Book Shelves #43, 10.21.2012

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Book shelves series #43, forty-third Sunday of 2012

Kind of a hodgepodge shelf—some literary biography, a few now-redundant collections, some literary criticism, art books, etc.

Tracy Daugherty’s Donald Barthelme biography Hiding Man is on the far left; I reviewed it a few years ago, taking note of my favorite part, the so-called postmodernists’ dinner.

Next to it is Susan Sontag’s Reborn, a collection of early journals that I also reviewed.

Next to these two is Sara Davidson’s Loose Change. My aunt gave me a box of books years ago (lots of Asimov and Octavia Butler) and this was in here.

I knew about it because of a long essay in a 2007 issue of The Believer.

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I picked up Penguin’s The Essential James Joyce in Jimbocho, an area in Tokyo known for used bookstores.

I recall paying maybe ¥100 for it. It comprises a few selections from Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, some of  Joyce’s (totally unessential) poetry, and the entirety of Dubliners, Exiles, and Portrait. I’ve kept it because of sentiment (and  I like the cover).

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The Laughing Demon — Katsushika Hokusai

Totoro Jack O’ Lantern Stencil

Do you still need an idea for a jack o’ lantern? Are you a fan of Hayao Miyazaki films? Even the really sweet and gentle ones, like Ponyo and My Neighbor Totoro? And, are you, like, totally skilled at carving pumpkins? If so, have at it with this cool stencil by Flickr user PlayWithFire:

You can see variations on Totoro jack o’ lanterns–and other cool Miyazaki-inspired pumpkins here. From that set, here’s Flickr user C. Lambert’s Totoro pumpkin–

“Robinson Crusoe” — Kafka

“Robinson Crusoe” by Franz Kafka:

Had Robinson Crusoe never left the highest, or more correctly the most visible point of his island, from desire for comfort, or timidity, or fear, or ignorance, or longing, he would soon have perished; but since without paying any attention to passing ships and their feeble telescopes he started to explore the whole island and take pleasure in it, he managed to keep himself alive and finally was found after all, by a chain of causality that was, of course, logically inevitable.

 

 

Reading a Book — James Tissot