Cold Mountain Poems
800 · 256 pages
A recluse calling himself Cold Mountain scratched more than three hundred poems onto rocks in Tang China, plain about hunger, cold, and the folly of ambition. Kerouac dedicated The Dharma Bums to him.
★ 6.6
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
1702 · 167 pages
Basho sold his house and walked hundreds of miles into northern Japan, writing prose that stops for a haiku. At a battlefield he finds summer grass, all that remains of warriors' dreams.
★ 7.1
The Prose Edda
1220 · 180 pages
A Swedish king walks into a hall and asks three strangers how the world began and how it ends. Their answers are nearly all anyone now knows about Thor, Loki, and Ragnarok.
★ 7.3