About this title: Jorge Luis Borges was a literary spellbinder whose tales of magic, mystery and murder are shot through with deep philosophical paradoxes. This collection brings together many of his stories, including the celebrated "Library of Babel".
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: [Augmented ed.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Pub. Corp., New York
Date Published: 1964
Description: Good. No dust jacket. Notes on some pages. Text in English, Spanish. xxiii, 260 p. 21 cm. New directions paperbook, 186.. Bibliography: p. 257-260. read more
Edition: [Augmented ed.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Pub. Corp., New York
Date Published: 1964
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Cover wear but no marks on pages. Text in English, Spanish. xxiii, 260 p. 21 cm. New directions paperbook, 186.. Bibliography: p. 257-260. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New Directions
Date Published: 2007-05-01
ISBN-13:9780811216999ISBN:0811216993
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780811216999. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: New Directions
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780811216999ISBN:0811216993
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780811216999ISBN:0811216993
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. Brand New! Support Independent Pacific Northwest Booksellers! Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 256 p. Audience: General/trade. If Jorge Luis Borges had been a computer scientist, he probably would have invented hypertext and the World Wide Web. Instead, being a librarian and one of the world's most widely read people, he became the leading practitioner of a densely layered imaginistic writing style that has been imitated throughout this century, but has no ... read more
Edition: 10TH PRINTING
Binding: PAPER BACK GRAY/CREAM
Publisher: NEW DIRECTIONS, NEW YORK, NY
Date Published: 1964
Description: GOOD. 5 X 7 ¾ Wraps: mild book, shelf, edge wear, rubs, corner bumps, soil marks, few creases. Interior: rubber stamp from the previous owner on the front/back inside covers. _PAB_ read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: USA: New Directions 186
Description: Trade Paperback. Reprints 1964. 14th Printing. (no date). 260pp. Small neat name on first page. 3" reading crease on back cover. Otherwise no other creasing. Straight spine. A vg+ copy. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin, London
Date Published: 1970
ISBN-13:9780140180299ISBN:014018029X
Description: Very Good. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Two very light reading creases on spine, only minor shelf wear to the cover edges and surface and a light tan to the page edges. Otherwise in very good condition. The pages are tight, bright and extremely clean and there are no inscriptions. All my books are carefully packed and I make every effort to despatch orders the same day. If you have any questions regarding this book please do not hesitate to ask. A photograph of the actual book is readily available ... read more
Edition: F
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: New York: New Directions, 1962
Description: Dust Jacket Included. First Edition. Octavo, black cloth spine over blue paper covered boards. 248pp. including bibliography of Borges works. One of Borges best known collections including his musings on Argentine literature and the works of other great writers. A very tight, generally clean fresh volume with untrimmed edges. A couple of small very faint spots on front board and neat prior owner signature on half title. A scattering of pen marks in margins and underlining only in preface and ... read more
Edition: First edition
Binding: Hardcover with dustjacket
Publisher: New Directions, Norfolk
Date Published: 1962
Description: VG/G. Shelf wear, rubbing, soiling and edge wear to worn price-clipped dust jacket with small areas of loss around the top and bottom edges, small area of water staining inside dust jacket, light erasure mark on flyleaf, overall very good condition. pp. XXIII, 248. Illustrated with frontispiece photographs of the author. read more
"Labyrinths as the title shows will throw you in endless abysses of thought and inquiry. Borges by his vast knowledge is all the time surprising our minds by his subtle questioning of things that we previously took for granted. I enjoyed his fictitious stories mingled with reality, his concise essays about literature and his personal readings. I was amazed by his universal interest in worldly literature: Averroes was just a single example and I have to admit that he enlightened me concerning the appearance of drama or theatre ingeneral in Arabic culture."
"I should have read this years ago. Borges writes terse experimental narratives that lie somewhere between fantasy and creative non-fiction. His writing is full of ambiguous overlappings between the world of literature as we know it, and imagined universes of knowledge. These form the eponymous "labyrinths" of Borges: worlds created by humans, that must be interpreted by humans, and from which there is no escape. Borges' world is an idealist one, where fictions produce reality. The influence on later writers like Eco and Baudrillard is clear. Other themes continue throughout the stories, like alternative notions of time, and the concept that that the world is one instance of almost infinite possibilities.
Borges is like Philip K. Dick in that both are great at imagining radically different worlds, but don't necessarily excel at expanding these ideas into complete works. Still, both authors make it work. My favorite pieces in this collection include "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Terrius," in which a secret society of scholars have created an encyclopedia for an imaginary world, including a coherent philosophical outlook. Upon learning about this world, the reader is met with the uncanny feeling that it is more real than the "real" world. Another great one is "Library of Babel," in which a library is hypothesized that contains every possible permutation of the alphabet. I also enjoyed the short parable "Borges and I.""
"why havent i read borges before?? no one knows. and he was always pushed upon me - "how can you like marquez if you havent read borges??" "you like donoso - you should read borges." "machado is good, but you should read borges." so - fine - i did. and i am utterly underwhelmed. so there. i am learning during my "summer of classix" that most of the books i have for some reason or another overlooked were probably overlooked for a reason. i naturally gravitate towards what i like - and i seem to have a filter that prevents me from picking up too many books i dont. when i force it, this happens. and i liked some of the stories. but borges isnt for everyone (although scrolling down my "friends who have read" list, it looks as though all my friends gave it five stars.) and im not accusing you bitches of inflating your ratings, but i have the sense with borges that some people are guilted into liking him. or pretending that they like him more than they do because hes borges. but i wont be. because i am not ashamed of my intellectual shortcomings. i embrace them. i am incapable of abstract thought. fact. as hard as i try, that whole achilles/tortoise thing? does not compute. so all of this hexagon spiraling into hexagon on top of hexagon... i feel like i am back in college (where every single person i ever knew had a copy of this book. and was a stoner.)but this is classic stoner thinking-chains. reflections, labyrinths, its perfect for that kind of mindset. "dooood, imagine we were in a hexagon right now??" and i know this makes sense to some people with philosophical and theological mindbents, but for me its almost pain. there were about 6 stories i liked, but the first few almost made me weep with trying to find the value in them. sorry, borges. we were never meant to be.
mmmmkay - it seems that there are those who think it would be valuable "in a book review" to list the stories i did like. so: the shape of the sword, theme of the traitor and the hero, death and the compass, the secret miracle, three versions of judas, story of the warrior and the captive, emma zunz, the house of asterion, and the waiting. more than i thought i liked, but still - a sad minority."
"I actually found a used copy of this New Directions Edition for .39 cents in the front window of a Half-Price Books in Seattle when I was in my early twenties. Myself and a small crowd was gathered in front of the store waiting for it to open when I spotted it. As soon as they opened the door I whisked right over to it and snatched it up - if anybody would have tried to beat me to it, there would have been fisticuffs! This was within a week or two of discovering Borges, so of course I took the book home and ravished it...
This is mind-expanding, mind-blowing stuff. I know I said Cortazar's "Blow-up and other stories" is probably my favorite book of shorts by an author, but I might have to recant... but these "stories" aren't exactly stories in the traditional sense - they are elaborate forays of the mind...
Just read it! or read The Aleph and other stories... or Ficciones... but this collection is the best entry into Borges..."
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