Private Library Photos

  About these two personal libraries, I know little. It is simply the case that the pictures of the books show up in essays about the individuals, both of whom produced books you may have among your own.

ErIc Hobsbawm

  This photograph is from “The Century of Eric Hobsbawm”, by Enzo Traverso, The Ideas Letter, June 25, 2026. In it, it is mentioned that a new biography of Hobsbawm will soon be published by Belknap Press (Harvard University Press). The title: The Age of Hobsbawm; The Life of a Revolutionary Historian, by Emile Chabal.

  I often have rambled on about periodicals and Hobsbawm co-founded one in 1952 - Past & Present, which is still being published by Oxford.

A Bonus: (This is from the essay mentioned.)

 “Hobsbawm loved jazz—a passion he wrote about under the nickname of Francis Newton, becoming a reputed jazz critic for The New Statesman. But in this realm, too, his tastes favored the classics: In his eyes, Miles Davis and John Coltrane simply could not compete with Duke Ellington.”

William T. Vollmann

   I am sure I have read some of Vollmann's magazine pieces, but have none of his books. If you are unfamiliar with him, you should see the interesting Wikipedia entry and read Mr. Sorondo's essay.
   The pictures are from this substack: "We Always Leave Things Unfinished", by Alexander Sorondo, in Big Reader Bad Grades, June 30, 2026. Have a look.

   Mr. Vollmann lives in Sacramento and apparently these books are found in a former Mexican restaurant that Vollmann "bought in 2000 and converted into a studio. The building is closed-in with a tight perimeter of chainlink fence."
   Mr. Vollmann is not well.
If you think you might want to purchase some of his work for your library, leave ample room. In 2003 he produced a massive "seven-volume treatise on violence and his new novel is coming out in August. A Table for Fortune has over 3,000 pages.