A Lover's Discourse
Fragments
1977 · 234 pages
Waiting in a café for someone who does not come, rereading a letter, saying I love you and hearing it fail: Barthes breaks obsession into figures, each spoken in the lover's voice.
★ 5.2
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
If Not, Winter
Fragments of Sappho
600 BC · 416 pages
Western love poetry starts with Sappho, and starts at full pitch: the tongue breaks, thin fire runs under the skin. The poet Anne Carson brackets every gap where the papyrus tore.
★ 6.7
The Invention of Morel
1940 · 103 pages
A fugitive hiding on a deserted island finds the place full of elegant visitors who cannot see him, dancing to the same record week after week. Bioy Casares imagined virtual reality in 1940.
★ 6.8
The Poems of Catullus
54 BC · 359 pages
Latin love poetry begins with Catullus, counting kisses by the thousand for the aristocrat he calls Lesbia and then admitting he hates and loves her at once. The obscenity still stings.
★ 7.4