{"id":92758,"date":"2015-12-10T12:34:34","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T17:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=92758"},"modified":"2015-12-15T10:32:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T15:32:57","slug":"whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Whiting Winners Choose Their Most Influential Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last\u00a0March, we announced the ten winners<\/a> of this year\u2019s Whiting Awards<\/a>, given annually to writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, based on\u00a0early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. Now we\u2019ve asked\u00a0eleven Whiting winners, past and present, to write about the books that have influenced them the most\u2014a list to bear in mind as you choose your holiday reading.<\/em> \u2014D. P.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I doubt that Matters of Life and Death<\/a><\/em>, an anthology of short fiction edited by Tobias Wolff,\u00a0had an influence on my writing\u2014I should be so lucky\u2014but it had an enormous influence on me.\u00a0It includes wrenching and beautiful works by artists such as Joy Williams, John Gardner, Mary Robison, Jayne Anne Phillips, Stanley Elkin, Stephanie Vaughn, Raymond Carver, and Ann Beattie.\u00a0It also happens to contain what I consider a perfect short story: \u201cWalking Out,\u201d by David Quammen.\u00a0\u2014Jo Ann Beard<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my early twenties, my little bible was a ratty back-pocket copy of Hart Crane\u2019s Complete Poems<\/a><\/em>. I loved every poem in that book long before I could have explained to you my understanding of a single one.\u00a0At some point in my hundreds of returns to \u201cThe Bridge,\u201d I got excited about the idea that poems are not merely sent messages but also architectural structures over which we pass, again and again, and marvel, together, at the view of the world from up there.\u00a0\u2014Anthony Carelli<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From an early paperback edition of Hart Crane\u2019s Collected Poems<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Little affected my writing life quite like the discovery of an essay by Anne Carson, back in 1989, called \u201cKinds of Water,\u201d collected in The\u00a0<\/em>Best American Essays of 1988<\/em>, edited that year by Annie Dillard. I experienced that essay, about Carson\u2019s pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, (collected eventually in Plainwater<\/a><\/em>), as a pilgrimage, too, one I kept taking\u2014I\u2019ve reread it at least twenty times. I think I was learning something about time and the present tense and compression, but also, I just wanted to be inside of it\u2014for it to be my world.\u00a0\u2014Alexander Chee<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always crawl back to the cool, bristling stories of Jane Bowles<\/a>. Her work is intimate but\u00a0also engaged with the surfaces of things. We see the minds of the characters as well as the looks on their faces\u2014how they feel and how they\u00a0appear<\/em>. Which is all I want: that bothness, that double entry. She was a loner and you feel it in the room of the story\u2014every story she wrote\u2014this totally private joy. A way of laughing that is somehow never cruel. It wouldn\u2019t have occurred to me when I began reading her stories, but now it\u2019s all I can think: she\u2019s a loving writer. \u2014Leopoldine Core<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was the first book of poems I ever bought from a LGBT bookstore when I was nineteen. I remember sitting on the floor of Lambda Rising in Dupont Circle, flipping through a stack of lesbian love poetry, when I pulled Samuel Ace\u2019s\u00a0Normal Sex<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>off the shelf and felt my genderqueer heart quake. I love the staccato declarations in \u201cTales of a Lost Boyhood,\u201d how body and world pulse when the kid speaker says: \u00a0\u201cI have real drumsticks now. I play the cardboard tubes on the bedspread so they can\u2019t hear downstairs … There\u2019s a fence in the bedspread. I play in that fence. I bounce over it and there\u2019s a stream. I walk in the stream and the trees tower over me. They stand naked for a long time before they reach their full and leafy tops. I throw rocks in the water. One sound is like a bell. The next like my drum.\u201d \u2014Jenny Johnson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From Samuel Ace\u2019s Normal Sex<\/i> (published under the name Linda Smukler).<\/p><\/div>\n

A friend sent me a copy of Thomas Bernhard\u2019s\u00a0Gargoyles<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>when I was in grad school in Las Vegas; I left it on the floor by my bed for weeks before reading it, as if I suspected its power. Extreme, cynical, seemingly endless, the novel takes the form of a series of visits to the disturbed and the dying, ending with Prince Saurau of Hochgobernitz, whose monologue goes on for well over a hundred pages. It took a couple of reads before I realized that\u00a0Gargoyles<\/em>\u00a0is also the story of the doctor who visits these unfortunates, though they are far beyond help, and who listens to them, as we do, reading the novel. It\u2019s the gentlest, most generous misanthropic book I know.\u00a0\u2014Dan Josefson<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read\u00a0The Known World<\/a><\/em>\u00a0by Edward P. Jones about ten years ago, and it\u2019s a book I\u2019ve gone back to again and again, simply to marvel at its capaciousness and complexity, to remind myself what the novel as an art form is capable of achieving. Its singular vision inevitably makes me doubt my own powers as a novelist while simultaneously restoring my faith in the medium.\u00a0\u2014Anthony Marra<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Botticelli\u2019s map of the Inferno<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

