Le Salon's Collective Wishlist

A thread for Book Titles accumulated in our mind's eye (but not yet acquired or read) over the years of browsing bookstore shelves, reading reviews, word-of-mouth, et cetera ...

Are these books worth finally ordering online?

Post your own selections and/or rave or repudiate mine and (hopefully forthcoming others' wishlist picks) here.

Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane

Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal

Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish

Là-bas by Joris-Karl Huysmans

Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg

Life of a Good-for-Nothing by Joseph von Eichendorff

The Deadbeats by Ward Ruyslinck

The Forest of the Hanged by Liviu Rebreanu

>1 absurdeist: Wow, aside from Effi Briest, I hadn't heard of any of these. Cutter and Bone looks like a really good read. I might have to add that one to my wishlist. Thanks!

Just a few for me:

Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass -- Bruno Schulz

Mulligan Stew -- Gilbert Sorrentino

The Book on the Bookshelf -- Henry Petroski

The Long Way -- Bernard Moitessier

Treatise on the Gods -- H. L. Mencken

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
-- Julian Jaynes
(I don't know if it's any good, but I've always wanted to read it.)

Gypsy Moth Circles the World -- Sir Francis Chichester

My current list is actually made up largely of Salon reads, erstwhile Salon reads, books recommended to my by Salonistas, or other LSLDPPLP marginalia. You people and your obscurities!

Ted Mooney, The Same River Twice (not out yet, I know)
Marcel Proust, The Captive
-The Fugitive/Time Regained
Jonathon Green, Chambers Slang Dictionary
N+1 magazine issues 3-9
Alexander Theroux, Laura Warholic or the Sexual Intellectual
Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming
Jean Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers
Jeffrey C Alfier, Strangers Within the Gate
Legs McNeil, Please Kill Me
Hugh Barker, Faking It
David Foster Wallace, The Pale King also in anticipation
Manny Farber, Negative Space
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method
Colette, The Ripening Seed
Dacia Maraini, Bagheria
Brian K. Vaughan, The Pride of Baghdad
Isidore Okpewho, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: A Casebook

Good to see our friend abecedary (Jonathon Green) on your list Martin.

My list, sadly, is not as different from last year's as I would have liked.

Kaputt, Curzio Malaparte (feeling pleased with myself as I had tracked this down in Oxfordshire's library system and reserved it to be sent to my local branch. Went to pick it up yesterday. It turned out to be written in French!)

Concrete, Thomas Bernhard

The Invention of Morel, Adolfo Bioy Casares

On Elegance While Sleeping, Lascano Tegui

Terra Nostra, Carlos Fuentes

On the Natural History of Destruction, WG Sebald

The Shape of a City, Gracq

The Silver Dove, Bely

The Journal of Jules Renard

She woke me up so I killed her, Paul Bowles

Dictionary of the Khazars, Pavic

Auto da Fe, Canetti

Memoirs of a Revolutionary, Victor Serge

And some recent discoveries, now to be hunted down:

Robert Desnos, Surrealism and the Marvelous in Everyday Life, Katharine Conley

On Pain, Ernst Junger - from a posting in The Chapel

In Parenthesis, David Jones

The Discarded Image, C S Lewis - thanks to Poquette

The Lost Steps, Alejo Carpentier - thanks to deebee

Ah, aren't we a merry band of listers. Great books, great reading. My very incomplete list:

The Symbolism of Evil

Under the Net

A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig

Natasha's Dance

Adolphe

Malgudi Days

Darconville's Cat

Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

2> do find Mulligan Stew. For me it has one of the funniest openings ever: Slews of rejection letters for a novel titled, well, Mulligan Stew!

Self-reflexive in the extreme, if that sort of things floats yer boat.

3> can't wait for The Pale King either. Less than two months away.

Thanks for all the new titles everybody.

She Woke Me Up So I Killed Her Sounds reasonable.

I've been reading Dalrymple's White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth Century India, and I want every book in his footnotes. Some samples: Bastardy and its Comparative History (which he cites for the notion that as many as 1/3 of recorded births in 18th Century Britain were out of wedlock), A Vindication of the Hindoos (1809 - nobody on LT seems to have it, he cites it for a contemporary discussion from India where a British colonialist praises Hinduism over Christianity), Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases (1903, same, he cites that for some particularly crude Anglo-India curses), The English Factories in India 1618-1669 (all the original letters from the factories to their head office, fascinating stuff), The Goa Inquisition (which discusses how the Jesuits cracked down in the Portuguese colonies on such crimes as eating rice without salt or refusing to eat pork), Islam in Britain, 1583-1685 (Cambridge 1998 - cited for details on the lives of rather numerous converts to Islam among earlly British imperialists visiting the Ottoman and Indian regions). I want a couple of weeks inside this guy's library (he lives on a farm outside Delhi). He tells a great story of how he came across some of the manuscripts he works from in a little bookstore in the back alleys of Hyderabad, and I just salivate reading about the stacks of old manuscripts, diaries, and miniatures in a little shop off the beaten path.

I've fallen violently in love with Persian, Arabic and Indian manuscripts where the old stories are depicted with accompanying miniatures. The originals are mostly out of sight because of their cost, but I recently started picking up every copy I could of some of the illustrated translations of Layla and Majnun. I also want the Mage edition of the Shahnameh very badly (just $395!), which collects reproductions of 630 illustrations from the Shahnameh as well as using the recent Davis translation.

My daughter is about to begin a research project on Anna Comnena, so I'm also looking for old books on eleventh century Constantinople and the Roman Empire of the time. MM's Istanbul bookstore is likely to have an order from me.

Sandy Dog,

One of the most loved books in my collection is a great version of Dissertation on Roast Pig, on vellum from a small press in the 20s or 30s. It's just a really, really lovely little book that I picked up on ebay for something like $5 and a couple more for shipping. The kids are kinda sick of it at this point, but it's one I regularly pull out for visitors to read in a bit of down time.

Thanks Sam, I'll have to sniff out a copy!

I looked on Abebooks - it's the 1932 version published by Hart, here: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Lamb&kn=Hart&sts=t&...

There are a hallf dozen copies, priced from $25 to $325. I warn you guys, if nobody else picks up those two cheaper copies ($25 and $35) in the next couple of days, I'll buy them as gifts. This is a really, really nice book!

>7 A_musing: I'm off to book my ticket to Istanbul now! SO EXCITED. Last time I was there I got beautiful miniature in the bazaar (it may well be the turkish equivalent of those guys on the boardwalk in my touristy hometown, Victoria, BC, who paint your caricature or spraypaint green moons rising over Saturn, but I don't care--it's also beautiful) of two oldtimey Turkish dudes from when we were men, all oiled up and grappling the yağlı güreş out of each other. BUT then I put it away somewhere to keep it safe and flat till I could get it framed, and now I have no flippin' idea where that somewhere is, and I'm sure it'll turn up eventually, but in the meantime--more miniaturezzzz!

The store in question, Homer Kitabevi, is incredible and I am happy just thinking about it. I bet they can help.

4> I took Terra Nostra out last night and seriously contemplated tackling it. Read the intro and afterword.

Here's a nice piece from Robert Coover, circa '76, on Carlos Fuentes' magnum opus: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/26/home/fuente-terra.html

Hello salonistas,

Given that you are the friends with whom I have read Infinite Jest I wanted to ask if any of you have personally read this book:
http://www.librarything.com/work/27537
or another one on the same topic?

This is a personal issue of some concern - My two sons have recurring depression issues and I worry about them because they avoid treatment and help (partly because of their Middle Eastern background) and if it is worth reading I will try to learn more so I can figure out what I can do, if anything, to help.

It is hard when one's kids are technically grown but still need so much guidance but it has to be given very carefully or it does more harm than good.

My sons are under the age of five and you are ripping at my heart strings. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to offer. Boys are just as moody as girls, it just manifests a different way. I did like Rich Hall's self help for the bleak but it was only half serious, if that.

Maybe something humorous is just what they need. I have put it on hold, thanks.

Anna, it's been some years since I've read it, but I found William Styron's Darkness Visible to be helpful for myself. And at only 96 pages, it's a quick read. Good luck.

If boys get moody, stop reading books. It is boats, beer and girls they need.

Works for me...

A proper translation of Cendrars' Planus.

anna, how old are your sons?

19 and 20.

I'm with Mac in that, except for organic issues or similar things I am not at all qualified to talk about, my experience is most young male moroseness is girl (or boy) and hormones related.

I'll take a good long gander through my wife's academic psych texts and the slew of pop culture stuff we have this weekend, Anna. See if there's anything helpful there for your young men.

23: Thanks.

Back in the olden, golden days when boys started hankerin' for the gals, Dad would crank up the Model A, grab junior, and head for the red light district for some expert instruction. Can't do that any more. What a shame!

I wish I had some advice for you Anna.

I tried to tender some advice above but after thinking about it a little bit I realized how silly the giving of advice in this situation, or any situation, almost always, is.

anna, i just read your original statement of concern. the first thing i thought is that the worst thing would be to confront it head on, especially through a book. even if it's you reading it, as they will no doubt know about it. first and foremost is to avoid any jargon whatsoever in your communications with them, and then to find any way at all to make it as easy as possible for them to discuss depression in their own words.

This is a bit direct from a stranger, and it of course it may be difficult to open the communication, but the advice is heartfelt and from extensive experience.

Thanks gang! I am actually trying to not speak psychotherapy-speak or stuff because I think it is what they will find the least helpful. I will be discreet if I read a bunch of books on the subject.. it's a very good point. Anyhow, my kids are wonderful kids and I'm very lucky to have them and I know we will get through this OK.