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A Complete List of the 300 books from David Foster Wallace’s Personal Library at the University of Texas at Austin Archive.
This article originally appeared at Veritrope.com
DFW Annotated Copy of Don DeLillo's Players

Inside cover of David Foster Wallace's annotated copy of Don DeLillo's Players. Harry Ransom Center.

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE was working on a novel when he committed suicide in September 2008. Coinciding with its posthumous release as The Pale King, the University of Texas at Austin has opened its Archive of Writer David Foster
Wallace — a special collection of his notes, manuscripts, and personal effects. Made up of 34 document boxes and 8 oversize folders, the collection has received as much attention for what it reveals about Wallace as a reader as for the window it provides into his creative process as a writer.

The Archive has about 300 books from Wallace’s personal library, many of them substantially annotated. I decided to make a complete list for myself by searching the special collection via the University’s online card catalog… and I thought other people might also be curious about what was on his bookshelf.

So for the convenience of bookworms everywhere, I am sharing it in the table below.1 There’s a really interesting blend of material and topics here so, if you’ve been looking for some good book recommendations, you should be set for a while!

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  1. I did my best to make the corresponding Amazon links point to the correct translation / edition of the work in question. [↩]

How nations choose to cooperate to fight the spread of organized crime (or, in many cases, choose not to) can tell us a lot about our priorities as citizens of our respective countries — and as members of the larger world.
This article originally appeared at Veritrope.com

When Ludmila first succeeded in escaping, she was handed back to her pimp by the duty sergeant, who happened to be a client of the brothel. In response, she was beaten senseless by her “owner”. The second time she got away, she handed herself in to a police station in another part of town. As is habitual, she was charged with being an illegal immigrant and thrown into a detention center for several months as her deportation order was processed.

When she finally arrived back in Chisinau, destitute and traumatized for life, Ludmila could not return to her home, partly for reasons of shame but above all for fear of being found by her traffickers. Hers is an everyday story of life in Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, and Israel.

The day after I had spoken to Ludmila, her case worker called. “I forgot to mention,” she said, “Ludmila is now HIV-positive.” Unsurprisingly, combination therapy is not readily available in a country such as Moldova.1

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  1. Glenny, M. (2008). McMafia: a journey through the global criminal underworld. pp. 109-110. New York: Knopf Books. [↩]