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Selected Non-Fictions
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
24 posts | 4 read | 2 to read
The non-fiction work of the great Latin American poet and writer is collected here with essays, reviews, lectures, and political commentary on everything from Ellery Queen to the Kabbalah. Reprint.
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Soubhiville
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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I enjoy some non fiction all year, but towards the end of October as I begin thinking about November‘s #bookspin list I start getting excited for #NonFictionNovember. I don‘t know how it got started, but I love spending a month focused on nonfiction. Here are a few titles I might read.

Will you participate? Any books you‘re looking forward to?

Soubhiville @AllDebooks I have already read and really loved 2y
JenReadsAlot I thought The Five was great! And I'm getting my NF list ready too 🙂 2y
Bookwormjillk I read The Five last year and liked it. Plan to participate again this year. 2y
See All 13 Comments
bookishdawg Have fun! “The Beautiful Forevers…” is amazing ❤️ 2y
Deblovestoread Oooo, I need to get my #NFN list together. 2y
AllDebooks Oh yes, count me in. I love non-fic. The Five was amazing, such a sympathetic account of each woman. 2y
AllDebooks @Soubhiville It's so good, isn't it. So unique for it's time and cited so many times in other works now. 2y
BookNAround I‘ve got almost my entire bookspin board covered with non-fiction for November. 2y
Hooked_on_books I‘ll definitely be reading NF, since I do all the time! I have this one checked out from the library and look forward to reading it: 2y
vivastory @Hooked_on_books I read that one last year. It's pretty wild! 2y
Soubhiville @Hooked_on_books I watched the movie and couldn‘t believe a place like that existed! I bet the book will be excellent! 2y
AnnR Although it wasn't specifically planned because it is November, I coincidentally will be reading more nonfiction than usual with #PemberLittens and #NaturaLitsy. I also plan to read (edited) 2y
68 likes13 comments
review
Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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Pickpick

I started Non-Fictions in March, and finished it now! It's been a fabulous companion, and even if I haven't always grasped Borges meaning, it was never uninteresting. The wide range of his reading and his erudition are well-known, but he always wears them lightly, never seeking to dazzle or impress, rather to share and impart the pleasure he found in literary worlds. Marc Bolan has a lyric which seems to fit:
👇🏼

Bookwomble "Book after book
I get hooked
Every time the writer
Talks to me like a friend"
- Spaceball Ricochet
3y
23 likes1 comment
quote
Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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“There is nothing more characteristic of a country than its imaginations."

- Prologue to "The Tiger Guest", P'u Sung-ling

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"A book of genius is a book that can be read in a slightly or very different way by each generation."

- The Enigma of Shakespeare

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"In England there is a popular superstition that we do not know we are dead until we realise that we have no reflection in the mirror."

I'm not sure why this commonplace belief, repeated in a thousand ghost stories and films, should have given me goosebumps as I read it, but it did! ??

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"When a country has a strong spirit, foreign and exotic influences do not debilitated that spirit, they strengthen it."

- German Literature in the Age of Bach

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"The true name of Rome was also secret; in the Last days of the Republic, Quintus Valerius Sorano committed the sacrilege of revealing it, & was executed."
- A History of the Echo of a Name

We don't know the actual name of Rome! ? Going down an internet rabbit hole, there are speculations but the True Name of the centre of Empire was successfully concealed so that its enemies could not use the supposed magical power of names to capture the city.

Bookwomble The goddess Angerona had responsibility for the safety of Rome, including guardianship of the True Name, and she is usually depicted with her fingers to her lips, or with a bandage over her mouth. Some speculate that hers is Rome's True Name, but that would seem to be too commonly known for it to be safe, like printing the combination to a safe on its door. 3y
DivineDiana Fascinating! 3y
Bookwomble @DivineDiana It feels like it could be the making of a historical conspiracy thriller! 😄 3y
DivineDiana It certainly does! 3y
20 likes4 comments
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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"We might say that without the evenings and nights of Buenos Aires a tango cannot be made, and that in heaven there awaits us Argentines the Platonic idea of the tango."
- A History of the Tango
One of the pleasures of autumn and winter is Strictly Come Dancing, so Borges short, idiosyncratic History of the Tango is a timely read. I love the good nature and joy of the show. I do miss Flavia & Vincent, though: I hope they do a guest spot this year.

