Which authors could be behind the drones over New Jersey?

By James Folta

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December 19, 2024, 1:28pm

Image via The Guardian and AP

Drones over New Jersey isn’t the name of a terrible new pop punk band, it’s something that’s really happening in The Kingdom of Springsteen. There isn’t a lot of concrete information or explanation about these night visitors. I would guess that this is less likely to be a case of organized conspiracy, and more likely to be a case of weird coincidence, leading to self-fulfilling sightings, leading to predictable online hysteria and bleary idiocy.

Still, the situation has gotten so tense and elevated that the governor urged people to calm down and brought in the FBI to investigate. Even worse, people seem to be taking matters into their own hands, based on this great piece of service journalism by northjersey.com: “Is it legal to shoot down a drone?”

The answer is no, you can’t open fire at lights you see in the sky. But because America treats guns like celebrities (sexy, important, sometimes excusably volatile), you can’t presume that sky-shooting is illegal.

My first thought was that given our foreign policy, it’s a bit rich for Americans to be complaining about unwanted drones in their skies. But my second thought was, “Is this some kind of literary stunt?” Could an author be behind this? And why? Here are my current working theories.

William Gibson
Let’s get the obvious sci-fi guys out of the way here first. Gibson doesn’t strike me as the kind of author who would launch a fleet of drones as a promotional or marketing gimmick, but he does seem like the kind of author who would love to experiment with something bizarre like this. Let him have his fun, I say!

The Ghost of Philip K. Dick
PKD had a lot of well-publicized brushes with the paranormal and paranoid — his phantom twin, his thinking that reality was a mass delusion, his loony accusations that his peers were communist sleeper agents. So I could see him as the kind of person who departed the vale of tears with such strange and aggressive energy that he busted through to a powerful plane of existence where he could possess a bunch of drones to harass Jersey with.

James Patterson
Patterson often cowrites his books, so perhaps these drones are being deployed to pick up last-minute 2024 drafts from his ghostwriters. If you’ve got Patterson money, maybe flying a drone into a contract writer’s window to snag pages or a zip drive is more secure than email. Definitely sounds like more fun, and since he cowrote that book with Bill Clinton, I bet he could get official FAA clearance for something like this.

Zach Braff
Feels like this could be an unorthodox research method for Garden State 2, so that Braff can get a new perspective on his home state. I would watch a Harmony Korine directed sequel to the indie rom-com filmed entirely through night vision drone cameras.

David Brooks
Have the bobos taken to the air? Is America’s real political center ~1,000 feet over New Jersey? Can we expect a forthcoming op-ed titled “What Flying Drones Around Taught Me About Social Media Hysterics, And Why It Explains Trump’s Win”?

Sarah J. Maas
These lights are looking a bit like fae, are they not? Maybe the reigning queen of romantasy is bringing her fantasy world to life. I would be more inclined to think this was Maas if the drones were flying more seductively, like creatures beckoning us to a sexy, more interesting realm — not New York, but rather some kind of hot elves dimension.

Elena Ferrante
Maybe we’ve all been looking in the wrong direction and the elusive, real identity of the author isn’t a person, but rather a confederated collection of Italian rotary-wing aircraft.

Malcolm Gladwell
Mr. 10,000 Hours is a likely culprit to be cruising his drones around the Garden State. Who knows what kind of project it could be for, but I’m sure the lesson will be something about how social media is akin to being a middle child, which explains the whole economy, or that broken windows theory actually was right all along.

Michael Lewis
It just feels like Michael Lewis would do this for an interview. Maybe he’s writing a book on Bezos and is doing a ride-along with Amazon drones?

dril
The writer and comedian behind the @dril account is from Jersey, and has already posted about the drones twice. And incessantly buzzing the home state with drones for asinine reasons sounds like something dril would do. Could these weird buzzing lights be Weird Twitter jumping into the real world?

The rom-com of…Young Werther? Goethe’s famous sadsack is getting a new adaptation.

By Brittany Allen

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December 18, 2024, 2:29pm

That’s right, reader. A new film is putting a sly spin on the patron saint of emo kids.

Even before it made the enduring mold for a certain sort of sad boy—never forget that Dan “Gossip Girl” Humphrey was a mega-Werther fan—Goethe’s romantic tragedy rocked the literary world on its publication in 1774. An epistolary novel built of letters from Werther, a listless member of the eighteenth century German middle class, the book describes one young man’s consuming crush on the lamentably engaged Charlotte. Werther’s letters render the pain of unrequited love with a Sturm and Drang that expressed—or maybe anticipated—the angsty teenager.