The\u00a0Divine Comedy<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>was a major influence for me as a young writer. In fact, it changed what I thought writing was capable of doing. It\u2019s a high-minded, disciplined work, and yet it\u2019s intensely tactile; its twin engines are descriptive detail and sensory language. These strip down the emotions in the poem to reveal a nearly feral base. Then there\u2019s the nature of translation, which always leaves the work feeling closer to you one moment and farther away the next; there are all these temporary Dantes waiting to be read, and in sorting through them, exercising taste and choice, you become involved in continuing The<\/em>\u00a0Divine Comedy<\/em>. In the simplest of terms, the story is a mere journey: the persona-making road trip we\u2019ve so taken to heart in American fiction and film. The<\/em>\u00a0Divine Comedy\u00a0<\/em>is the rare work of art that can feel foreign and familiar, classic and contemporary at once\u2014and it\u2019s a rare day that I don\u2019t come back to it.\u00a0\u2014Rowan Ricardo Phillips<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read\u00a0Anna Karenina<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>once a year, to watch Levin cut the grass as much as anything else. But mostly I read it for story, for the immersion into melodrama\u2014Anna on her deathbed forcing her lover and husband to forgive each other (would that survive workshop, I wonder). The truth is I\u2019m a sucker for a storyline. I want to want to know what happens next.\u00a0\u2014Hanna Pylv\u00e4inen<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From the first edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

The most influential book in my life is probably C. S. Lewis\u2019s\u00a0The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe<\/a><\/em>, which I first read in the third grade. In the stories I wrote back then and throughout my youth, I returned again and again to that novel\u2019s premise: of leaving one\u2019s normal reality and entering an alien, often fantastic alternate world, which could be a better but also a worse reality for the characters. It was only recently that I realized I was basically writing the immigrant narrative that entire time, a narrative I continued to explore as an adult, particularly in my first novel,\u00a0Dragonfish. <\/em>\u2014Vu Tran<\/strong><\/p>\n

The novel I most often return to is\u00a0Don Quixote<\/a><\/em>, which\u00a0I first read\u00a0at university, during a study abroad program in Alcal\u00e1 de Henares\u2014a small city in the outskirts of Madrid and the birthplace of Cervantes. At the time, I was heartbroken, and I remember spending most of my days feeling sorry for myself and drinking Irish coffees at a local bar called the Black Sheep. This ridiculous behavior continued until I discovered\u00a0Don Quixote,\u00a0<\/em>which is all about unrequited love and one man\u2019s reckless obsession with literature. Reading\u00a0Don Quixote\u00a0<\/em>made me laugh at everything, most of all myself. It\u2019s such a complex book: transgressive, absurd, incredibly cerebral\u2014an astounding exploration of the incongruities between perception and reality. For me, it will always be the greatest novel about living life as art.\u00a0\u2014Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last\u00a0March, we announced the ten winners of this year\u2019s Whiting Awards, given annually to writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, based on\u00a0early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come. Now we\u2019ve asked\u00a0eleven Whiting winners, past and present, to write about the books that have influenced them the most\u2014a list to bear in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[489],"tags":[2126,3401,17284,11879,20507,17,3710,17289,2930,10255,20509,20505,20512,8956,17288,20504,4861,17285,13714,354,5009,20508,7515,3170,20506,1253,20511,20510,157],"class_list":["post-92758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","tag-alexander-chee","tag-anne-carson","tag-anthony-carelli","tag-anthony-marra","tag-azareen-van-der-vleet-oloomi","tag-books","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-dan-josefson","tag-dante","tag-edward-p-jones","tag-haet-crane","tag-hanna-pylvainen","tag-influential-books","tag-jane-bowles","tag-jenny-johnson","tag-jo-ann-beard","tag-leo-tolstoy","tag-leopoldine-core","tag-miguel-de-cervantes","tag-recommendations","tag-rowan-ricardo-phillips","tag-samuel-ace","tag-thomas-bernhard","tag-tobias-wolff","tag-vu-tran","tag-whiting-awards","tag-whiting-fellows","tag-whiting-foundation","tag-writers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhiting Awards Fellows Choose Their Most Influential Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jo Ann Beard, Anthony Carelli, Alexander Chee, Leopoldine Core, Jenny Johnson, Dan Josefson, Anthony Marra, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Hanna Pylv\u00e4inen, Vu Tran, and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi on their favorite books.