Help Me Compile My PhD Book Lists

A collaboration! A journey!

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Draft for All Saints II (composition with saints) // 1911 // Wassily Kandinsky

I never thought I’d be a PhD candidate, but here I am, doing the thing.

I am in my last semester of coursework. Despite my being here for nonfiction, I’m taking two poetry classes; one to fulfill a requirement, and one workshop. I am also doing an independent study focused on diaspora narratives. Here’s that list:

Creating Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, Wrestling With the Devil by Ngugi Wa Thiong’O, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, In the Temple of My Skin by George Lamming, Ecological Imperialism by Alfred W. Crosby, Insurrecto by Gina Apostol, Exterminate All the Brutes by Sven Lindqvist, and Solito by Javier Zamora.

I’ve wanted to quit this program uncountable times, mostly because of the conflict with my book revisions but partially (especially this last semester) because of issues within the program itself and academia in general. Whenever I want to quit, another part of me screams but all the work you’ve already done!! All you’ve already sacrificed!! It’s that sunk cost fallacy. I’ve invested so much here. I’ve given so much of myself. I’ve worked so hard. So I may as well build my prelims list.

If you’re wondering what prelims are, you’re not alone. I didn’t really know what they were as recently as last year. Prelims, short for preliminary exams, are a series of tests and essays, lasting several days. First, the PhD candidate reads all the books on their list. Then they’re tested on those books. Every program has different requirements— our program is fairly stringent, especially for creative writers.

Although I’m here to study nonfiction and write creatively, I’ve had to fulfill all the requirements for a PhD in English literature, meaning I’ve not been allowed, for the most part, to write creatively within the realm of coursework (unless I’m in workshop or a professor allows creative projects). Instead, I’ve had to write academic papers. So many academic papers! Unlike the English lit folks, who specialize in these kinds of papers, go to conferences, and use these works to further their career, these papers serve very little purpose for most of the creative writers (some CRW folks love them, which is great for them, but not my thing).

Yes, I understand that these papers have a purpose for me (I will begrudgingly admit that they have refined my research and citation skills). But they require a TON of work, and that work detracts from what I came here to do: write creatively. The irony here is that most of the faculty and department as a whole considers creative works essentially ungradable. I think it’s hilarious (in a hair-pulling way) that people whose lives revolve around analyzing creative writing cannot accurately grade a creative work, but whatever. Hopefully someday I’ll be grateful for it. I’m sure I will. Kind of.

ANYWHO.

So, I am celebrating nearly being finished with coursework! Only a few more months (while I also finish revising my book and doing a million other things)! I’ll miss the classes, really. Many of the professors here are brilliant and engaging, and I love learning from them. But now it’s time for me to build my prelims reading list and prepare for takeoff.

So— the readings list(s). There are two. One focused on my major area (nonfiction), and the other focused on my minor area, which is very, very broad (post 20th century lit). For my major area I need 100 books. My minor is composed of 50 books. I have to read and absorb all of those books beginning in May and be ready for my prelims in early spring of next year (gulp).

That’s where you come in.

See, I have a bunch of sample prelims lists. And I have ideas of what I want on my lists. But, as I was beginning to create the spreadsheet for my lists, I wondered: what about my brilliant readers? What would they choose for their lists? What would they consider essential?

This is partially just curiosity on my part, but it’s also functional. Unlike fiction and poetry, there is not a rigid nonfiction “canon.” Yes, there is canonical nonfiction, but I have a lot of leeway in the creation of my list, and this is exciting to me. I’ve been thinking in terms of grouping: what are the essential books of essays or essays I want on the list? What about essential memoirs? Travel narratives? Nature writing? Theory? Experimental works? Other genres of nonfiction? I could go on. I know my own interests, but I want to expand beyond my own brain and the internet is no help. Of course, my major professor (the person leading my prelim exams) will give me ideas, and I have example lists. But I want to know what you’d want on the list! Maybe it will actually end up on the list. Either way, you’re going on this journey with me and you’ll hear all about it.

And what about my post 20th century literature list? That is a HUGE category and only includes fifty books. And: it’s not only American literature. I am very interested in books in translation lesser-known brilliant works. Currently I’m reading Edwidge Danticat’s Creating Dangerously, and she mentions tens of Haitian writers I’ve never heard of, including Love, Anger, Madness by Marie Vieux-Chauvet. The book asks, Danticat writes,

“But is all suffering equal…when the people who suffer are not considered equal?” And, “How can those who have been brutally enslaved turn around and enslave others?Is suffering truly equal when we live in a society that would never allow the people who are suffering to be considered equal?”

As an American, I know that I am underexposed to narratives of colonization, and that’s one of the reasons these narratives attract me. Not because I’m a masochist who wants to break my own heart, but because I am of the country that has caused so much terror in the world; terror that reverberates and will continue reverberating until we look at ourselves as all brilliant writers look at themselves and their country, often risking their lives and the lives of their families (as Vieux-Chauvet did).

That said, I’m interested in everything— including what’s considered the traditional American legacy of nonfiction (some of which has been named in the comments already): Baldwin, Didion, Dubois, hooks, Hong Kingston; as well as the European legacy, including Montaigne. Individual works are good, too: particular essays, and also poems, which can go into my minor.

I am not asking you to do my work for me here! But I want to know your thoughts and suggestions because I think it’s useful, and because I can compile a list for this newsletter, whose focus in nonfiction. So, there’s more than one aim.

Marie Vieux-Chavet

Alright.

What would you put on the list if it were yours? Any genres for my minor list. Any nonfiction for my major list. What books do you consider essential reading for any writer? What books do you pick up again and again because of their richness and depth? Are there sleeper hits you think need more visibility or recognition?

Tell me in the comments and we’ll talk more about it as I begin compiling my books.