The book resonated so deeply with young readers that it inspired a fleet of copy cats, who’d occasionally come down with a fatal case of Werther fever.

Though Goethe’s novel ends in tragedy—it’s called Sorrows, after all—this newest adaptation seeks light. In writer/director José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço’s cheeky hands, Werther gets the Millennial treatment. Our hero’s inciting quest is framed as a pretext for a quarter-life rumspringa. And the ultimately doomed love triangle the action spins on is imperiled, in part, because Charlotte’s fiancee Albert (played by Patrick J. Adams) fails to achieve the ideal work life balance.

Thanks to production designer Ciara Vernon, the visuals also tend toward the lively. Werther’s world is rendered in sumptuous, saturated jewel tones, lending the world an out-of-time anachronism. (We’re in an old-timey Europe that permits the occasional iPhone.) Alison Pill, a general pleasure to have in class, breathes a wryness into Charlotte. And as played by Douglas Booth, this Werther is no pasty poet, but a gimlet-eyed ruffian with smoldering eyes.

Lourenço, who aspired to be a novelist before coming to filmmaking and has since written children’s books and journalism, first encountered Werther in a third year “coming of age lit” class. There he was struck by the narrator’s abjection, but also saw something kinda goofy in the guy. “The letters are just these cathartic outpourings…so full of melancholy,” he told me. “They’re so whiny…it’s a very woe-is-me kind of approach. Which I think is very funny.”

He’s aware that his film joins a “cornucopia of Werthers out there in the world.” (Did you know that the book inspired an opera? Or that Thomas Mann once took a pass at a sequel?) However his may be the only version to emphasize the comedy in the source material. That’s as much a function of the director’s style as anything Goethe put on the page.

Describing his aesthetic, Lourenço cited Howard Hawks and Mike Nichols as touchstones. “I love snappy dialogue, I love characters who are constantly one-upping each other. I love… characters who can make each other laugh,” he said. “I love films where you can hear the writing. I love experiencing worlds that clearly have some artifice to them…Who cares about real life?”

That ethos explains why characters in this sorrow tend to speak in banter, rather like they’re always experiencing, in Pill’s phrasing, “their best wittiest day on their fourth cup of coffee.”

Lourenço found the novel’s “pure brutal tragedy” less interesting to explore in a heightened register. And striking a tone that put youthful heartbreak into perspective felt truer to life—at least in this century. This same logic helps account for the film’s deviations from Goethe’s plot.

Though not every attempt to lighten and heighten made the cut—a skeet shooting scene that Lourenço initially hoped to film on top of a skyscraper in downtown Toronto was thwarted by a safety-minded location scout—readers inclined to faithful adaptations should proceed with caution. Specifically towards the film’s end, where (and ahoy, spoilers ahead) the absence of some Sturm und Drang has apparently offended some viewers.

Lourenço hastens to note that he understands if fervent Werther heads struggle with his Gerwigian, less-than-bleak denouement. But he’s also not too pressed about slaking the diehards. There was freedom in knowing his was not the final word on Werther. “If you want the beat for beat pure adaptation,” he said, “it’s out there.”

But in the meantime? This one’s fun.

According to library checkouts, New Yorkers read a lot of Gabrielle Zevin this year.

By James Folta

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December 18, 2024, 2:26pm

Today, NYC’s public library systems—The New York Public Library (which serves Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island), Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library—released their lists of the books New Yorkers checked out of the library the most in 2024.

The stats compile checkouts in all formats, and are broken down by library system, borough, and book demographic. There aren’t a ton of big surprises, but it’s a varied and interesting window into what people are reading.

Topping the citywide list was Gabrielle Zevin’s perennially popular Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, followed by two newer books, Happy Place by Emily Henry and Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Overall, this seems like a pretty representative cross-section of what people are reading: book club darlings, romance, and romantasy. A couple of big prize winners cracked the top ten too: Pulitzer Prize winner Demon Copperhead and National Book Award winner The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.

There were a number of new releases that made these top-tens—The Women, James, Crosshairs, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, Never Too Late — but I noticed just as many if not more books from 2023 on these lists. I wonder if people are borrowing the newish, buzzy books that they want to read, but that have been available for just long enough that they no longer feel pressed to plunk down for the hardcover?

The kid book lists are much more homogenous and expected, to my eye. Romantasy and dystopia-for-kids mainstays Sarah J. Maas and Suzanne Collins dominated the YA lists, while Jeff Kinney of Captain Underpants fame commanded the kids’ top tens. With The Hunger Games series, it’s interesting to me that only the first and last books in the series are cracking the top ten — might be related to a fifth Hunger book coming next year?

