Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Fall 2011 Acquisitions: From 'Cryptanalysis' to 'Pleasure of Ruins'


New acquisitions include:

Cryptanalysis: A Study of Ciphers and Their Solutions by Helen Fouche Gaines (Smithson Personal Library)
Mathematics and the Imagination by Edward Kasner & James Newman (Smithson and Borges Personal Libraries)
Four Short Novels: Benito Cereno, Billy Budd, Bartleby the Scrivener, The Encantadas by Herman Melville (Borges Personal Library)



Also new to the Personal Libraries Library is John Stacks' Stripping. This volume is one out of the Sierra Club Battlebook series, that also includes Oilspill, Clearcut, Oil on Ice, and Mercury. The title page image is directly related to Robert Smithson's work.


More new acquisitions include:

Italo Calvino Personal Library:
Joan of Arc and The English Mail-Coach by Thomas De Quincey
Tristam Shandy, Gentleman. by Laurence Sterne

Jorge Luis Borges Personal Library:
Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
Above the Dark Circus by Hugh Walpole


Robert Smithson's Personal Library:
The Story of Maps by Lloyd Brown
Pleasure of Ruins by Rose Macaulay
The Age of Energy: Varieties of American Experience 1865-1915 by Howard Mumford Jones


A ruin-cum-living tower in Macaulay's influential Pleasure of Ruins.



Engravings of Abraham Ortelius of Antwerp (1527-1598), who "compiled and edited the first general atlas of the world in modern times," and Gerard Mercator (1512-1594), whose eponymous mercator projection is the primary way that we understand the world in maps. It distorts the shape and size of many landmasses and countries, particularly towards the poles.


Please contact the Personal Libraries Library Librarian at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com if you want to check out any of the books or for inquiries about membership.

2 comments:

  1. Hello. A small point, but the correct title is Pleasure of Ruins ("of" rather than "in"). I am enjoying your blog. Regards. Robert Bullock, Brooklyn NY

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the catch. Duly noted and amended!

    ReplyDelete

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