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Whiting Winners Choose Their Most Influential Books by Whiting Honorees\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 10, 2015 \u2013 Last\u00a0March, we announced the ten winners of this year\u2019s Whiting Awards, given annually to writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, based\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-10T17:34:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-12-15T15:32:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"341\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Whiting Honorees\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Whiting Honorees\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Whiting Honorees\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4e171647ddb806d8352cbc81fc4d09a6\"},\"headline\":\"Whiting Winners Choose Their Most Influential Books\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-10T17:34:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-15T15:32:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/\"},\"wordCount\":1386,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Alexander Chee\",\"Anne Carson\",\"Anthony Carelli\",\"anthony marra\",\"Azareen Van der Vleet Oloomi\",\"books\",\"C.S. Lewis\",\"Dan Josefson\",\"Dante\",\"Edward P. Jones\",\"Haet Crane\",\"Hanna Pylv\u00e4inen\",\"influential books\",\"Jane Bowles\",\"Jenny Johnson\",\"Jo Ann Beard\",\"Leo Tolstoy\",\"Leopoldine Core\",\"Miguel de Cervantes\",\"recommendations\",\"Rowan Ricardo Phillips\",\"Samuel Ace\",\"Thomas Bernhard\",\"Tobias Wolff\",\"Vu Tran\",\"Whiting Awards\",\"Whiting Fellows\",\"Whiting Foundation\",\"writers\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Books\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/\",\"name\":\"Whiting Awards Fellows Choose Their Most Influential Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-10T17:34:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-15T15:32:57+00:00\",\"description\":\"Jo Ann Beard, Anthony Carelli, Alexander Chee, Leopoldine Core, Jenny Johnson, Dan Josefson, Anthony Marra, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Hanna Pylv\u00e4inen, Vu Tran, and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi on their favorite books.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Whiting Winners Choose Their Most Influential Books\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4e171647ddb806d8352cbc81fc4d09a6\",\"name\":\"Whiting Honorees\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/30475f7c2c57ed17c2c35d75897af06933c824f40a24aa5f69640410252a7903?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/30475f7c2c57ed17c2c35d75897af06933c824f40a24aa5f69640410252a7903?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Whiting Honorees\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/whiting\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Whiting Awards Fellows Choose Their Most Influential Books","description":"Jo Ann Beard, Anthony Carelli, Alexander Chee, Leopoldine Core, Jenny Johnson, Dan Josefson, Anthony Marra, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Hanna Pylv\u00e4inen, Vu Tran, and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi on their favorite books.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Whiting Winners Choose Their Most Influential Books by Whiting Honorees","og_description":"December 10, 2015 \u2013 Last\u00a0March, we announced the ten winners of this year\u2019s Whiting Awards, given annually to writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, based","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2015-12-10T17:34:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-12-15T15:32:57+00:00","og_image":[{"width":700,"height":341,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Whiting Honorees","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Whiting Honorees","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/"},"author":{"name":"Whiting Honorees","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4e171647ddb806d8352cbc81fc4d09a6"},"headline":"Whiting Winners Choose Their Most Influential Books","datePublished":"2015-12-10T17:34:34+00:00","dateModified":"2015-12-15T15:32:57+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/"},"wordCount":1386,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg","keywords":["Alexander Chee","Anne Carson","Anthony Carelli","anthony marra","Azareen Van der Vleet Oloomi","books","C.S. Lewis","Dan Josefson","Dante","Edward P. Jones","Haet Crane","Hanna Pylv\u00e4inen","influential books","Jane Bowles","Jenny Johnson","Jo Ann Beard","Leo Tolstoy","Leopoldine Core","Miguel de Cervantes","recommendations","Rowan Ricardo Phillips","Samuel Ace","Thomas Bernhard","Tobias Wolff","Vu Tran","Whiting Awards","Whiting Fellows","Whiting Foundation","writers"],"articleSection":["Books"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/","name":"Whiting Awards Fellows Choose Their Most Influential Books","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg","datePublished":"2015-12-10T17:34:34+00:00","dateModified":"2015-12-15T15:32:57+00:00","description":"Jo Ann Beard, Anthony Carelli, Alexander Chee, Leopoldine Core, Jenny Johnson, Dan Josefson, Anthony Marra, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Hanna Pylv\u00e4inen, Vu Tran, and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi on their favorite books.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/whiting.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/whiting-fellows-choose-their-most-influential-books\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Whiting Winners Choose Their Most Influential Books"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4e171647ddb806d8352cbc81fc4d09a6","name":"Whiting Honorees","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/30475f7c2c57ed17c2c35d75897af06933c824f40a24aa5f69640410252a7903?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/30475f7c2c57ed17c2c35d75897af06933c824f40a24aa5f69640410252a7903?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Whiting Honorees"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/whiting\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92758"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92920,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92758\/revisions\/92920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}