I’d be curious to see a list that sorts what people are checking out by age range, because I have to imagine a lot of these YA readers are old enough to have bought their first album on CD. I was, however, glad to see that kids/kids-at-heart are still reading A Wrinkle in Time!

There is a throughline to at least one library system’s lists; Queens Public Library Chief Librarian Nick Buron noticed an interesting trend in two out of their three top tens:

While our readers’ adult and young adult choices span a variety of genres, including thrillers, fantasies, historical fiction and romance, they have one interesting thing in common—all of the authors are women.

Queens for queens!

Overall, these are fun lists! As a big fan of the library, I was delighted to see the variety of books that people are checking out — it seems like a lot of us are using the library. And a celebration of a resilient and vital public service, that is open to all and not trying to make money, is exactly the kind of shot in the arm I need at the end of this year.

Here are the lists, in full!

TOP 10 ADULT TITLES

Citywide:

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
2. Happy Place by Emily Henry
3. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
4. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
5. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
6. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
7. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
8. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
9. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
10. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

The New York Public Library Systemwide:

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
2. Happy Place by Emily Henry
3. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
4. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson
5. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
6. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
7. Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez
8. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
9. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
10. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

The Bronx:

1. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
2. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
3. The Women by Kristin Hannah
4. Happy Place by Emily Henry
5. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
6. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
7. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
8. The Exchange: After the Firm by John Grisham
9. Crosshairs by James Patterson and James O. Born
10. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Manhattan:

1. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
3. The Women by Kristin Hannah
4. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
5. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
6. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
7. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
8. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
9. James by Percival Everett
10. Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Staten Island:

1. The Women by Kristin Hannah
2. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
3. Upside Down by Danielle Steel
4. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
5. TIE Happy Place by Emily Henry
6. TIE The Exchange: After The Firm by John Grisham
7. Never Too Late by Danielle Steel
8. The Teacher by Freida McFadden
9. TIE The Coworker by Freida McFadden
10. TIE Never Lie by Freida McFadden

Brooklyn Public Library

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
2. Yellowface: A Novel by R.F. Kuang
3. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
4. Demon Copperhead: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
5. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
6. Hello Beautiful: A Novel by Ann Napolitano
7. Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett
8. The Fraud by Zadie Smith
9. The Guest: A Novel by Emma Cline
10. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

Queens Public Library

1. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
2. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
3. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
5. Babel: An Arcane History by R. F. Kuang
6. The Teacher by Freida McFadden
7. Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose
8. Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
9. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
10. It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover

TOP 10 YOUNG ADULT TITLES

The New York Public Library

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
2. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
3. Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
4. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
6. The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
7. A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
8. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
9. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
10. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Brooklyn Public Library

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
2. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
3. Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
4. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
6. If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin
7. Demon Slayer by Koyoharu Gotoge
8. Divine Rivals: A Novel by Rebecca Ross
9. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
10. Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

Queens Public Library

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
2. A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
3. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
4. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
5. A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas
6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
7. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
8. The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
9. Lightlark by Alex Aster
10. Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen

TOP 10 CHILDREN TITLES

The New York Public Library

1. No Brainer by Jeff Kinney
2. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
3. Big Shot by Jeff Kinney
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End by Jeff Kinney
6. Cat Kid Comic Club #5: Influencers by Dav Pilkey (words, illustrations, and artwork), with digital color by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba
7. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball by Jeff Kinney
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down by Jeff Kinney
9. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney

Brooklyn Public Library

1. Diary of A Wimpy Kid: No Brainer by Jeff Kinney
2. Cat Kid Comic Club #5: Influencers by Dav Pilkey (words, illustrations, and artwork), with digital color by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba
3. Dog Man: Unleashed by Dav Pilkey
4. Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea by Dav Pilkey
5. Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Diper Överlöad by Jeff Kinney
6. Guts by Raina Telgemeier
7. Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties by Dav Pilkey
8. Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
9. Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild by Dav Pilkey
10. Dog Man: Mothering Heights by Dav Pilkey

Queens Public Library

1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Diper Överlöde by Jeff Kinney
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Big Shot by Jeff Kinney
3. Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea by Dav Pilkey
4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End by Jeff Kinney
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer by Jeff Kinney
6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball by Jeff Kinney
7. Dog Man: Fetch-22 by Dav Pilkey
8. Dog Man: Mothering Heights by Dav Pilkey
9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown by Jeff Kinney
10. Dog Man: Grime and Punishment by Dav Pilkey

Blake Butler! A Dostoevskyian Turkish classic! Giftable editions! 10 new books out today.

