Robin Morgan

An award-winning poet, novelist, political theorist, feminist activist, journalist, editor, and best-selling author, Robin Morgan has published more than 20 books.

I recently asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

Re-re-re-reading (it's an evergreen) Ursula K. Le Guin's profound, hilarious, gender-free, and exquisitely written transliteration of Lao Tzu's The Tao Te Ching (Shambala). In prose and poetry, nonfiction, sci-fi, fantasy, and realistic fiction -- Le Guin is just one hell of a fine writer, and this book is a keeper-by-the-bedside challenge and comfort.

Also I'm plowing through The Notebooks of Robert Frost (Belknap/Harvard) -- a must-read for poets, readers of poetry, and people who are as interested in form as in formlessness.

A Tranquil Star, by Primo Levi -- the previously unpublished stories (Norton); I read Levi for the sense of unease he provokes by whatever he writes, even spilling over through the translations.

Last, Natalie Angier's The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (Houghton Mifflin) is a delight -- fact filled, informative, and a really fun read since Angier, science columnist for the New York Times, writes in a lively, accessible, yet never simplistic style.

Morgan's books include six collections of poetry, four works of fiction, and the now-classic anthologies Sisterhood Is Powerful, Sisterhood Is Global, and Sisterhood Is Forever. Her latest books include Saturday’s Child: A Memoir, her best-selling The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, and her new novel, The Burning Time, about women fighting the Inquisition. Her most recent book is a nonfiction work, Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right.

The Demon Lover made Richard K. Morgan's list of "Essential Reading for Modern Humans: Six Books That Will Change the Way You View the World (Though You May Not Thank Them for It)."

Visit Robin Morgan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue