June Acquisitions / Somehow None for the Calvino Collection

Our new acquisitions include, from the Jorge Luis Borges Personal Library Collection:

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Professional Secrets by Jean Cocteau

and Geometry and Faith by Thomas Hill from the Maria Mitchell Personal Library Collection.

From the Robert Smithson Personal Library Collection, we just accessioned:

Ritual Magic by E. M. Butler
Some Versions of the Pastoral by William Empson
The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
Symbols, Signals & Noise: The Nature and Process of Communication by J.R. Pierce
and
Rock Art of the American Indian by Campbell Grant



Grant's book includes many incredible photographs and illustrations. Above illustrates sandstone paintings by the Chumash of California. It details that "only the Chumash and the neighboring Yokuts painted on smoke-blackened surfaces."


Some Versions of the Pastoral joins Empson's other book The Structure of Complex Words on the shelf. They make a fine pair.


Please contact the Librarian at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com for information about the Personal Libraries Library or if you are a member and want to check out any of these new books.

Openings (and New Aqcuisitions, April 2011)

One cannot travel anywhere in the back country of the United States, especially west of the Great Plains, without being impressed by the many evidences of old mines showing grayly on the flanks of ragged mountains and crumbling ghost towns wrapped in sage and silence at the ends of long abandoned dirt roads.

-first sentence from A Range Guide to Mines and Minerals by Jay Ellis Ransom


In addition to the incredible A Range Guide to Mines and Minerals from Smithson's Personal Library, new March/April acquisitions include:

Learning and Language: The Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (Calvino Personal Library)

Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands by Harriet Beecher Stowe (Mitchell Personal Library)

Culture & Anarchy by Matthew Arnold (Smithson Personal Library)

Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century by J.L.E. Dreyer (Smithson Personal Library)


The Complete Poetry of William Blake (Borges Personal Library)
and
Selected Prose, Poetry, and Eureka by Edgar Allan Poe (Calvino Personal Library)


It is with humility really unassumed--it is with a sentiment even of awe--that I pen the opening sentence of this work; for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn--the most comprehensive--the most difficult--the most august.

-first sentence from Edgar Allan Poe's Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe

February 2011 Reading Room & New Acquisitions

The February Reading Room Hours bring to an end the era of the small-bookcase for the Library. I am diligently sanding, staining & finishing the bookshelves for the Library to grow into. Look for the new shelves & Library room next month!

In addition to another successful Reading Room, the Library continues to grow in members and books.


The newest acquisitions include:

The Cyclical Night: Irony in James Joyce & Jorge Luis Borges by L. A. Murillo (Smithson Collection)
The Varieties of Religious Experiences by William James (Borges Collection)
Monsieur Teste by Paul Valery (Calvino Collection)

Also, are two more books to add to the Flaubert contingent!:


The amazing covers of Flaubert's The Temptation of St. Anthony and Victor Brombert's The Novels of Flaubert, from the Borges & Smithson Collections, respectively.


And lastly is Snapshots, by Alain Robbe-Grillet, from Smithson's Personal Library. The Library's edition has this amazing sheet taped in the back, showing Haslam's Bookstore's acquisition of the book on February 25, 1975. The Personal Libraries Library has now accessioned the same book almost exactly 36 years later! A beautiful parallel & paratext.

Please contact the Library at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com with queries about the books or membership. Also, please browse the Catalogues to see other books in the Library.

October & November Acquisitions!

The Library is growing! Above shows the entire library, which will soon need new shelving. There have been many new acquisitions in the past two months, which means new members. Also, I must mention that we just passed our one-year anniversary!


There are new books for each collection, spanning many eras and subjects.

Italo Calvino Collection:
Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past: The Captive and Cities of the Plain

Jorge Luis Borges and Robert Smithson Collections both contain:
J.W. Dunne's An Experiment with Time
H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man & The War of the Worlds

Robert Smithson Collection also acquired:
Roland Barthes' Writing Degree Zero
Flannery O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge
Denis Diderot's The Nun
Geza Roheim's Magic and Schizophrenia


(another convergence of covers)

Even the Maria Mitchell Collection was added to with a beautiful version of Lord George Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Read to see why this Romantic poet was considered a "rock star" of his day! One can catch a glimpse of the dashing Byron on the title page engraving:


Please contact the Personal Libraries Library at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com to check out books, membership requests or any other questions!

August & September Acquisitions

The newest acquisitions to the Personal Libraries Library span the collections. They include from the Robert Smithson Collection:

Candide by Voltaire
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

From the Jorge Luis Borges Collection:

Hedda Gabler by Henrick Ibsen
The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon


And from the Italo Calvino Collection:

Les Choses: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec (pictured above)
Morphology of the Folktale by Vladimir Propp

Please contact the Librarian at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com to check out any of the books!

Lastly, a confluence of covers: