Course Reading List

This version of the reading list is from the initial syllabus; I will be updating it with the specific passages that have been assigned from each source (as well as the occasional changes) over the coming weeks.

Course Bibliography / Reading List

(By week, cataloged in a non-institutional format):

Main Text:

Bayard, Pierre. How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. Translated by Jeffrey Mehlman. 2007. Bloomsbury: New York.

Weekly Readings

(mostly excerpts, subject to change)

Week 2:

Benjamin, Walter. Walter Benjamin’s Archive: Images, Texts, Signs. Translated by Esther Leslie; edited by Ursula Marx, Gudrun Schwarz, Michael Schwarz, & Erdmut Wizisla. 2007. Verso: London.

––– , The Arcades Project. Translated by Howard Eiland & Kevin McLaughlin; edited by Rolf Tiedemann. 2002. Belknap Press: Cambridge.

––– & Gershom Schlolem, "The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940. ed. Gershom Scholem, trans. Gray Smith & Andre Lefevre. 1989. Schocken: New York.

Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Translated by William Weaver. 1983. Warner Books/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: San Diego.

Huysmans, Joris-Karl. The Damned (Là-Bas). Translated by Terry Hale. 2001. Penguin: London.

Week 3:

Bartel, Julie. From A to Zine: Building a Winning Zine Collection in Your Library. 2004. American Library Association: Chicago.

Huysmans, Joris-Karl. Against Nature. Translated by Margaret Mauldon. 1998. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixth Annual Collection. Edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling. 1993. St. Martin’s press: New York.

Week 4:

Factsheet Five. Edited by Mike Gunderloy. n.d., c. 1986. Rensselaer: New York.

Factsheet Five. Edited by Mike Gunderloy. #33, 1989. Rensselaer, New York.

Morton, Thomas of Merrymount. New English Canaan. Edited by Jack Dempsey. 2000. Self-Published: Stoneham, MA.

Week 5:

Jarry, Alfred. Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician. Translated by Simon Watson Taylor. 1996. Exact Change: Boston.

Fisher, Ben. The Pataphysician’s Library: An Exploration of Alfred Jarry’s ‘Livres pairs’. 2000. Liverpool University Press.

Week 6:

Cook, Michael. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. 2000. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

The Qur’an. Translated by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem. 2010. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Week 7:

Balzac, Honoré. Lost Illusions. Translated by Ellen Marriage. n.d. Project Gutenberg. Accessed 22 Aug. 2020. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13159/pg13159-images.html

Flood, Alyson. “Legendary Paris Bookshop Reveals Reading Habits of Illustrious Clientele.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/15/legendary-paris-bookshop-reveals-reading-habits-ernest-hemingway-gertrude-stein-shakespeare-and-company

Monnier, Adrienne. The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier.Translated by Richard McDougall. 1996. University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln. 23 May 2020, Accessed 22 Aug. 2020.

Sanders, Ed. Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture on the Lower East Side. 2011. Da Capo Press: Boston.

Week 8:

Joshi, S.T. Lovecraft’s Library: A Catalogue. Revised & Enlarged Edition. 2002. Hippocampus Press: New York.

Kelmscott Press – William Morris & His Circle: The John J. Walsdorf Collection with a few additions. 1996. The Colophon Book Shop: Exeter, NH.

Sanford, John. Progressive Retreat: A Bibliographic Timeline of Dartington Library (1935-2010). 2010. Dartington College of Arts (Unofficial): Totnes.

Week 9:

Chambers, Robert. The Yellow Sign and Other Stories: The Complete Weird Tales. Edited by S.T. Joshi. 2000. Chaosium. n.p.

Benjamin, Walter & Gershom Schlolem, "The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940. ed. Gershom Scholem, trans. Gray Smith & Andre Lefevre. 1989. Schocken: New York.

International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses. Fourteenth Edition 1978-1979. Edited by Len Fulton & Ellen Ferber. 1978 Dustbooks: Paradise, CA.

King, Esther, ed. Untitled & unpublished mimeographed booklet produced by Quixote magazine, for private circulation among small press publishers. n.d., c. 1965-68. Quixote: Madison.

Week 10:

Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel. Translated by J.M. Cohen. 1985. Penguin: London.

Eco, Umberto. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Translated by Geoffrey Brock. 2005. Harcourt: Orlando.

Week 11:

Goodacre, Selwyn H., ed. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: An 1865 Printing Re-described and Newly Identified as the Publisher’s “File Copy”, with a Revised and Expanded Census of the Suppressed 1865 “Alice”. 1990. The Jabberwock/Private Printing. n.p.

Week 12:

Benjamin, Walter. “Unpacking my Library,” from Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. 1969. Schocken: New York.

Hammer, Joshua. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts. 2016. Simon & Schuster: New York.

Lacroix, Paul (aka Bibliophile Jacob). My Republic. Translated by T.W. Koch. 1936. The Caxton Club: Chicago.

Week 13:

Basbanes, Nicholas A. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books. 1999. Henry Holt: New York.

Zweig, Stephan. “Stefan Zweig Encounters a Living Lexicon,” from Lapham’s Quarterly. Vol. XIII, No. 1, Winter 2020.

Week 14:

Peters, Justin. The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet. 2016. Scribner: New York.

& others to be determined...