-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Summary | Discuss | Reviews | More Information | Read-Alikes
Collected Poetry and Prose
by Mary Oliver
A curated compendium of poetry and prose from the award-winning poet Mary Oliver, including the book-length masterpiece The Leaf and the Cloud, the collection What Do We Know, and essays from Long Life—with a foreword by fellow Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Postcolonial Love Poem Natalie Diaz.
For the many admirers of Mary Oliver's breathtaking poetry of touch and transcendence, as well as for those coming to her words for the first time, Little Alleluias is a revelation.
These works observe, search, pause, astonish, and give thanks to both love and the natural world. In constant conversation with the sublime, (i.e. "Are you afraid? / Somewhere a thousand swans are flying / through winter's worst storm."), Oliver has the rare skill of rendering life: her poems bring movement to stillness, and people to the earth, themselves, and each other. Her essays declare her heart and her home, too, alongside thoughts on Wordsworth, Emerson, and Hawthorne—the odes and elegies of Provincetown's resident poet.
Page by page, Mary Oliver invites us to walk through her minutes, her moments, and revere the light and dark and rainbowed clothes of world alongside her. With three distinct books collected in one volume for the first time, Little Alleluias asks what passes and what persists, and offers readers the peace that every mind deserves.
What books, if any, did you receive this holiday season, and what books, if any, did you give to others?
I gave my daughter-in-law the book "Little Alleluias" by Mary Oliver. This is a 2025 publication of some of her work. I gave my mother-in-law "The First Gentleman" by Clinton & Patterson, a political thriller. I gave my husband "The Book: The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding a Civilization." This is ...
-Laura_K
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (10-02-2025)
...riar Club by Kate Quinn and love it. I'm reading a paperback from the library The Secret History of Audrey James by Heather Marshall. And I'm reading Little Alleluias by Mary Oliver when I have a few minutes.
-Melinda_J
Media reviews not yet available.
This information about Little Alleluias was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Born in a small town in Ohio, Mary Oliver published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28. Over the course of her long career, she received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She led workshops and held residencies at various colleges and universities, including Bennington College, where she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching. Oliver died in 2019.
If you liked Little Alleluias, try these:
by Hala Alyan
Published 2024
From the author of The Arsonists' City and The Twenty-Ninth Year, a new collection of poetry that traces the fragmentation of memory, archive, and family–past, present, future–in the face of displacement and war.
by Ocean Vuong
Published 2023
The highly anticipated collection of poems from the award-winning writer Ocean Vuong.
by Anthony Doerr
Published 2022
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, perhaps the most bestselling and beloved literary fiction of our time, comes a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring novel about children on the cusp of adulthood in a broken world, who find resilience, hope, and story.
There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are either well written or badly written. That is all.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
