optimist
Since selling off most of the books earlier this year, I’ve been trying to avoid purchasing more, which has led to increased, or perhaps simply more self-conscious library usage. The following are the books I have most recently checked out of the public and local university libraries (including three interlibrary loans):
- Aksakov: Years of Childhood and A Russian Schoolboy (because I enjoyed A Russian Gentleman)
- Epictetus: both volumes of the Loeb
- Flaubert: Bouvard and Pécuchet
- Terry Pinkard: German Philosophy 1760–1860 (because, well, because)
- Adorno: Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic (because it took me twenty minutes to parse the first three (translated) sentences and I’m still not sure what he’s on about)
- Herder: Philosophical Writings (because! he! exclaims! and! enthusiasm! is catching!)
- John Robb: The Early Mediterranean Village (on the ‘New Books’ shelf, and the opening page was charming to a rare degree)
- Ibn Khaldûn: The Muqaddimah, trans. F. Rosenthal, vol. 1 (saw the abridged version in a bookshop and was intrigued)
There are twenty long days before me in which to read (or decide not to read) these books, and I am filled with boundless hope.