Person
Every book Dana Gioia recommended on podcasts
Across 3 podcasts. Every show Dana Gioia appears on, in one place — not just one.
Dana Gioia’s most recommended books
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- The flowers of evil by Charles Baudelaire
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- The Odyssey by Homer
- Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
- City of God by Augustine of Hippo
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
- DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes
Michael Dana Gioia is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. During various podcast appearances, he discussed and recommended several classic works of literature. On How I Write, Gioia recommended John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, highlighting its portrayal of the dignity of the poor and discussing it as one of the greatest American novels. On Conversations with Tyler and EconTalk, he praised Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina as the greatest thing he had ever read and recommended Homer's The Odyssey for its universal representation of human experience on a narrative level. In additional discussions on How I Write, Gioia talked about J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings as the greatest novel in English written about the First World War, compared Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace to Tolkien's work regarding the scope of war, and further remarked that Anna Karenina stands out as the greatest novel ever written.
Books recommended by Dana Gioia
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Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is a monumental masterpiece of nineteenth-century literature exploring themes of love, family, societal hypocrisy, and tragic fate.
Discussed“if I was asked you know the you know my top 10 great novels tolto and dovi would both be be honored I think Anna Corina is the greatest novel ever written I think Brothers katsov is one of the three or four greatest novels ever written crime and punishment is a tremendous novel but then you get the novels”
Where to get it
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The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a classic American novel depicting the hardships of Oklahoma families migrating to California during the Great Depression.
Discussed“John Steinbeck, if you read The Grapes of Wrath, for all of Grapes of Wrath's imperfections, he has written one of the greatest American novels”
Where to get it
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The flowers of evil
The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, often published with material by translators such as Marthiel Mathews, is a classic volume of nineteenth-century French poetry that explores themes of decadence, beauty, mortality, and urban alienation.
Discussed“I just finished writing a 14,000-word essay on Charles Baudelaire. That's going to be the introduction to a new edition of The Flowers of Evil.”
Where to get it
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War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a monumental historical novel blending grand military strategy with intimate domestic life against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.
Discussed“I think the Lord of the Rings is the greatest novel in English written about the first world war and it's about a decent fellow who is dragged into a war which he doesn't want to fight but he conducts himself honorably going through great pain great loss uh and interestingly you know comes out of it morally strengthened in”
Where to get it
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The Odyssey
The Odyssey by Homer is an epic ancient Greek poem that follows the arduous ten-year journey of Odysseus as he attempts to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, encountering mythical creatures, divine wrath, and numerous trials along the way.
Recommended“And so, let's just take the Odyssey, you know, which has to be one of the greatest stories ever told simply on a narrative level.”
Where to get it
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Arcadia
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard is a complex modern play that explores the intersections of time, mathematics, literature, and the persistent human tension between extrinsic and intrinsic perspectives.
Discussed“it's the line from uh Tom stoppard's Arcadia he says we shed as we pick up like Travelers who must carry everything in their arms”
Where to get it
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City of God
City of God by Augustine of Hippo is a foundational theological and philosophical text written to defend Christianity against pagan accusations following the fall of Rome.
Discussed“one of the foundational books for me in my life is St Augustine's city of God”
Where to get it
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Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a profound psychological novel that explores guilt, morality, and the severe consequences of moral relativism and nihilism.
Discussed“I think Brothers katsov is one of the three or four greatest novels ever written crime and punishment is a tremendous novel but then you get the novels like the idiot or the possessed which I think have great moments but they're kind of sprawling books which you know he doesn't reign in sufficiently”
Where to get it
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Death Comes for the Archbishop
Discussed“Willa Cather, who was not Catholic, wrote, you know, Death Comes for the Archbishop, maybe the best Catholic novel in American literature.”
Where to get it
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DON QUIXOTE
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is widely celebrated as one of the earliest modern novels and a foundational masterpiece of Western literature.
Discussed“And you you know this from the very beginning, Don Quixote.”
Where to get it
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Earthly Powers
Discussed“I think that perhaps Earthly Powers was his great novel. Because he takes the form of a Somerset Maugham novel and he overlays a mafia novel, a religious novel, a buildingsroman all in that.”
Where to get it
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Enemies of promise and other essays
Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly is a celebrated work of literary criticism and essays examining the various personal, social, and aesthetic pitfalls that threaten to derail a writer's career.