By Gabrielle Bellot

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December 17, 2024, 4:34am

The holidays are approaching, and, with them, the end of 2024. As we near December’s various holidays and the start of an unpredictable 2025, observant readers will doubtless see that there haven’t been as many new books to list here as usual. This often happens in the publishing industry around this time of year, and the larger round-ups of books you’ve come to expect will return in the new year, when the pace of publishing quickens once more.

But with all of that said, I still have a selection of new titles out today that are worth checking out, some of which are new editions or revisions of beloved classics. There’s especially a lot of fiction to consider today.

In fiction, we have Suat Derviş’s classic Turkish novel The Prisoner of Ankara, which has been compared to Dostoevsky; Blake Butler’s Lynchian novel Void Corporation, which is a reworking of his 2020 work Alice Knott; a deluxe edition of Finnish folklore and myths in Emily Rath’s fantasy North Is the Night; an extra-deluxe edition of Dumas’ lesser-known entry in the Musketeers series, The Man in the Iron Mask; LH Moore with an experimental compilation of short stories, poems, and essays; and more. And in nonfiction, we have Ingrid D. Rowland on artistic lies; Mary E. Hicks on the complex role of Black mariners during the transatlantic trade; and Marc Leepson with a Vietnam War memoir praised by Tim O’Brien.

It’s a shorter list, but there are still titles to be excited about, as well as books that might double as excellent gifts. Let those to-be-read piles grow.

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Suat Dervis, The Prisoner of Ankara (trans. Maureen Freely)
(Other Press)

“Set in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire, The Prisoner of Ankara is a vivid and evocative novel, reminiscent of Dostoevsky, that brings to life the despair of prison and poverty, the sorrow of loving an illusion, and the hope that exists in humanity’s compassion for each other, despite it all.”
–Jamila Ahmed

Emily Rath, North Is the Night: Deluxe Limited Edition
(Erewhon)

“Rich, vivid, and brimming with emotion, North Is the Night pays touching homage to Finnish culture and mythology while forging a unique path all its own….[W]eep and cheer for Siiri and Aina as they find their strength and claim their power.”
–Vaishnavi Patel

Blake Butler, Void Corporation
(Archway Editions)

“Blake Butler is one of our most fearless insurgents against the numbing flow of contemporary life. With [Void Corporation, a revised version of Alice Knott] he’s created a Lynchian fever dream about the voracious march of capitalism and the vulnerable place of art in our society, with vividly crisp sentences and syntax that could cut diamonds.”
–Catherine Lacey

Ingrid D. Rowland, The Lies of the Artists: Essays on Italian Art, 1450 – 1750
(MIT Press)

“Rowland is a respected historian at the University of Notre Dame who has written a series of books about the art of the Renaissance. This collection of essays focuses on artists who “lied”: that is, who were able to depict reality in a way that went beyond the realistic to reach a sublime level. This was considered a pinnacle of achievement, and Rowland traces the idea through some of the key works of the era….A novel approach to Renaissance art.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Marc Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero: A Vietnam War POW’s Story of Courage and Resilience in the Hanoi Hilton
(Stackpole Books)

“What a strange, fascinating, and ultimately powerful account of one man’s endurance of life as a POW during the American war in Vietnam. Doug Hegdahl, the youngest and lowest ranking prisoner in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, survived with a mix of courage and cunning, fortitude and the wiliness of a fox. This book, I believe, will stand the test of time as one of the finest nonfiction narratives to emerge from the Vietnam War.”
–Tim O’Brien

Mary E. Hicks, Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery
(Omohundro Institute / University of North Carolina Press)

“Persuasively argued, absorbing, and deeply researched, Captive Cosmopolitans offers a much-needed, major study of Black mariners’ lives, mobility, and influence…masterfully uncovers the tensions of these sailors’ roles within the transatlantic slave trade….This work stands on par with the best scholarship on Atlantic history, reshaping our understanding of slavery, maritime labor, and cosmopolitanism in the early modern era.”
–Roquinaldo Ferreira

LH Moore, Breath of Life
(Apex Book Company)

“Moore explores the geologic past and the distant future in her eclectic debut collection of nine short stories, two essays, and two poems. Most of the stories are historical horror….The essays…focus on Moore’s experience working as a ghost hunter and a speculative fiction writer, respectively…there’s plenty to enjoy, and those who have followed Moore’s work…will be glad to find it collected in one place.”
–Publishers Weekly

Charif Majdalani, A History of the House (trans. Ruth Diver)
(Other Press NY)

“With a literary style and leisurely flow, French Lebanese writer Majdalani thoroughly details the narrator’s journey as they meander through a hundred years of family history. Originally published in French in 2005, this lavishly written family saga retains its elegant storytelling through Diver’s translation.”
–Booklist

Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask (Collector’s Edition)
(Revive Classics)

“A complex tapestry of fact and fiction and of the personal and the political, The Man in the Iron Mask serves as a moving and psychologically nuanced conclusion to the Musketeer trilogy.”
–Barbara T. Cooper

J.A. Jance, Cruel Intent
(Gallery Books)

“Jance, whose books are read by millions, is on to something.”
–Kathleen Daley

Move over, Alexandria: A new exhibit features lost, imagined, and totally fake books.

