blogis librorum. A blog about books. Rare books.

Mario Vargas Llosa may be one of the finest writers of his generation, but that is not all the man does. His passion for language is coupled with his passion for book collecting and a desire to do great works as well as write them. Among numerous other endeavors, he is finding his place on the stage, and he has recently donated two massive collections to the Arequipa Regional Library. Along with his ongoing commitment to donate further from his personal collection, this donation brings the total number of volumes into the tens of thousands.  

One of the most prominent literary voices for political freedom and racial equality in South Africa, Nadine Gordimer wrote fifteen novels, more than two hundred short stories, and numerous other essays and works of criticism. Gordimer resided in Johannesburg, South Africa, a city that features prominently in her fiction. After her death in 2014, literary magazines across the world published tributes to the writer and her role in the anti-apartheid movement. Gordimer’s literature remains essential to any consideration of the relationship between fiction and politics. With so many works to choose from, where should a reader begin? Tracking a career that spans more than sixty years, here are five of the most influential books of Nadine Gordimer.

Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez is undoubtedly Colombia’s best known and best loved literary export. His novels, often placed under the umbrella of Magical Realism, bring an unmatched blend of styles and ideas to the rendering of love, death, and loss in his native South America. Though his works—including One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), and many other internationally acclaimed novels—are unmistakably his own, much of his success has come from the inimitable ways he draws on his literary influences.

Pat Conroy, best known for his novels The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, has died. Conroy's books are filled with memorable characters and compelling story-lines. His stormy childhood and strained relationship with numerous family members were often the inspiration for his relatable brand of Southern Literature. In 2009, Conroy was admitted to the South Carolina Hall of Fame.

Legendary author Harper Lee passed away today at the age of 89. She leaves behind a legacy that has reverberated through the international literary community since the publication of her landmark novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, in 1960. The novel was an instant sensation worldwide and earned Lee a number of prestigious accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961.

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” —Oscar Wilde

At the outset, the proceedings that led to Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for sodomy read much like his plays. Four days after the successful London premier of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), arguably the absolute pinnacle of 19th century comedic farce, John Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry (creator of a set of eponymous, wildly circulated boxing rules), left a calling card at Wilde’s club. It read: “For Oscar Wilde, posing as somdomite" [sic].

What would it look like to take a trek across the country (and outside the country, too) to visit all of the homes and favorite haunts of Ernest Hemingway? The novelist and short-story writer made his homes in seemingly disparate parts of the United States and the Caribbean, not to mention the years he spent living abroad as an expatriate in Paris, France. We’re intrigued by the varied climates that captured the writer’s interest, particularly in relation to his relatively domestic beginnings in Oak Park, Illinois. So, if you were going to take a tour through Hemingway’s life, what homes would need to make your list?

As one of the world’s first celebrity authors, much is known about Charles Dickens. He was an active public figure, one who liked walking about London, appearing in the press, and traveling and performing his works around the world. Even someone who hasn’t read Dickens will know something about his squalid childhood or his noble politics. But what about those facts and details that slip by the typical biography?

Picture this: two feuding men standing back-to-back, pistols at the ready, taking ten paces and then whipping around in the hopes of being the first to unload a bullet into his opponent. Sound familiar? Something straight out of a Western, right? You’ve read about duels in the novels of Zane Grey and Larry McMurtry. You’ve seen them on the big screen in films starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson. You've watched them help define a man's honor and legacy on television in Gunsmoke and Maverick. But what about authors who've actually participated in duels? They are our focus today.

Scots take their celebrations seriously. Food, drink, music, and dance are staples in almost all Scottish shindigs, and these elements of Scottish festivities are on no greater display than in the annual Burns Night gatherings to celebrate the life and work of famed Scottish poet, Robert Burns.

Also referred to as Burns Suppers, Burns Night celebrations have been common across Scotland and Northern Ireland since the first Burns Night commemoration in the early 1800s, not long after Burns' death in 1796. Burns Nights also became increasingly popular in the U.K. and New Zealand during the 19th Century in large part because Burns’ nephew, Thomas Burns, is considered one of New Zealand’s founding fathers.