Discussed“his first book called enemies of Promise which each chapter shows you a different way that you'll go wrong as a writer”
Where to get it
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Paul Bunyan
Discussed“For Britten he did Paul Bunyan. Well, here's here's the thing you learn from Auden. His greatest libretto in terms of poetry is his first one called Paul Bunyan, which made an absolutely terrible opera –”
Where to get it
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The Bassarids
Discussed“So I think, you know, his his greatest libretti I think his best two are the two that he wrote for Hans Werner Henze, The Elegy for Young Lovers and The Bacchae, The Bassarids.”
Where to get it
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The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a profound philosophical novel that explores deep spiritual questions surrounding faith, free will, morality, and the human condition.
Discussed“I think Anna Corina is the greatest novel ever written I think Brothers katsov is one of the three or four greatest novels ever written crime and punishment is a tremendous novel but then you get the novels like the idiot or the possessed which I think have great moments but they're kind of sprawling books which you know he”
Where to get it
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The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories, examines the superficiality of conventional bourgeois life and a dying man's agonizing confrontation with his own mortality.
Discussed“Death of Ivan Ilyich. Uh which I think Well, first of all, if you asked me who was the greatest fiction writer who ever lived, I would say Tolstoy. Uh and and his short stories are full of masterpieces, but The Death of Ivan Ilyich is simply one of the greatest considerations of human mortality”
Where to get it
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The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is an epic 14th-century poem detailing the soul's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.
Discussed“That's the beginning of the Divine Comedy and start to just you know, listen to the music, the meaning, the particular words.”
Where to get it
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The Illustrated Golden Bough
The Illustrated Golden Bough by James George Frazer is an expansive comparative study of mythology, folklore, and religion that examines the shared psychological and ritualistic foundations of human societies across history.
Discussed“well what's the connection here with Odus and wisdom because when he goes past the muses he puts the wax in his ears and that's one of the things that they entice him with In order for anus to do this he has to have the golden bow which becomes the the title of this this great mythological thing that's”
Where to get it
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The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R.
Discussed“Tolken, I think The Lord of the Rings is the greatest novel in English written about the First World War”
Where to get it
The other 2 books Dana Gioia recommended or discussed, ranked
- The Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Books Dana Gioia wrote
- Studying with Miss Bishop
- 99 Poems
- Can poetry matter?
- Disappearing Ink
- Weep, Shudder, Die: On Opera and Poetry
Appearances
Other mentions (19: passing, ad reads, own books)
“anyway um I wrote an article which I think is one of the best things I've ever written called disappearing Inc poetry at the end of print culture”
“this is what became really the most famous piece I've ever written called can poetry matter of course it's probably the most best known essay on poetry for the last 30 40 years”
“yeah I just published a a book uh on opera called weep shudder die and I began it about 20 years ago”
“this is n called 99 poems and it's 40 years of work”
“next my my title is from vinchenzo bini the one great Sicilian opera composer who said uh the the purpose of Opera was to make the listener weep shudder and and die through singing”
“this book the B called you know weep shut or die it has a scene from Lao M on the cover and I'm talking about Italian opera and German Opera”
“in my book 99 poems you know I was publishing my selected poems uh you know I don't know about four years ago I think was five years ago”
“And my other two teachers, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Fitzgerald, whom I write about in this book, were people who basically came to teaching very late.”
“I adore W.C. Fields. Bank Dick is a great movie.”
“Tremendously influential, rather clumsy visionary early science fiction writer who wrote novels like Odd John and the First and Last Men.”
“Tremendously influential, rather clumsy visionary early science fiction writer who wrote novels like Odd John and the First and Last Men.”
“Tremendously influential, rather clumsy visionary early science fiction writer who wrote novels like Odd John and the First and Last Men.”
“And we did Dostoevsky's The Idiot. Right now we're reading Cousin Bette by Balzac.”
“We did The Red and the Black. We did Catch-22.”
“We did Catch-22. But we all agree that the greatest thing we've ever read together was Anna Karenina.”
“Well, let me uh recapitulate, you know, the argument in my book.”
“you know, the book we were, you know, uh that I just published Studying with Miss Bishop is not a book I could have written as a young man.”
“And I think that and I think that that is what people are responding to in the book.”
“And so, I wrote I ended up my book night night of a book called 99 Poems.”