Robert Hass (Editor, Translator) – The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson, & Issa
Odd, melancholy, and charming, this poetry collection has a keen soul of its own, and wants to wander with you on stormy summer evenings and foggy autumn days. If I could only keep one poetry book, this would probably be it.
Sadegh Hedayat – The Blind Owl
This densely-woven book, with its feverish cycles and repetitions, has the most musical structure I’ve ever come across in a work of fiction—it’s more like a fugue than a novel. The riches here are dark and strange.
Gabriel García Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Lyrical, relentless, brutal: the reader knows where they’re headed and thinks they’re prepared, yet when they actually arrive, their spirit is ripped out by the roots. I nearly faint every time I read this.
Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights
The harsh beauty of the setting and the harsh beauty of the characters mingle in a sublime union that haunts the mind and never lets go. I’m a sucker for stories about dysfunctional families, and this is one of the best.
William Shakespeare – Hamlet
Endlessly engrossing, this play has been a stimulating and reliable companion to me through the decades. Nothing else comes close.
Amee Nassrene Broumand is an Iranian-American poet from the Pacific Northwest. Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in Barren Magazine, Empty Mirror, The Ginger Collect, Menacing Hedge, Sundog Lit, & elsewhere. She served as the March 2018 Guest Editor of Burning House Press. Find her on Twitter @AmeeBroumand