Member Gypsy_Boy

Real Name

David

About My Library

I have always enjoyed reading fiction, especially fiction by authors outside the USA. I read American fiction too, occasionally, but much prefer non-U.S. authors because I learn more that way--probably also why I love traveling so much.

This little map covers the homes (sometimes the birthplaces) of the authors represented in my library. I do hope to expand it a bit more.
In some cases, I've read (or sadly, only found) one or two authors from the countries represented are available in English. It's a pity because reading authors whose time, place, and situation are different from mine is one way to learn about the world--and myself.
I also enjoy a wide variety of non-fiction and drama as well and have a passion for poetry. When we moved (about a dozen years ago now), it was to a smaller place and I have found that in addition to the limitations of space, I am beginning to run up against Time as well. It's simply not possible to read it all in the amount of time the actuaries tell me I probably have left (though I hasten to point out we are still talking a couple decades if I'm lucky). So I've starting donating whole portions of my collections. Thus, my large Holocaust and religion collection was given away as was my world history collection and so on; the current dilemma is figuring out worthy "destinations" for the art books, the cookbooks, the poetry, etc. etc. There just isn't enough time!

Favorite books: (in no particular order)
Naiyer Masud, Collected Stories
JMG Le Clezio, The Prospector
Homer, The Iliad
Ivan Turgenev, A Hunter's Sketches
Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe
Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina
Johannes Jensen, The Fall of the King
Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Pather Panchali
Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
Karel Schoeman, This Life
Ismail Kadare, The Three-Arched Bridge
Jean Giono, Harvest
James Michener, Tales of the South Pacific
Stijn Streuvels, The Long Road
Jan Neruda, Prague Tales
Naguib Mahfouz, Children of Gebelaawi

Currently reading:
Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird, American Prometheus
Maja Haderlap Angel of Oblivion
Jean Giono, The Serpent of the Stars
Glyn Jones, Welsh Heirs

Finished (in reverse order, most recent on top) during 2026:
Horacio Castellanos Moya, Senselessness
Ludwig Tieck, The Old Man of the Mountain; The Fair Eckbert
Stefan Zweig, Confusion
J.M. Coetzee Disgrace
Piotr Szewc, Annihilation
Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard and Pecuchet
Miljenko Jergović, Mama Leone
Yury Tynyanov, Lieutenant Kije and Young Vitushishnikov
Adalbert Stifter, The Castle of Fools
Bernardo Atxaga, Two Basque Stories
Glyn Jones, The Valley, the City, the Village
Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding
Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Ibrahim al-Koni, Anubis
Hjalmar Soderberg, Doctor Glas
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, The Golovlyov Family
Jean Giono, Two Riders of the Storm
Boubacar Boris Diop, Kaveena
Natsume Soseki, And Then
Toni Morrison, God Help the Child
Adalbert Stifter, The Bachelors
Pearl Buck, The Good Earth
Nadine Gordimer, July's People
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
Gerhart Hauptmann, Lineman Thiel and other tales
Miljenko Jergović, Sarajevo Marlboro
Ian Toll, Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945
Mieko Kanai, Mild Vertigo
Hebe Uhart, A Question of Belonging
Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs
Ismail Kadare, The File on H.

About Me

My passions are traveling, food, photography, foreign films, used-book shopping, music (especially classical and gypsy music from Hungary and Romania) and, of course, reading. I also take active part along with a core of folks from all around the world at World Literature Forum constantly discussing fiction; if you're at all interested (or think you might be), by all means, please come and visit; we'd love to welcome you! If I’m not actively engaged in one of the above, I’m probably sleeping.

I started a commonplace book years ago but neglected to maintain it...one of my great regrets. There's no way to go back in time, so I use this site to keep a few very meaningful sentences in front of me at all times...

from THE HOME AND THE WORLD
(রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর [Rabindranath Tagore], 1861-1941)
"'I am willing,' he said, 'to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it."

from BY THE PEN
(جلالآلاحمد [Jalâl âl-e Ahmad], 1923-1969)
"...All the letters in the world number thirty-two, from alef to yeh, from beginning to end.... From the words of God...to all that has been said by the philosophers, to the words with which the poets have filled their texts, even to that which you students read and I have have written in my lifetime...all the sayings and speeches of the world are made up of these thirty-two letters.... Whatever curses or profanity there are, or sacred utterings, even the grand secret name of God...are all written with these thirty-two letters.... Do not be blinded by this little bit of knowledge and deny the truth. Remember, too, that these thirty-two letters are also tools for the devil's work. The death sentences of the innocent and guilty alike are written with these very letters. Since this is the way things are, heaven forbid that your pen ever write unjustly or that these letters in your hands or on paper ever become a tool for the devil's work."

from NARCISSUS AND GOLDMUND
(Hermann Hesse, 1877-1962)
“I believe that the petal of a flower or a tiny worm on the path says far more, contains far more, than all the books in the library. One cannot say very much with mere letters and words. Sometimes I’ll be writing a Greek letter, a theta or an omega, and tilt my pen just the slightest bit; suddenly the letter has a tail and becomes a fish; in a second it evokes all the streams and rivers of the world, all that is cool and humid, Homer’s sea and the water on which Saint Peter wandered; or it becomes a bird; flaps its tail, shakes out its feathers, puffs itself up, laughs, flies away. You probably don’t appreciate letters like that very much, do you...? But I say: with them God wrote the world.”

from "ANTHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH"
(Chinua Achebe, 1930-2013)
“The sounding of the battle-drum is important; the fierce waging of the war itself is important; and the telling of the story afterwards—each is important in its own way. I tell you there is not one of them we could do without. But if you ask me which of them takes the eagle-feather I will say boldly: the story. Do you hear me? Now, when I was younger, if you had asked me the same question I would have replied without a pause: the battle. But age gives to a man some things with the right hand even as it takes away others with the left.…
So why do I say that the story is chief among his fellows? The same reason I think that our people sometimes will give the name Nkolika to their daughters—Recalling-Is-Greatest. Why? Because it is only the story [that] can continue beyond the war and the warrior. It is the story that outlives the sound of war-drums and the exploits of brave fighters. It is the story, not the others, that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind.... It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors."

Location

Evanston, Illinois [a/k/a Chicago]

Favorite Authors

Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, J. M. G. Le Clézio, Lawrence Durrell, Shusaku Endo, Jean Giono, Hermann Hesse, Ismaïl Kadaré, Níkos Kazantzákis, Gottfried Keller, Pär Lagerkvist, Naiyer Masud, Natsume Sōseki, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, Joseph Roth, Wallace Stegner, Adalbert Stifter, Theodor Storm, Stijn Streuvels, Ivan Turgenev

Local Favorites

Bookstores: Amaranth Books, City Lights Books, Dom Knigi (House of Books/ Дом Книги at 62 Nevsky), Librairie Gourmande, Myopic Books, Seminary Co-op Bookstore

Member Connections

Friends

anjeliki, aznstarlette, JoeGermuska, kjuliff, southernbooklady