Author Guide · Fiction, Essays & Poetry
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On 4 July 1965 Wendell Berry and his wife Tanya moved to Lanes Landing, a 12-acre farm on the western bank of the Kentucky River in Henry County, where both sides of his family had farmed for at least five generations. He had given up a job teaching at New York University to come home. The farm has since grown to about 117 acres. From that one place he has written more than fifty books in three forms: novels and stories about Port William, an imagined river town based on Port Royal, Kentucky; essays against industrial agriculture and the waste of land and people; and poems, many of them written on Sunday walks across his farm. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1960–2022 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Wendell Berry’s best-known books are the Port William novel Jayber Crow (2000) and the essay book The Unsettling of America (1977). His other key books include the novels Nathan Coulter (1960), The Memory of Old Jack (1974) and Hannah Coulter (2004), the essay collections What Are People For? (1990) and The Art of the Commonplace (2002), and the poetry of The Mad Farmer Poems (2008) and This Day (2013). Start with Jayber Crow. Below are 13 key books in order, how the Port William books fit together, and 47 more by form.
Where to Start with Wendell Berry
If you want the novel everyone means
→ Jayber Crow (2000) — fifty years in the life of the Port William barber.
If you want the essays
→ The Art of the Commonplace (2002) — the agrarian essays in one volume.
If you want the argument that made his name
→ The Unsettling of America (1977) — why the way we farm shapes everything else.
If you want the poems
→ The Mad Farmer Poems (2008) — the Mad Farmer, including “Practice resurrection”.
13 Key Wendell Berry Books, in Order
Nathan Coulter
His first novel, narrated by Nathan Coulter as a boy growing up on a tobacco farm outside Port William, worked by hand and with mules. After their mother dies, Nathan and his older brother Tom are left with their grandparents by their hard, withdrawn father, Jarrat; Tom leaves home after a fight with him during the tobacco harvest. Their uncle Burley Coulter, who prefers hunting and fishing to owning land, is the one kind adult. Berry published a shorter revised version in 1985.
A Place on Earth
Set in Port William in 1945, in the last months of the Second World War, it follows Mat and Margaret Feltner as they wait for news of their son Virgil, reported missing in action, and the farmers and townspeople around them. Berry revised it in 1983 and again in 2001.
The Hidden Wound
A book-length essay on racism in America and what it has done to white people as well as Black people. Berry starts with his own family, who had owned and sold enslaved people, and with Nick, a Black farmhand who worked for his grandfather and taught the young Berry farm work. He ties racism to contempt for physical work and for the land. An afterword was added twenty years on.
The Memory of Old Jack
The novel covers one day in 1952 in the life of Jack Beechum, the oldest member of the Port William community, as he remembers his farm, his marriage and the people of the town. Berry revised it in 2001.
The Unsettling of America
Published by Sierra Club Books, this is his most influential book. Berry argues that American farming had become a mix of factory production and mining, depleting soil and emptying the countryside under the “get big or get out” policy he associated with Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976, and that this is a cultural crisis as much as an ecological one. Chapters include “The Ecological Crisis as a Crisis of Agriculture” and “The Body and the Earth”. A third edition (1996) added a new afterword.
What Are People For?
A collection of essays on writing, farming, the economy and community, with pieces on writers he admires. It includes “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer”, first published in 1987, together with the angry letters it drew when Harper’s reprinted it and his reply, “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine”.
Jayber Crow
Jonah “Jayber” Crow, orphaned young, raised by an aunt and uncle at Squires Landing and then in an orphanage, drops out of divinity school and comes back to Port William with five dollars. He becomes the town barber for more than thirty years from the 1930s, and the book is his account of those years. He loves Mattie Keith Chatham, married to Troy Chatham, a farmer bent on getting bigger, from a distance and without her knowing. Kirkus Reviews praised it as a precise, moving portrait of a vanishing way of life.
The Art of the Commonplace
Edited and introduced by the theologian Norman Wirzba, this collection gathers Berry’s essays on agriculture, community, economics and religion from three decades, including “A Native Hill”, in which he writes about his family’s history on its Henry County land. It is often recommended as a first book for readers who want his essays rather than his fiction.
Hannah Coulter
Hannah Coulter, twice widowed, tells the story of her life in old age. Her first husband, Virgil Feltner, is called up in 1942 and killed in the Battle of the Bulge; she later marries Nathan Coulter, home from the war, and they farm together near Port William while their children grow up and move away. Publishers Weekly called it slim and luminous. Many readers pair it with Jayber Crow.
That Distant Land
The Port William stories to 2004 in one volume: the three earlier collections The Wild Birds (1986), Fidelity (1992) and Watch With Me (1994), plus five new stories. “The Wild Birds” contains Burley Coulter’s line “The way we are, we are members of each other”, the source of the idea of the Port William membership.
The Mad Farmer Poems
A short collection of the poems spoken by or about the Mad Farmer, a character who first appeared in Farming: A Hand Book (1970): a farmer who refuses the habits of consumer life. It includes “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”, which begins “Love the quick profit, the annual raise” and ends “Practice resurrection.”, his most quoted poem.
