Eleven Encyclopedic Books, Overstuffed with References, That Compel Compulsive Reading

by Biblioklept

Eleven Encyclopedic Books, Overstuffed with References, That Compel Compulsive Reading

1. Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

2. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce

3. Expelled from Eden, A WilliamVollmann Reader

4. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Georges Perec

5. Wittgenstein’s Mistress, David Markson

6. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien

7. Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco

8. The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald

9. The Recognitions, William Gaddis

10. Between Parentheses, Roberto Bolaño

11. The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, Donald Harrington

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Posted on November 11, 2011 at 9:09 am in Books, Literature, Writers | RSS feed | Respond | Trackback URL

Tags: David Markson, Donald Harrington, Georges Perec, Herman Melville, James Joyce, Rings of Saturn, William Gaddis, Wittgenstein's Mistress

6 Comments to “Eleven Encyclopedic Books, Overstuffed with References, That Compel Compulsive Reading”

Josh A
November 11, 2011 at 10:14 am

No Pynchon? Gravity’s Rainbow doesn’t make the cut?

Reply
- Biblioklept
  November 11, 2011 at 10:19 am
  
  GR would fit fine on this list. I can probably think of a dozen other books that would fit on here fine. It’s not meant to be “definitive” — it’s just a list I brainstormed (for fun) on 11/11/11. I’m happy for readers to add their suggestions.
  
  Reply
F.H.
November 11, 2011 at 12:27 pm

Nice list, but the absolute no-doubt number one in this category, although it’s not a novel, has to be ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’ by Robert Burton.

Some others:

The Divine Comedy by Dante
Ulysses by James Joyce
Don Quixote by Cervantes
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño (nobody said the references had to be real)
À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust
Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar (I don’t know if this one would qualify as encyclopedic, but it’s surely overstuffed with references, real and imagined.)
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais (Raffel translation)
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
The Education of Henry Adams (preferably the centennial edition published by the MHS)
The Man without Qualities by Robert Musil

Reply
josh a
November 12, 2011 at 10:48 am

Sorry if I came off as a tool, not my intention. You do fine work.

Reply
- Biblioklept
  November 12, 2011 at 8:28 pm
  
  LOL. No. No tool at all. Thanks.
  
  Reply
josh a
November 12, 2011 at 10:52 am

Love to see Bolaño’s name and not 2666, and in response to Hopscotch, I say, maybe, Cloud Atlas?

Reply