There’s more to us than joyless cynicism here at AUFS — we also want stuff, we want things. In the last couple years, for instance, I’ve started to want a lot of clothes. I suspect that this is a desire that can be satiated, since I experienced a similar lust for shoes for a while there, which calmed down once I obtained my rather minimal idea of a “full set” (one casual and one dressy in black and brown; one set of tennis shows).
My clothing drives would have to reach truly pathological levels, though, to reach the intensity of my desire for books. Every time I’m at Anna Kornbluh’s house, for instance, I long for her full sets of Lacan and Freud in the original. And this leads me to my proposed open thread today: what gift of books would be your wish come true? (Assume money is no object.)
For me (sorry, Lacan!), I think it would be the Corpus Christianorum edition of Augustine’s De Trinitate, along with a gift card good for ten volumes in the Sources Chrétiennes series.
Friday, November 23, 2012 at 11:56 am
I would appreciate, Santa, the eight-volume complete prose of Milton.
Friday, November 23, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Heidegger’s “Gesamtausgabe” in English.
Friday, November 23, 2012 at 2:19 pm
The entire new addition of Church Dogmatics.
Friday, November 23, 2012 at 5:34 pm
Full set of Danielle Steele hardcovers (Large Print edition). Interior redecoration.
Friday, November 23, 2012 at 5:36 pm
All fifteen volumes of Brecht’s Versuche would be impressive.
Friday, November 23, 2012 at 5:50 pm
People always want the full Church Dogmatics — why does von Balthasar’s trilogy never get any love?
Friday, November 23, 2012 at 6:01 pm
The Luce and Jessop edited 9-volume Works of George Berkeley. Either that or almost everything from the Library of America.
Friday, November 23, 2012 at 10:20 pm
Now that you mention it, having von Balthasar’s trilogy would be incredible. I’ll take both.
Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 7:23 am
Herzen’s “My Past and Thoughts” (6 Vols) is pretty high on my list at the moment.
Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 7:29 am
The multi-volume Summa with both Latin and English text (and comments from people like Herbert McCabe). The paperback edition would do, I’m not being demanding here.
Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 7:58 am
(I should say that it’s obvious ambzone has “won” this thread.)
Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Milbank’s two volume study of Vico. No joke. I’ve been trying to get that at an affordable price for years. And yeah I’d like to have the rest of the Balthasar set as well (at present I have several sporadic volumes from each series).
Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 7:28 pm
Complete Weimar edition of Luther, all 121 volumes.
Sunday, November 25, 2012 at 2:33 pm
This thread brought home to me the real difference between most of our readers and the other authors here!
Hmm… I guess I’d go with all the Brigham Young Islamic Philosophy translations, the Institute for Ismaili Studies series, the few Laruelle books I don’t have due to cost ($150 for his book on Nietzsche), the Stanford UP catalog for their two useful series, and Sources Chrétiennes as well. Though those new translations of the Summa would have been nice a few years back, though I always used the ones in the library.
Monday, November 26, 2012 at 9:41 am
Do i get points if i say After the Postsecular and the Postmodern?
If not, then two Brill series: Islamic History and Civilization and Studies in Islamic Law and Society.
Monday, December 3, 2012 at 6:13 am
Santa usually comes through with the goods – this year, I have a good feeling about a series of colloquiums on the history of zoological knowledge I’ve been coveting. I look forward to future gifts of Loisel’s Histoire des Menageries and, when Santa can afford it, Buffon.