Do you know of ILLiad? It’s an interlibrary loan system from which I’ve recently requested and received the following books (that my own university library does not have):
- Gordon Lish’s Mourner at the Door and My Romance and Krupp’s Lulu
- Helene Cixous’s Coming to Writing and Other Essays
- Ken Sparling’s Dad says he saw you at the mall
- Peter Handke’s The Weight of the World
- DFW’s Infinite Jest
- Bernadette Mayer’s Midwinter Day
- Mark Halliday’s Tasker Street
- Aimee Parkison’s Woman with Dark Horses
- Nina Shope’s Hangings: Three Novellas
- Sara Greenslit’s The Blue of Her Body
- Zachary Mason’s The Lost Books of the Odyssey
- Janet Mitchell’s The Creepy Girl and Other Stories
- Jacques Roubaud’s Some Thing Black
- Gary Young’s No Other Life
- Marilyn Hacker’s Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons
- Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee
- Michael Hardt’s and Antonio Negri’s Empire
- Frank Stanford’s The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You
I don’t know what I’d do without the ILLiad. What books are on your to-read-but-don’t-have-yet list?
inter-library loan is pretty cool. when i was an undergrad i got a lot of stuff i needed to write my term paper for my history of industry and labor class through ILL.
there are a lot of books i want these days. i keep a list in my wallet. but currently my “to-read” shelf is overflowing, so i’m trying to make a dent in that.
This is indeed my secret heart, Molly.
I request about five books/week through I-Share, the loan system between 75 or so Illinois colleges. (I use that system because I can have the books delivered practically to my office, and because it includes the near-mythical library at UIUC.)
Most recently arrived: NOG by Rudy Wurlitzer. It’s waiting for me right now at the library downstairs.
That is a re-dunk-ulous good book list.
1) David Foster Wallace’s EVERYTHING AND MORE
(he is at his most lucid when he is talking about infinity.)
2) Theodore Dresier’s NEWSPAPER DAYS (God Bless Black Sparrow Press.)
3) Orhan Pamuk’s THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE (how sad can it be?)
4) Jean-Luc Hennig’s THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF GREISÉlIDIS RÉAL: DAYS AND NIGHTS OF AN ANARCHIST WHORE (if you have to ask)
5) Michele Foucault’s THE HISTORY OF MADNESS
(for purely educational reasons)
6) Denise Duhamel’s MILLE ET UN SENTIMENTS
(Mais oui.)
7) Mina Loy’s INSEL (I lost my copy and they are expensive now)
8) Jonathan Williams’ A PALPABLE ELYSIUM (my friend and hero)
and others to embarrassing to say.
OK. I will say one.
9) AMAZING FANTASY OMNIBUS – Stan Lee / Jack Kirby / Steve Ditko (if Rod Serling had drawn comic books, with the hand that wasn’t holding the cigarette.)
Enough is becoming enough (Pepe Le Pew.)
Ricky
Molly, When you get the Lost Books… book, you should hold onto it. It’s worth $150.
I also notice about a quarter of this list are Starcherone books from beloved Buffalo. Lily H. read here last night and Ted Pelton introduced her.
Another Starcherone title that is fascinating is Quinnehtukqut by Joshua Harmon
http://starcherone.com/harmon.html
Illiad gave me I Looked Alive by Lutz.
Living in NYC, I regularly note what the nypl has in terms of small press – some Dalkey, all McSweeney’s (is that really small though?), my search goes on.
I’m glad Handke’s been pointed out. I read the Weight of the World about ten years ago, inspiring, made me want to live in Paris.
Cees Noteboom is a Dutch author who’s written some great stuff, including The Following Story and Rituals.
His wikipedia page is awful.
Handke was recommended to me by Lee Klein, after I told him I was uninspired and had nothing to write about, nothing to say. Lee’s good for good advice.
$150! Yowsa!