Click on the link for the rest of the article!
Posted on 05/05/2006 10:45:00 AM PDT by RightWingAtheist
Before finally sitting down to write "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Edward Gibbon briefly contemplated a project entitled "The History of the Liberty of the Swiss," as well as a book about an obscure Egyptian pharaoh whose agricultural innovations ultimately led to the invention of geometry. After being banished by Augustus Caesar to a backwater on the edge of the Black Sea, Ovid wrote a eulogy in honor of his nemesis in the language of the barbarians that inhabited the region. Both the eulogy and the language have disappeared. ....
Those intrigued by such oddities, or even practical sorts jumping the gun on Christmas shopping for the literati, will surely find Stuart Kelly's "Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You'll Never Read" worth a gander. An absolute joy, if a mite esoteric and demanding, Kelly's book is as appealing for what it is not as for what it is. In an age of slapdash laundry lists of places to see before you die, or dining establishments to visit before you leave Albuquerque, "The Book of Lost Books" is a work of great passion, insight and scholarship. (Kelly studied literature at Oxford, and regularly contributes to the Scottish press.)
.... in Kelly's hands, the saga of literature's labors lost is presented in both witty and illuminating fashion, via anecdotes that are sometimes heartwarming (how Kafka's novels escaped destruction) but usually heart-rending (how most of Sophocles' plays did not). It is a book written by a passionate, erudite man who obviously lives and breathes great literature, aimed at likeminded souls. Where Random House hopes to find an audience for this book is beyond me.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Click on the link for the rest of the article!
I couldn't get into the NYT article without registering, but what's here was enough to send me to eBay, where I just bought the book and should have it next week. Woohoo!
Bibliopath ping!
(Freepmail me if you want on or off this list.)
Are Hillary's Billing Records in there?..........
Amazon link here.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400062977/102-8245456-8906562
In before post seven ping.
Thank you sir!
Sounds like Borges.
Thanks for the ping!
That looks like my next treat to myself! Thanks so much for the ping.
Thanks, I just added it to my wishlist. That brings the total items on my wishlist to 145. Yikes! Good thing I started sublists a while ago...
Bookmarking
Yeah, I believe Lem credits Borges with inspiring it.
Cool! I'll have to put this on my library list. I wonder if he mentions all those sequels that Louis L'Amour didn't get around to ...
"At the time of Caliph Omar's invasion of Egypt, the Arab officer on duty in the destruction of the library of Alexandria used two stamps with which he marked the books. One said: 'Does not agree with the Koran — heretic, must be burned'. The other said: 'Agrees with the Koran — superfluous, must be burned'." — Nils Kjaer.
bttt
While I was searching for just the appropriate picture for my ping, I came across the most fascinating and repellent website.
Consider http://www.vaidilute.com. It's really slick, and extremely well-written to boot. It purports to be the work of a preternaturally intelligent (and comely) teenager named Gabriella. She's well-read, she's eloquent, she's accomplished...and oh, yes, a Nazi. I don't mean a Bush supporter or a Buchananite paleocon; I mean a Jew-hating, America-hating, white-power spouting...Oregonian.
The relevance to this thread is that she has a really nice page about preserving and disseminating books, to save them for future generations. The emphasis is on preventing a Fahrenheit-451-style future. It's inspiring stuff...until you catch the hints about how the Nazis got a bad rap over book-burning, and how the Diary of Anne Frank was fiction, anyway.
>shudder<
What makes me hate this town most are various mental retards, hippies, and the rest of the assorted degenerates here that make Eugene so repulsive and utterly detestable.
No, don't hold back, tell us how you really feel!
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