To a young friend charged with possession of the classics -- Influence -- A temple of texts : fifty literary pillars -- The Blessed Company, The book of prefaces -- Erasmus, The praise of folly -- Anonymous, A thousand and one nights -- François Rabelais, Gargantua and pantagruel -- Robert Burton, The anatomy of melancholy -- Gertrude Stein, Three lives -- Flann O'brien, At swim-two-birds -- Ernesto Sábato, On heroes and tombs -- A defense of the book -- William Gaddis, and his goddamn books -- Elias Canetti, The tongue set free -- John Hawkes, Humors of blood & skin -- Robert Coover, The public burning -- Gabriel García Márquez, Chronicle of a death foretold -- Stanley Elkin, Open on the Sabbath -- The sentence seeks its form -- Rainer Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin -- Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke and the requiem -- Sacred texts -- Spectacles -- Evil.
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