545 ratings (3.28 avg)
307 reviews

#21 best reviewers

Benjamin

Add friend

https://letterboxd.com/benmonito/

Benjamin’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (334)
currently-reading‎ (3)

read‎ (546)
did-not-finish‎ (14)

non-fiction‎ (31)
favorites‎ (23)

poetry‎ (23)

Stats | More…

Benjamin is Currently Reading

Benjamin rated a book it was amazing

Felicity

by Mary Oliver

bookshelves: favorites, poetry, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in November 2023

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Benjamin said: " 2026: It’s been three years since my last reread of this collection. I’m curious what I’ll find in it now, and whether Mary Oliver’s warmth will meet me differently this time.
--------------------------------------------------
2023

I cannot express how ...more "

Apr 27, 2026 09:02AM · see review

Benjamin is currently reading

Song of Solomon

by Toni Morrison

bookshelves: currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Apr 09, 2026 09:27AM

Benjamin is currently reading

Coventry: Essays

by Rachel Cusk

bookshelves: currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Apr 07, 2026 07:43AM

Benjamin’s Quotes

“Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.”
― William Hazlitt

tags: laughter, life

109 likes

“You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

282 likes

“Keep alive the dream; for as long as a man has a dream in his heart, he cannot lose the significance of living.”
― Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart

38 likes

“Did you know people get rich off of sadness? I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, 'it's been an honor to serve my country.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

421 likes

“A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

tags: despair, existentialism, future, hopelessness

430 likes

More of Benjamin’s quotes…

recent posts
Benjamin’s Groups

Goodreads Librarians Group — 322053 members — last activity 14 minutes ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more

¡ POETRY ! — 22532 members — last activity Apr 13, 2026 03:25PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more