In an email interview, the Mountain Goats frontman also shared his rationale for hosting a 15th-century French poet at a literary dinner party. SCOTT HELLER

Describe your ideal reading experience.

Midmorning; either on my back porch or on an airplane; a book in translation by an author I hadn’t heard of but whose book is knocking me over; within earshot of my wife, who is very patient with my need to read the parts I like out loud.

How do you organize your books?

Very loosely. There are clusters of things that go together — I have a lot of shelves in two locations, in my home and at my office — so, for example, the top left shelf of the eight-foot-tall bookcase to my right, which has 14 discrete shelves, that’s mainly “literature of the Balkans,” a passion of mine. But as you scan left to right, after two Ivo Andrić books it becomes “five books from the U.K. publisher Fum d’Estampa.” Four shelves down there’s a shelf that’s all mysteries, and the shelf above that has five of my William Gass books, four of my Tolstoys and two of my Natalia Ginzburgs. The shelf above that has the rest of the Gass and three Kertészes but is otherwise relative chaos. This is only one bookcase among many. So, again, “loosely.”

What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

Maybe this copy of “A Grammar of Middle Welsh,”which was given to me by a friend who thought, rightly, that I would be pleased to have a book like it on my shelf.

Can a great book be badly written?

Instinctively I say “no” — bad writing will put me off a book, as a general rule — but then again, I like reading Dreiser, whose prose is — how do I put this? — pretty dusty. I like the idea of a great book badly written: one whose bad writing you have to work through in order to get at what’s great about it. But my favorite writers are meticulous about their sentences, and are very good writers.

Who are your favorite musician-writers?

Charles Mingus only wrote the one book, and what we have of it went through heavy editing, but even one page tells you he could have just written prose and his name would still be remembered.

Is there a songwriter you wish would annotate his or her lyrics, the way you have in “This Year”?

Meshell Ndegeocello. Daniel Higgs. Ghostface from Wu-Tang Clan is one of the best writers alive. His stuff is so lyrically dense that you could do it like an illuminated manuscript.

Many writers, some pretty obscure, are name-checked in “This Year.” Tell me about a few more people should seek out.

Miron Bialoszewski, the Polish poet I read in high school in Czeslaw Milosz’s “Postwar Polish Poetry” anthology — I wish someone would translate more of his prose. Polish literature is a whole wondrous world!

Also my mentor, the poet and professor Robert Mezey, whose translations of Borges with Dick Barnes remain sadly uncollected, but whose own books are deeply rewarding.

You confess that several of your songs are inspired by Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.” Is it actually a poem you like?

Oh, God, yes, I cite it almost habitually. I have a complete Matthew Arnold I got in Edinburgh (one of the best secondhand books cities in the world). “Dover Beach” is remarkable even within his own corpus; it’s so modern and forward-looking. But I think it’s one of those poems whose truth is so communicable, so graspable, and still so available to personal application — he’s asking about constructing meaning in the absence of God, or, more fairly, in the absence of faith in God. And he’s locating that in love of another. Takes my breath away.

What’s the last great book you read?

I struggle with “great,” as “interesting” is more my priority, but when I read Wolfgang Hilbig’s “Under the Neomoon” last month, I was bouncing all around the house.

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

Paola Drigo’s novel “Maria Zef” is flat-out incredible. Everybody should read it.

What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

That Edith Sitwell was a prude, which I learned reading “Swinburne: A Selection,” which she edited.

How do you decide what to read next? Does it depend on mood or do you plot in advance?

This year, on 1/1/25, I made a two-page list of reading priorities — naming a lot of books, trying to read more than one book by a single author. It also said “clear the general backlog of nonfiction.” I haven’t really done much on that front, though I did finally get to Alex Ross’s “Wagnerism.” But one year, I think 2004, I did “only books by women,” and another year I did “only books in translation.” I like coming up with a direction and following that, and then transgressing when something juicy turns up.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

I have been reading this column for years and now the moment is upon me to actually decide who will be at this party. I avoid parties! It’s a hard question! Is this about keeping good company, or good conversation? Or fireworks? A lot of the books I read are not so much fun, but dinner parties are supposed to be fun. I need Louise Erdrich there because I think she is wonderful and seems like great company. I want Marie NDiaye there because her work is so singular. And because I don’t want to just prioritize the 20th and 21st centuries, I’m bringing François Villon, who will bring the party to the party.