Taste like Fiction: Novels by Poets - Books, Movies, & More

Tree of Smoke
by Denis Johnson

The lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a compelling novel of America during the Vietnam War.

Mom & Me & Mom
by Maya Angelou

The celebrated author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings shares the intimate story of her relationship with her mother, a first black woman officer in the Merchant Marines and a purveyor of a gambling business and rooming house, relating the events that prompted her mother to send young Angela away and the complicated fallout that shaped their family life.

Coming Through Slaughter
by Michael Ondaatje

Set against the colorful backdrop of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, the life and times of pioneering jazz musician Buddy Bolden is portrayed in a combination of fiction, fact, and poetry.

Pulp
by Charles Bukowski

Nick Belane, a private detective, becomes involved in an unusual case when a mysterious client, who calls herself Lady Death, asks him to find the real Celine.

Rule of the Bone
by Russell Banks

Slipping into the dangerous world of drugs and petty theft as a means of rebelling against an abusive home life, a teenaged Chappie takes on a new identity and encounters a host of unusual characters, including a sexually victimized young girl.

Moon Palace
by Paul Auster

The story of Marco Stanley Fogg's search for love, his unknown father, and the key to the elusive riddle of his beginnings and his future. The novel spans three generations, moving from Manhattan to the untamed West.