The Esopus Reader: A Collection of Writing from Esopus, 2003-2018

A single-volume selection of the writing published in Esopus, the arts and culture annual edited by Tod Lippy, across its 25 issues from 2003 to 2018.

The 448-page hardcover includes the magazine's New Voices series of fiction by never-before-published authors, several of whom later published with major imprints. Contributors write on their own working methods: the choreographer Christopher Wheeldon on ballets set to Ligeti, the lighting designer Jennifer Tipton on her discipline, and the architect Michael Arad on designing the 9/11 Memorial. Karl Ove Knausgaard writes on the value of literature. Interviews include Kenneth Lonergan, the translator Ann Goldstein and the mathematician John Conway. The book also holds poetry and theatrical monologues.

Lippy is the editor named on the Esopus Foundation's book list, which also includes Modern Artifacts (2020), co-edited with Michelle Elligott, and A Lot More Inside (2024). The foundation, incorporated in 2003, also commissions limited-edition artworks from contemporary artists.