view larger

Member: Gypsy_Boy

CollectionsYour library (2,529)

Reviews3 reviews

Tagsfiction (UK) (332), fiction (expatriate) (250), cookbooks (196), fiction (US) (155), fiction (Russian) (118), fiction (German) (112), fiction (French) (89), fiction (Italian) (88), religion (77), drama (71) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsAfrican/African American Literature, Arab, North African and Middle Eastern Literature, Asian Fiction & Non-Fiction, Central/Eastern European History, Chicagoans, Cookbookers, Czech books, Early Reviewers, Fans of Russian authors, French literature, 19th & 20th century — show all groups , Indian Authors, Italians - Italiani, Jewish Cookbooks and Cookery, Poetry Readers, Reading Globally, Scandinavian Literature

Favorite authorsLawrence Durrell, Shusaku Endo, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gustaw Herling, Homer, Nikos Kazantzakis, Imre Kertész, Pär Lagerkvist, Siegfried Lenz, Arnost Lustig, Amin Maalouf, Naguib Mahfouz, Gabriel García Márquez, Yukio Mishima, Natsume Sōseki, William Shakespeare, Wallace Stegner, Rabindranath Tagore, Leo Tolstoy (Shared favorites)

Favorite bookstores57th Street Books, Amaranth Books, Bookworks, Howard's Books, Myopic Books, Powell's - Hyde Park, Seminary Co-op Bookstore, The Armadillo's Pillow

About meMy passions are traveling (especially international), food (both cooking myself and eating out), photography, foreign films, shopping (okay, used-book shopping), music (especially classical and gypsy music from Hungary and Romania), and…oh, yeah, reading. If I’m not actively engaged in one of the above, I’m probably sleeping. (For the terminally curious, the picture was taken in Lhasa, Tibet, at the Palubuk Monastery, just down the road from the Potala Palace.)

from BY THE PEN
جلالآلاحمد
(Jalâl Âl-e Ahmad, 1923-1969)
"...All the letters in the world number thirty-two, from alef to yeh, from beginning to end.... From the words of God...to all that has been said by the philosophers, to the words with which the poets have filled their texts, even to that which you students read and I have have written in my lifetime...all the sayings and speeches of the world are made up of these thirty-two letters. In whatever language you write--Turkish, Persian, Arabic, or European--their number might increase or decrease by one or two letters, but it is essentially the same. Whatever curses or profanity there are, or sacred utterings, even the grand secret name of God...are all written with these thirty-two letters.... Do not be blinded by this little bit of knowledge and deny the truth. Remember, too, that these thirty-two letters are also tools for the devil's work. The death sentences of the innocent and guilty alike are written with these very letters. Since this is the way things are, heaven forbid that your pen ever write unjustly or that these letters in your hands or on paper ever become a tool for the devil's work."


ITHACA
Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης
(Constantine Cavafy)

When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Do not fear the Lestrygonians
and the Cyclops and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your body and your spirit.
You will never meet the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not raise them up before you.

Then pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from those who have knowledge.

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithacas mean.

(translation by Rae Dalven)

ULYSSES
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

* * *

I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little...

...you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods....

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

About my libraryI am especially fond of non-U.S. fiction. I read American fiction too, but find that I much prefer non-U.S. authors. (You'll notice, if you look at my library, that there isn't much in the way of U.S. fiction entered. That's because it's all packed up; once we move (assuming we find a house at some point prior to our mutual demise), we may actually unpack and enter all those books, too.)

I also enjoy a wide variety of non-fiction and drama as well and have a passion for poetry. In point of fact, the boxed stuff includes virtually all of my American fiction, a large poetry collection, a huge collection of history, some lit crit, and more of some of the things already listed here.

Favorite books: (in no particular order)
Homer, The Iliad
Siegfried Lenz, The Heritage
Lawrence Durrell, Bitter Lemons
Gustaw Herling, The Island
Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis & The Last Temptation of Christ
Shusaku Endo, Silence
Jan Neruda, Prague Tales
Naguib Mahfouz, Children of Gebelaawi
Andre Schwarz-Bart, The Last of the Just
poetry of May Sarton, Donald Justice, and Robert Frost

Currently reading:
Maria Messina, Behind Closed Doors
Horacio Quiroga, The Decapitated Chicken
Yasunari Kawabata, The Lake

Recently finished:
Giorgio Pressburger, Snow and Guilt
Robert Payne, Ivan the Terrible
I. Allan Sealy, The Everest Hotel
Stefan Chwin, Death in Danzig
Alexandra David-Neel, My Journey to Lhasa
Sayed Kashua, Let It Be Morning
Luis Vaz de Camoes, The Lusiads
Jaroslav Hasek, The Fateful Adventures of Good Soldier Svejk
Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses
Anatoly Kuznetsov, Babi Yar
Istvan Orkeny, The Flower Show

Also onFlickr

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

Real nameDave

LocationChicago, Illinois

Emailtiganeasca1 at yahoo.com

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/Gypsy_Boy (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Gypsy_Boy (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (120), Awards (331), Characters (3765), Places (789)

Member sinceMar 5, 2007