Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion

I figured I'd bring this up since there's been talk about "The Taebek Mountains" on the long book thread. Any other books that are impossible or very, very difficult to find? I've had no luck finding Professor Unrat by Heinrich Mann in English. All I was able to find was a movie tie-in version called "The Blue Angel" which incoporated scenes from the script of that film! Obviously, I'm not going to waste my time with a translation that tampers with plot elements by adding outside sources.

Any other hard-to-find books?

oddly enough, i had a heck of a time getting a hold of 'glamorama' for the book club here a couple of months ago. no copies to be had in my county at all. fortunately, the public libraries are all linked up to each other, so they were able to get it in from inter-library-loan from baltimore county. odd, because i'd always thought of ILL as a program for college libraries to move scarce scholarly texts around as needed. apparently the system works for all.

i guess i'm saying for those tricky ones, go talk to your librarian about getting it shipped in from cross-country somewhere. i totally love my tax dollars at work!

Good Morning Midnight and A Handful of Dust, were both works that were assigned to me for a course I was taking and I knew it would be cheaper to get them at a regular book store than the campus store. But I looked everwhere. In both used/old book stores, and in chain book stores and could not find any one of those books. I ended having to get both of those from the school book store.

Also I had a really hard time finding A Clockwork Orange.

That's pretty nice actually. I was looking for a couple books in my old library system last year, and they just weren't ordering them. You could "suggest a purchase" but there was no way they'd ever buy it unless a lot of people requested it. My new county is on top of it. You place a request, it seems like they buy the book. It may take a few weeks, but they get it. But there is a lot more money floating around here then where I came from...that might make a difference.
I'll have to remember ILL in case I can't get what I want, though. It's really cool they've opened that up to the public more.

A Clock work Orange? Really, that's a classic. Maybe you had problems because it is sort of a banned book in some places.

Yes that could but I just know there were a couple of differnet book stores that usually have a really good classic section that I often go to for my books, and neither one had it.

Though for that book I did not look in the major chain type stores, because they are usually too expensive for me.

I often use ILLIAD to get books from my library. Even though our system is pretty well stocked I sometimes find that there are books they don't have. The caveat to our ILLIAD (not sure if this applies to all) is that you can't request books that have only been released for 6 months or less - so no snarking hot new copies from other libs. I guess.

I also find that sometimes if I request a book the library doesn't have through ILLIAD that occasionally the library will purchase that book.

Like you I love seeing my tax dollars at work!

What's ILLIAD? Is it something that all public libraries are involved with? We have a regional library, and even with that, I still can't get the books I want. That's why I do booksfree!

Librivox.org is a project of reading books and releasing them to the public domain. It is an ever expanding audio library. No registration or fees.

I love to hear books so I'm listening to alot of the 1001, and I've found alot of the classics on there. There are several ways of getting the audio files including downloading directly from the site as wells as itunes podcasts.
*sorry for the advertisement and I'm no way associated with them but thought it might help others*

I got an 1895 edition of John Lyly's Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (also included in this volume is "Euphues and His England). It was one of the 1001 books, 2006 edition. Very difficult to read as it is in old English. One sentence, for example, reads:

"Wayinge with my felfe the force of friendfhippe by the effects, I ftudyed euer fince my firft comming to Naples to enter league with fuch a one as might direct my fleps being a ftranger, and refemble my manners being a fcholler, the which two qualities as I find in you able to fatiffie my defire, fo I hope I fhal finde a heart in you willinge to accomplift my requeft."

Is this a hard-to-find book? Maybe not. Coz I found it!

I cannot find Adjunct by Peter Manson anywhere....and I had some trouble finding A Modest Proposal but I was able to access it on Project Gutenberg.