Jorge Luis Borges: The Necessity and Paradox of Memory
Once you’ve read a short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges your world will never be the same again. Borges is a key figure in modern literature. And his enigmatic stories are perfect miniatures, which usher you into a parallel universe of labyrinths, paradox and mystery.
Invisible Cities: A Voyage to Unknown Lands
Imagination both encircles and transcends the world. This is brought vividly to life in Italo Calvino’s dreamlike novel Invisible Cities. The novel, perhaps best considered as a prose poem, consists of a series of dialogues between Kublai Khan, the 13th-century Mongolian emperor, and the young Venetian explorer, Marco Polo.
The Good Soldier Svejk: Or How to Stay Sane in an Insane World
Albert Camus once remarked, “It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.” The latest round of violence in the Middle East should give us all pause for thought. As Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition said earlier this week, “The US has to accept that it can’t go around illegally killing generals.”
Man: The Imperfect Librarian
I’m not particularly fond of quoting United States Defense Secretaries, but Donald Rumsfeld's attempt in 2002 to articulate a theory of knowledge is actually quite interesting: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know….”