127. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson
128. A Heart So White by Javier Marías
129. Vairagya-Satakam by Bhartrihari
130. The Human Comedy by William Saroyan
131. Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker
132. Song from the Forest by Louis Sarno
133. Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño
134. Protagoras by Plato
135. Berlin Stories by Robert Walser
The Haunting (1963/dir. Robert Wise)
Even at the time, twenty years old, I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ten hours a day. There is no particular daring in this vow, but I have not broken it and shall not do so. The wisdom of my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born for the pleasure of work, fighting, love, we are born for that and nothing else.
—Guy de Maupassant
A haunting meditation on both the loss of innocence and the lost innocents of the world. Picked it up on the recommendation of Roberto Bolaño (see #8.)
“May your course not run from one end to the other; for such a course does not exist; but may every step you take mark a redressed projection. With your left foot you shall wipe out the footprint of your right foot.”
Books are finite, sexual encounters are finite, but the desire to read and to fuck is infinite; it surpasses our own deaths, our fears, our hopes for peace.
—Roberto Bolaño
New vector illustration. Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. Recommended reading: 2666
is the real thing… this I should have known.
“Listening is the most dangerous thing of all, listening means knowing, finding out about something and knowing what’s going on, our ears don’t have lids that can instinctively close against the words uttered, they can’t hide from what they sense they’re about to hear, it’s always too late.”
118. Travels in West Africa by Mary Henrietta Kingsley
119. Vilnius Poker by Ričardas Gavelis
120. How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique
121. Ghosts by César Aira
122. The Enormous Room by e. e. cummings
123. Mundo Cruel by Luis Negron
124. Told by Starlight in Chad by Joseph Brahim Seid
125. The Uncannily Strange and Brief Life of Amedeo Modigliani by Velibor Čolić
126. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
There’s a book for that
How to Talk Yourself Out of …
plastic surgery: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
tattoos: In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
haircuts: Sweeney Todd (multiple authors)
Oooh, let’s make this a thing…
prep school: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
hooking up with exes: The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
holding a grudge: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
visiting sick relatives: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
honoring your mother’s dying wish: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
dabbling in genealogy: Tess of the D’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
searching for lost cats: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
writing for a living: Hunger by Knut Hamsun
113. Aucassin and Nicolette by Anonymous
114. Jefferson the Virginian by Dumas Malone
115. A Family and a Fortune by Ivy Compton-Burnett
116. What Men Live By and Other Stories by Lev Tolstoy
117. Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kiš
New vector illustration. Network (1976/dir. Sidney Lumet)