This Day
About four hundred pages of the Sabbath poems, written since 1979 on Sunday walks through the woods and fields of his farm, when he gave himself, as he says in the introduction, “a lovely freedom from expectations”. It collects Sabbaths (1987), A Timbered Choir (1998) and later sequences, with new poems. The series continues in A Small Porch (2016) and Another Day (2024).
The Need to Be Whole
A 528-page return, half a century on, to the subject of The Hidden Wound: slavery, racism and its effects on his native Kentucky, argued alongside his case for small, close-knit rural communities. Berry opposes the removal of Confederate monuments and writes at length about Robert E. Lee, which drew sharp criticism; Kirkus called the book “rambling and frustrating”.
In What Order to Read Wendell Berry
The Port William books are not a series in the usual sense. Each novel and story stands alone, but they share one town and a few families — the Beechums, Feltners, Coulters and Catletts — whose lives overlap from the Civil War to the 2000s. Berry calls this community the Port William “membership”, from Burley Coulter’s words in “The Wild Birds”: “The way we are, we are members of each other.” A member is anyone who takes responsibility for the place and its people, land and animals. Minor characters in one book narrate the next, so reading more of them fills out the whole.
Publication order does not follow the town’s chronology. Most readers start with Jayber Crow, which spans the most time and introduces nearly everyone, then Hannah Coulter and The Memory of Old Jack. Nathan Coulter and A Place on Earth are the early books, better read once you know the families. The stories (That Distant Land, A Place in Time, How It Went) fill the gaps. If you want the events in time order, the Library of America volume Port William Novels & Stories: The Civil War to World War II (2018) arranges them that way.
For the essays, start with The Art of the Commonplace, then read The Unsettling of America in full. For the poems, begin with The Mad Farmer Poems, which is short, then This Day.
A reading path
1. Jayber Crow (2000)
2. Hannah Coulter (2004)
3. The Art of the Commonplace (2002)
4. The Memory of Old Jack (1974)
5. The Unsettling of America (1977)
Everything Else Wendell Berry Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 47 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Port William novels and stories
12
12 books · 1986–2025
- 1986The Wild Birdssix stories of the Port William membership
- 1988Rememberingnovel, Andy Catlett
- 1992Fidelityfive stories
- 1994Watch With Meseven stories
- 1996A World Lostnovel, Andy Catlett
- 2006Andy Catlett: Early Travelsshort novel
- 2009Whitefoota story for young readers
- 2012A Place in Timetwenty stories of the Port William membership
- 2017The Art of Loading Brushessays, a story and a poem
- 2019Stand By MeUK selection of the stories
- 2022How It Wentthirteen more stories
- 2025Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story
Essay collections
16
16 books · 1969–2018
- 1969The Long-Legged House
- 1972A Continuous Harmony
- 1981The Gift of Good Land
- 1983Standing by Wordsessays on language and poetry
- 1987Home Economics
- 1992Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community
- 1996Another Turn of the Crank
- 2000Life Is a Miracleagainst the claims of modern science
- 2003Citizenship Papers
- 2005Blessed Are the Peacemakers
- 2009Bringing It to the Tablewritings on farming and food
- 2010Imagination in Place
- 2010What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth
- 2012It All Turns on Affectionincludes his Jefferson Lecture
- 2015Our Only World
- 2018The World-Ending Fireselected essays
Poetry
19
19 books · 1964–2024
- 1964The Broken Groundhis first book of poems
- 1968Openings
- 1970Farming: A Hand Book
- 1973The Country of Marriage
- 1977Clearing
- 1980A Part
- 1982The Wheel
- 1985Collected Poems: 1957–1982
- 1987Sabbathsthe first Sabbath poems
- 1994Entries
- 1998A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997
- 1999The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
- 2005Given: New Poems
- 2010Leavings
- 2012New Collected Poems
- 2014Terrapin and Other Poemsfor young readers
- 2016A Small PorchSabbath poems 2014 and 2015
- 2018Sabbaths 2016
- 2024Another Day: Sabbath Poems, 2013–2023
The years · 1934–2015
Quick facts about Wendell Berry
- Known for
- Writing for more than sixty years, in novels, essays and poems, about one farming community in Kentucky and the case for small farms, local economies and care of the land.
- 1934
- Born in Henry County, Kentucky
- 1960
- First novel, Nathan Coulter
- 2000
- Jayber Crow
- 2015
- First living writer in the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame
- Born
- 5 August 1934, Henry County, Kentucky, son of a lawyer and tobacco farmer
- Education
- University of Kentucky, BA (1956) and MA (1957) in English; Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford (1958)
- Taught
- New York University (1962–64); University of Kentucky (1964–77 and 1987–93)
- Married
- Tanya Amyx, in 1957
- Farm
- Lanes Landing, on the Kentucky River near Port Royal, since 1965
- Honours
- National Humanities Medal (2010); Jefferson Lecture (2012); Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, National Book Critics Circle (2016)
- Activism
- Sat in at the Kentucky governor’s office against mountaintop removal mining (2011); withdrew his papers from the University of Kentucky over its coal ties (2009)
The red mark is 1977: The Unsettling of America, the book that made him the best-known critic of industrial farming in the United States.