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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“Science is a finite sphere that grows in infinite space; each new expansion makes it include a larger zone of the unknown, but the unknown is inexhaustable.”

♾🌐♾

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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In an essay with the wonderfully evocative title, On the Cult of Books (is that Lovecraftianesquely Borgesian, or the other way around? 🤔), Borges refers to a belief that in the 4th century CE St. Ambrose of Milan was the first person noted in Western literature to read silently to themself. A quick check on the internet scotches that as a myth (Euripides has characters silently reading in his plays), though I still like the idea of a single👇🏼

Bookwomble ... person as progenitor of such a pervasive cultural pastime. Based on this painting, he may also have been the first to be able to read upside down and back to front 🙃 3y
20 likes1 comment
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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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“Burning books and erecting fortifications are the usual occupations of princes."

- The Wall and the Books

bibliothecarivs I recently bought Selected Non-Fictions. Looking forward to it. 3y
Bookwomble @Bibliothecarivs I'm enjoying it as a book I can dip into and be bewildered and disoriented by. Borges' erudition and insight outpace me, as much as I'd love to be able to say I can always follow him. Still, I can follow behind on byways I wouldn't otherwise have chanced upon 🙂 3y
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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"Each moment we live exists, not the imaginary combination of these moments."

- A New Refutation of Time

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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“Night is pleasing to us because, like memory, it erases idle details."

- A New Refutation of Time

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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“In art, nothing is more secondary than the author's intentions.”

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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“One of the habits of the mind is the invention of horrible imaginings."

- The Total Library

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"I swear never to involve myself again [in conversation with Nazi sympathisers], for the time granted to mortals is not infinite and the fruits of these discussions is vain."

- Definition of a Germanophile, 1940

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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By page 75, the younger Borges of the previous essays has matured, and instead of trying to prove he's clever, is sharing his wit, erudition and intelligence. A much warmer and companionly read 🤗📖🧡

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"There are no more readers left, only potential literary critics."

- The Superstitious Ethics of the Reader, 1931

MySharonaK Wonderful! Amazing how it‘s from 90 years ago and yet so relevant 4y
27 likes1 comment
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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"If only some eternal book existed, primed for our enjoyment and whims, no less inventive in the populous morning than the secluded night, oriented toward all hours of the world. Your favourite books, reader, are like rough drafts of that book without a final reading."

- Literary Pleasure

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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Because having eight books on the go is apparently insufficient for my flibbertigibbet reading brain at the moment, I've started a ninth.
While it is a chunky monkey at over 500 pages, it has the Borgesian advantage of being very short chapters on diverse subjects, so it's easy to dip into, demanding some attention, but not exhaustingly so.

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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"Memory is no more than the noun by which we imply that among the innumerable possible states of consciousness, many occur again in an imprecise way."

- The Nothingness of Personality

vivastory Now I feel like rereading Borges 4y
21 likes1 comment
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Bookwomble
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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"Many futile hours cluster in remembrance around one hour in which there was love."

- The Nothingness of Personality

Bookwomble @Milara Yes, I'm sure most people will experience both those modes of remembrance at times. The insistent memories of trauma and/or unprocessed experience can certainly be torturous. 4y
19 likes1 comment
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Mitch
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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I love the magazine - but perhaps even better are the small zine / novella sized non fiction essays from the very wonderful folks at https://www.creativenonfiction.org. They‘re perfect for one sitting reading. #nfn2020

CaffeineAndCandy ᴍᴀᴛɪʟᴅᴀ... 4y
69 likes1 comment
review
Javier1977
Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges
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Pickpick

Every time I read this book, this is my third one, I'd discovered a new vision about it. At this time, I discovered a Borges more focused in analyze the humanity of his favorite authors. For example: in Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener. In which he compares the Melville's writing with Kafka, or some others. The way that Borges write is the perfect suit for his philosophy of life.

Javier1977 For $14 the paperback at Barnes and noble is such a great deal 6y
Lcsmcat Welcome to Litsy! 6y
Javier1977 Lcsmcat, Thank you! 6y
wanderinglynn Welcome to Litsy! 👋🏻 6y
15 likes4 comments