Jorge Luis Borges Personal Library Wish List

The following list has been compiled from multiple sources, most importantly Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Non-Fictions, edited by Eliot Weinberger (Penguin Books: 1999). In this important tome can be found numerous essays and lectures by Borges- it is through culling these texts that the library has begun to compile a Jorge Luis Borges Personal Library Collection. This collection endeavors to recreate the books that Borges read and wrote about, books that at one time were a part of his personal library. The initial source for his books in the PLL collection comes from his list "A Personal Library," the prologue of which states:

Over time, one's memory forms a disparate library, made of books or pages whose reading was a pleasure and which one would like to share. (Selected Non-Fictions, 513)

Following is his list of 100 texts for "A Personal Library;" also present are texts gleaned from other essays including "Joyce's Ulysses," "A Defense of Bouvard & Pecuchet," and "German Literature in the Age of Bach."

FICTION & POETRY
Fantastic Stories by Juan Jose Arreola
Vathek by William Beckford
The Desert of the Tartars by Dino Buzzati
The Blue Cross and Other Stories by G.K. Chesterton
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
The End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Hour of All by Fransisco de Quevedo
Marcus Brutus by Fransisco de Quevedo
The Last Days of Emmanuel Kant and Other Stories by Thomas De Quincey
Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Mandarin by J.M. Eca de Queiroz
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Poetical Works by Ezequiel Martinez Estrada
Lady into Fox by David Garnett
The Sailor’s Return by David Garnett
The Bead Game by Herman Hesse
The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James
The Lesson of the Master by Henry James 
The Private Life by Henry James
Short Stories by Franz Kafka 
Tales by Rudyard Kipling 
The Idols by Manuel Mujica Lainez
The Three Imposters by Arthur Machen 
The Intelligence of Flowers by Maurice Maeterlink
A Barbarian in Asia by Henri Michaux
Tales of Ise by Ariwara no Narihara
The Great God Brown by Eugene O'Neill 
Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O'Neill 
The Blind Pilot by Giovanni Papini
The Tragic Everyday by Giovanni Papini
Words and Blood by Giovanni Papini
The Book of Good Love by Juan Ruiz
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo 
Imaginary Lives by Marcel Schwab
Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw
Candide by George Bernard Shaw
Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw
Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Aeneid by Virgil
Stories by Voltaire
Essays and Dialogues by Oscar Wilde

MATH & SCIENCE
On the Nature of Animals by Claudius Elianus
The Problem of Time by J. Alexander Gunn

RELIGION
The Apocryphal Gospels
The Book of the Dead, E.A. Wallis Budge (Routledge, 1960)
An Explanation of the Book of Job by Fray Luis de Leon
The Song of Songs by Fray Luis de Leon
The Study of Human Nature by William James
The Jesuit Empire by Leopoldo Lugones

CRITICISM & HISTORY
The Blood of the Poor by Leon Bloy
In the Darkness by Leon Bloy
Salvation for the Jews by Leon Bloy
Prologue to the Work of Silverio Lanza by R. Gomez de la Serna
Literary Criticism by Paul Groussac
The Nine Books of History by Herodotus
An Essay on Orlando Furioso by Atilio Momigliano

"Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972" & "The New Novel from Queneau to Pinget"

Two new and exciting books have been accessioned into the Robert Smithson Personal Library this week: Lucy Lippard's Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 and Vivian Mercier's The New Novel from Queneau to Pinget.

Lippard's riveting book actually has a much longer title:

Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972: a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries: consisting of a bibliography into which are inserted a fragmented text, art works, documents, interviews, and symposia, arranged chronologically and focused on so-called conceptual or information or idea art with mentions of such vaguely designated areas as minimal, anti-form, systems, earth, or process art, occurring now in the Americas, Europe, England, Australia, and Asia (with occasional political overtones), edited and annotated by Lucy R. Lippard.

Not to be outdone, the sub-title (of sorts) of Mercier's book is as follows:

A brilliant critical examination of the works of the leading creators of le nouveau roman: Raymond Queneau, Nathalie Sarraute, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor, Claude Simon, Claude Mauriac, and Robert Pinget

From Leopardi to Mallarme

New books to the Robert Smithson Personal Library Collection include Leopardi: Poems and Prose, Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities, Mallarme, and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land: Facsimile and Transcript.

Please contact the Library if you want to join or check out a book at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com.

"Endgame", "The I Ching" & Other New Acquisitions for Smithson Collection

New members and a trip to a Ventura, California used bookstore has led to the acquisition of new books from the Robert Smithson Personal Library. They include Jorge Luis Borges' Other Inquisitions 1937-1952, Samuel Beckett's Endgame (including Act Without Words: A Mime For One Player, which reads like a Yoko Ono Instruction Piece) and The I Ching, translated by Wilhelm & Baynes with a foreword by C. G. Jung.


Also acquired is the interesting Man's Discovery of His Past: Literary Landmarks in Archaeology, edited by Robert F. Heizer (seen above) and Alice Ford's Audubon's Butterflies, Moths, and Other Studies.


Ford's book on Audubon is a beautifully letterpressed book that gives a history of Audubon and his field sketches. It also contains many plates of Audubon's images, including many insects and beetles that are an important part of his work; yet are generally overlooked.


Lastly, a small volume of The Megalith Builders of Europe by Glyn Daniel rounds out the newest bunch of books accessioned by the PLL. Daniel's book discusses the Pre-Historic megalithic tombs and temples of Europe, detailing their builders, structure, use and prevalence. One can see how these graves and hunebeds of piled stone would interest Smithson, as well as their entropic changes throughout time.


Please contact the Library at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com to join & check out books!

Reading Room & New Acquisitions: March 2010

The PLL has acquired four new books for the Robert Smithson Personal Library Collection. Pictured above, they include: Mircea Eliade's Cosmos and History, Harry Levin's James Joyce, Making Friends with the Stars by Arthur J. Zadde and Frank Edwards' Flying Saucers- Serious Business. And so you know just how serious the business is, exclamations abound on the cover:


The Personal Libraries Library Reading Room was open for the first time today (March 7), an exciting moment here at the Library.


The Reading Room Hours allowed for members to browse the books, talk with the Librarian and other members, and discuss the possibilities for the next collection. Reading Room Hours will occur monthly, stay tuned for April's Hours!