How Wendell Berry Writes: One Place, Three Forms
Almost everything Berry has written comes from one small area of Henry County, Kentucky. The novels and stories invent a town, Port William, modelled on Port Royal, and follow its families over more than a century. The essays argue for the same things the fiction shows: farms small enough to be cared for, local economies, marriage and neighbourliness as practical commitments. The poems are often set on his own farm. Reading across the three forms, you meet the same ideas, and often the same fields.
His fiction is quiet and told mostly in the first person, by people looking back: a barber, a widow, a boy, an old man. Plot is secondary to memory, work and the ties between people; big events such as war, a death or the sale of a farm happen at the edges and are felt through their effect on the community. Berry has said that the only thing he tries to accomplish in fiction is “to show how people act when they love each other.”
The essays are plain-spoken and argumentative. He writes in short declarative sentences, names his opponents (agribusiness, the coal industry, the land-grant universities) and grounds general claims in concrete examples from his own farm and county. He does not use a computer and writes by hand; his wife Tanya typed his work, as he explained in “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer”, and is described there as his best critic.
Watch
Wendell Berry in conversation with Bill Moyers
In a rare television interview, recorded at a conference marking the 35th anniversary of The Unsettling of America, Berry talks with Bill Moyers about industrial agriculture, his 2011 sit-in against mountaintop removal mining and what he still hopes for.
Frequently asked questions about Wendell Berry’s books
How many books has Wendell Berry written?
More than fifty. This page lists 60: the 13 key books above and 47 more in the bibliography, made up of 12 further books of Port William fiction, 16 essay collections and 19 books of poetry. Library of America editions of his work are not counted.
What are Wendell Berry’s books in order?
The key books in order are Nathan Coulter (1960), A Place on Earth (1967), The Hidden Wound (1970), The Memory of Old Jack (1974), The Unsettling of America (1977), What Are People For? (1990), Jayber Crow (2000), The Art of the Commonplace (2002), Hannah Coulter (2004), That Distant Land (2004), The Mad Farmer Poems (2008), This Day (2013) and The Need to Be Whole (2022). The full list by form is in the bibliography above.
Where should I start with Wendell Berry?
With Jayber Crow (2000). It covers more than thirty years of Port William and introduces most of the families who appear in the other books. If you prefer nonfiction, start with The Art of the Commonplace.
What is Wendell Berry’s most famous book?
Among readers of fiction, Jayber Crow (2000). His most influential book is The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (1977), his attack on industrial agriculture, which is still read as a founding text of the movement for small and organic farming.
In what order should I read the Port William books?
There is no required order: each book stands alone. A common route is Jayber Crow, then Hannah Coulter, then The Memory of Old Jack, then the stories in That Distant Land. Readers who want events in the order they happen can follow the town’s chronology, from the Civil War-era stories to Hannah Coulter, which runs to 2000; the Library of America’s Port William Novels & Stories: The Civil War to World War II (2018) arranges the earlier books that way.
What is the Port William membership?
Berry’s name for the community in his fiction: the people, land and animals of one place and the responsibility its members feel for each other. It comes from Burley Coulter in the story “The Wild Birds”: “The way we are, we are members of each other.” The phrase echoes St Paul’s image of the church as one body with many members. Berry’s story collections carry it in their titles, such as A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership.
Has Wendell Berry been controversial?
Several times. His 1987 essay “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer” mentioned that his wife typed his work; when Harper’s reprinted it, readers’ letters called this exploitative, and he replied in “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine”, collected in What Are People For?. In 2020 he and his wife, the niece and heir of the artist Ann Rice O’Hanlon, sued the University of Kentucky to stop it removing her 1930s fresco, which shows enslaved Black people working in tobacco fields; a judge dismissed the suit in 2024 but ordered the mural kept in place pending appeals. The Need to Be Whole (2022), which argues against removing Confederate monuments, was criticised by Kirkus and other reviewers.
What awards has Wendell Berry won?
They include the National Humanities Medal (2010), the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities (2012), the Cleanth Brooks Medal of the Fellowship of Southern Writers (2009) and the National Book Critics Circle’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award (2016). In 2015 he became the first living writer inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.
Is there a film about Wendell Berry?
Yes. Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry (2016), directed by Laura Dunn and produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford, is about Berry’s ideas and farming in Henry County. Berry also reads his poem “Sabbaths III, 1989 (Santa Clara Valley)” in the 2007 documentary The Unforeseen.
Is Wendell Berry still alive?
Yes. Born on 5 August 1934, he turned 92 in 2026. His most recent books are Another Day: Sabbath Poems, 2013–2023 (2024) and Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story (2025).
Footnotes
- Wendell Berry — Wikipedia
- Port William (Wendell Berry) — Wikipedia
- Wendell Berry on His Hopes for Humanity — Moyers & Company, 2013
- Jayber Crow — Kirkus Reviews
- Kentucky author sues to stop university from removing 1930s mural — Al Jazeera, 2020
- Wendell Berry’s Lifelong Dissent — The Nation
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Be joyful / though you have considered all the facts.”
— Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”, The Mad Farmer Poems (2008)
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