dead Man poems. I was only starting to take myself seriously as a poet—i.e., to give myself permission…

  • Standout Reads of 2011

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    Claudia Putnam
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    Once again these are the books that stood out for me among those I read this past year. They were not necessarily published in 2011; many of them appeared decades ago, in fact.   Fiction Native, by William Haywood Henderson. Henderson’s gorgeous, delicate, but also ripping first novel explores some themes similar to those in…

  • Bookshelves as GPS

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    Claudia Putnam
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    I was recently on some website reading a post analyzing the future of paper vs e-publishing (probably in relation to the iPad release), and I saw a comment from another reader who implied that the only reason anyone would keep real books around anymore was to show off how smart they were. I found this…