By Brittany Allen

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December 16, 2024, 2:25pm

For the next few months in New York City, book nerds with a penchant for esoterica can enjoy a special treat.

The Grolier Club, “America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts,” is currently hosting a (free!) exhibition built of books that do not, technically, exist.

Curated by Club member Reid Byers and described—by its own wall copy—as both a “collection of imaginary books” and a “post-structuralist conceptual art installation,” the exhibit includes simulacra, parodies, and lots of cheeky easter eggs for the well-read. Viewers can peep the lovingly crafted jackets of lost books, complete with framing copy. Though the insides, of course, remain a mystery.

Books are lumped into a few different categories. There are the “Lost Books,” like Hemingway’s famously misplaced One Must First Endure. Then there are hypothetical, alleged drafts, referenced but never read—like Shakespeare’s dubious sequel, Love’s Labour’s Won. 

But the real gold resides—for this viewer, anyway—in the “Fictive Fiction” section, which features books referenced in other books. Curator copy is often unflinching in this part of the exhibit, and quick to explain why a certain manuscript may have never seen the light of day. For instance, the Reverend Edward Casaubon (of Middlemarch)’s behemoth, A Key To All Mythologies is described as “astonishingly boring.”

A first edition of the (fake) fiction, The Lady Who Loved Lightning.

Then there are the famously unfinished books. In this corner of the exhibit, Samuel Coleridge’s Kubla Khan at last sees the light of binding. As does Karl Marx’s short-lived poetic experiment, Scorpion and Felix—which the great thinker apparently burned in a fire before it could tarnish his legacy.

Moving into the main hall, one can find useful reference texts, like The Bene Gesserit Code and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy filed under “Non-Existent Non-Fiction.”

Elsewhere, Borges, that first fake librarian, is name-checked. A copy of “his” Don Quijote is featured in the collection, nestled in among the grimoires and imaginary histories. Also The Garden of Forking Paths, a text first mentioned in his Ficciones.

A rare copy of Jonathan Strange’s ur-text on English magic.

If you’re curious about the sort of person inclined to create a fake library in this day and age, you wouldn’t be wrong to picture an eccentric with certain Thomas Crown characteristics. As Sophie Haigney reported in The New York Times, collection curator Reid Byers “started thinking about imaginary books 15 years ago, when he was having a jib door—a door disguised as part of a wall of bookshelves—made for his private library.”

The reigning President of the New England bibliophiles’ Baxter Society, Byers has long been a zealot for libraries of all sizes. He apparently built his public lark with the commissioned help of “two bookbinders, a letterpress printer, a calligrapher and a magician.”

A true Hitchhiker’s Guide, care of Arthur Dent.

During my visit to the Grolier Club on a frigid Friday afternoon, I overheard a spirited debate between two patrons who couldn’t seem to settle on the layers of meta-fiction present. “But this one’s real, surely?” one woman cried, of a hardback attributed to Peter and Katherine Sherritt Sagamore. “I’m afraid not,” her companion replied, tapping the glass case. For on inspection, these Tidewater Tales were in fact an intertextual allusion from the mind of author John Barth. The fake book, a “jointly authored, mise-en-âbime” is referenced in his real novel…The Tidewater Tales.

Another visitor toggling between bewilderment and delight was inspired to wonder aloud, Causabon-style, about the existential nature of IP. “You know Arcadia the play was supposedly a rip-off of A.S. Byatt’s Possession?” he asked the room. Amusingly, the man was standing in front of a display featuring fictional books from both those properties: Hannah Jarvis’ The Genius of the Place (first referenced in Top Stoppard’s Arcadia), and a copy of The Fairy Melusine (from Possession). That’s to say that for a moment in space-time, we were all arguably paying homages to an homage of an homage of an homage.

The Grolier Club will host the Imaginary Books through February 15th. After that—rejoice, West Coast—the exhibit heads to San Francisco, where it will be displayed at the Book Club of California.

Eventually, per the catalog copy, the books will return to a permanent home a the Le Club Fortsas in Paris.

Though that bibliophiles’ society may be another fiction. If Google Maps is to be believed.