Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve written five poetry books and I am presently working on my sixth. My poems are also confessional and narrative styles. I have also written two novels and enjoy writing fiction and poetry. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have. They have saved my life on many occasions. 


I wrote

Book cover of Love & Vodka

What is my book about?

Love & Vodka is Christina Strigas' third poetry book. This book is written for all the hearts that shatter, that…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Ariel: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement

Christina Strigas Why did I love this book?

One of the first books of poetry I ever read with awe. Actually, I still do. No other poet on the face of the earth, besides Sexton, has ever blown me away with words like Plath. I personally loved this book because it showed me how to write poetry. It is like a kind of bible for me. I have the facsimile of Plath’s manuscript and when I look at her handwriting and the fluidity of certain images I can see what a gifted poet Plath was. It taught me how to express words without telling. It taught me how to use imagery like a fancy dress on a night out on the town. For anyone who wants to begin reading poetry, start here. This book helped me see that reality is distorted, that the past and present and future can be held in one poem. It helped me overcome my fear of becoming a published writer. 

By Sylvia Plath,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ariel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ariel, first published in 1965, contains many of Sylvia Plath's best-known poems, written in an extraordinary burst of creativity just before her death in 1963. Including poems such as 'Lady Lazarus', 'Edge', 'Daddy' and 'Paralytic', it was the first of four collections to be published by Faber & Faber. Ariel is the volume on which Sylvia Plath's reputation as one of the most original, daring and gifted poets of the twentieth century rests.

'Since she died my mother has been dissected, analysed, reinterpreted, reinvented, fictionalized, and in some cases completely fabricated. It comes down to this: her own words describe…


Book cover of Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing

Christina Strigas Why did I love this book?

Rumi is one of those writers that transcends time and space. He is more of a spiritual writer and when he writes about love and longing, you can feel the words plant a seed inside your soul. If someone asked me which poetry book they should begin reading without any knowledge of poetry, Rumi would be a start. The simplicity of his words taught me that you don’t need to use a thesaurus to express yourself. His simple words and poems about soul mates carry his work over centuries. This poetry book tells you how lovers don’t finally meet somewhere, they’re in each other all along. These famous quotes of Rumi’s will be instilled in you again and again. Easy book to read and carry with you anywhere. It taught me to find my spirituality and soul and let it flow like a river with words as waves. It taught me to read the best passages over and over until you memorize the magic.

This book helped me overcome my anxiety over academia and being published. Although it was not taught to me in university and I discovered Rumi on my own, his poems taught me more about poetry than my English Literature degree.

By Coleman Barks,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Rumi as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now in paperback, this is the definitive collection of America's bestselling poet Rumi's finest poems of love and lovers. In Coleman Barks' delightful and wise renderings, these poems will open your heart and soul to the lover inside and out. 'There are lovers content with longing. I'm not one of them.' Rumi is best known for his poems expressing the ecstasies and mysteries of love of all kinds - erotic, divine, friendship -and Coleman Barks collects here the best of those poems, ranging from the 'wholeness' one experiences with a true lover, to the grief of a lover's loss, and…


Book cover of Tell Me

Christina Strigas Why did I love this book?

I recently discovered Kim Addonizio and wanted to include her to share with you a modern poet I am recently obsessed with. I am also reading her book of memoirs at the moment and I am loving her raw style. I was going to put Bukowski in my five picks but I wanted to make it about women. Hench here is a modern poet who comes close to that raw and in-your-face poetry. Confessional poetry, like Plath and Sexton’s, has been my favorite genre, but Addonizio gives it a raw twist with a shot of vodka. I love how Addonizio’s poems slap you in the face with truth. Her poems teach me how to be comfortable sharing my own stories with strangers. Her poems teach me it’s okay to lie about it too. A place where reality and fantasy merge. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to self-examine their own life and all of mankind. She touches upon men, sex, love, divorce, affairs, and all the naughty subjects other poets don’t dare to go. That’s why I love this book. It’s not academia, it’s honest and badass. 

By Kim Addonizio,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tell Me as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Poems of loneliness and late nights, liquor and loss.


Book cover of A Sand Book

Christina Strigas Why did I love this book?

