Cerebral Boinkfest celebrates Esperanto

I was rather surprised to wake up on 19 January to find that fellow bibliophile Linda Hedrick, who knows me but didn't know of the Esperanto connection, blogged very favorably about Esperanto:

The Language of Hope

The layout and graphics as well as the content of Linda's presentation are quite pleasing.

Linda's blog Cerebral Boinkfest provides a cornucopia for the intellectual connoisseur. Her husband's blog, The Private Library, devoted to book culture, is also a delight for bibliophiles.

Given the common interest in unusual books, it occurs to me to review my Esperanto collection, itself a huge private library that few institutional libraries in the USA could match, for interesting, unusual books to highlight as a running commentary or series. Of course, all Esperanto books are exotic for the uninitiated English speaker, but rather than approach my collection systematically or highlight the obviously most significant books, it might be stimulating to pick out some publications off the beaten path, that are unique not only because they are written in Esperanto, but because even Esperantists might not ordinarily come across them.

They could be odd originals, or translations of works you could not find in English, such as the Esperanto translation of Leib Malach's Yiddish play about lynch-law in the 1930s, Misisipi, reviewed previously on this blog. I could dig out my stray nudist newsletter from the early '60s, or the collection of composer and Esperantist Lou Harrison's book of poems printed in a special font I chanced upon in the $1 discount bins at Strand Books in New York. Hmmm, this could be fun . . .

Another agenda item would be to write about serious noteworthy books in English on Esperanto. My first two recommendations are from Mondial Books in New York:

Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto by Geoffrey Sutton

Zamenhof: The Life, Works and Ideas of the Author of Esperanto by Aleksander Korzhenkov