I love this book because it’s an epic poetry book. The first of its kind. Three-hundred and ninety-six-page poetry book. Ariana Reines is one of my favorite top three modern poets as well. Poetry lovers should have this book in their collection. If not, what are you waiting for? It’s a masterpiece. I can see her soul in this book, I can see her heart. I can see her mind. It’s as if sand is literally under your feet as you read these poems divided into sections. This book is meant to be read slowly, like a fine glass of wine. It took me months to read it. It taught me that a poet is an artist and is a traveler of time and space. It taught me to break rules and to do whatever you want as a poet. It taught me to not limit myself as a writer and anything goes. It taught me to take my time with producing a work because it’s better to work on one book for years and produce a brilliant book, than ten mediocre ones. It taught me to make my next book an epic one. 

By Ariana Reines,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Sand Book as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Deadpan, epic, and searingly charismatic, A Sand Book is at once relatable and out-of-this-world. In poems tracking climate change, bystanderism, state murder, sexual trauma, shopping, ghosting, love, and the transcendent shock of prophecy, A Sand Book chronicles new dimensions of consciousness for our strange and desperate times.

What does the destruction of our soil have to do with the weather in the human soul? From sand in the gizzards of birds to the iridescence on the surface of spilt oil, from sand storms on Mars to our internet-addicted present, from the desertifying mountains of Haiti to natural disasters and state…


Book cover of Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

Christina Strigas Why did I love this book?

I’ve been fascinated by poetry ever since I picked up this book for seven dollars at the second-hand bookstore near my university at the age of nineteen. Anne Sexton’s Selected Poems taught me how to write confessional poetry. They taught me how to write narrative poetry. They taught me to not be afraid to speak my truth, no matter how ugly.

I love how Anne Sexton writes about marriage, affairs, love, loss, family, and relationships with depth into herself and her psyche. Her poems in this collection encompass all her most remarkable work from her array of poetry books. Here you have all the classic poems as well as some obscure ones. Her famous, "Black Art" and the classic lines, "A woman who writes feels too much." As well, "For My Lover, Returning to His Wife," and the last two lines, "As for me, I am a watercolor. I wash off." If there is one book to have in your poetry collection this one is it. No poetry bookshelf is complete without Anne Sexton.

By Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook (editor), Diana George (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Selected Poems of Anne Sexton as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Anne Sexton's language was simple, domestic; her imagery arresting; her subject matter urgent, shocking and exciting. She wrote about mental breakdown, sex, addiction, abortion - the other side of ordinary life. 'Madness' and its cultural meanings were central to her art as to her life; yet it is a bright, lucid and sane voice that resonates. Sexton's poems are accessible, moving and intensely honest. Her poems are brought together here in a diverse and powerful anthology spanning fifteen years of uninhibited writing.


Explore my book 😀

Book cover of Love & Vodka

What is my book about?

Love & Vodka is Christina Strigas' third poetry book. This book is written for all the hearts that shatter, that are transparent, that crack, rebuild and see truth. This is for the souls that connect through words. The poems in this book will make you breathless from their honesty. This poetry collection is full of poems that will make you contemplate the magic of connections, disconnections, rejection, love, drinking, pain, marriage, loneliness, honor, and the perils of living so many lifetimes in one. Delve into poetry head first and read passages over again to connect. This book has a modern feel with an ancient way of writing. A contemporary poetry book that will not disappoint you and that will restore your faith into the power of poetry again.

Book cover of Ariel: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement
Book cover of Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing
Book cover of Tell Me

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Book cover of Hayley and the Hot Flashes

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Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a small town, with wonderful librarians who introduced me to books I remember fondly to this day. The Flicka, Ricka, Dicka series, the Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew, and, of course, Little Women shaped my love for stories about relationships and the simple pleasures of daily life. Whether it’s a mystery or a memoir, I want interesting interactions between the main characters, meaty descriptions of daily activities and affairs, and, of course, a happy ending. As I’ve gotten older, I like books with older protagonists; those are hard to come by—one reason I wrote a novel about the adventures of five middle-aged girlfriends!

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Hayley and the Hot Flashes

By Jayne Jaudon Ferrer,

What is this book about?

When five middle-aged girlfriends trade in carpools and casseroles for microphones and music halls, look out!

Hayley Swift, a country music diva who has slipped out of the limelight, gets more attention when she's mistaken for Taylor Swift's mom than for her former glory days. When she's invited to perform at her 35th high school reunion, a bus accident puts her back-up singers in a hospital, Hayley begs her long-gone-domestic quartet from high school to join her onstage for the gig. They're such a hit that she invites the women to fill in on a low-budget tour for a couple…


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