Bukowski books in public libraries (1 Viewer)

When I discovered Bukowski around 1990, there were five or six books of him in the public library of my hometown. No poetry collections. Only short stories and two novels.
25 years later you can lend fifteen different Bukowski books, i.a. four collections of poetry, Ham on Rye and Pulp, and the posthumous collections edited by David Calonne (Portions, Absence and More Notes). The choice of books could be larger, of course, but this is a small town (pop. 80.000),
so it's not too bad I think. They are on the right track.

What about the library in your hometown? Is Bukowski's work sufficiently represented?
 
No, it's not! The only Buk books that got translated over here re the six novels, a collection of short stories from "Erections" and a thin poetry collection and that was years ago. That's eight books in total and I´m not sure if our libraries got them all.
However, they did make "Pulp" into an audio book too. I just wish they had chosen one of the other novels instead. Funny, there's no Buk audio books in English.
 
I own so many damn books I can't think about my local library. I'm not good about reading borrowed books. I'd prefer to own them and never read them rather than to borrow them and have a deadline. I have too many deadlines in my work to let those unenforced deadlines spill over into my free time; what little I have.

Credit to my Mother, however. She would bring me library books and books and books when I was in elementary school through first year of high school, and I devoured them. She also knew when to quit.
 
There are zero Bukowski books or other items at the public library in the podunk West Texas town where I'm currently living. I would doubt if any of the librarians employed here have even heard of Charles Bukowski.
 
So Bukowski is underrepresented in Copenhagen, ignored in Texas and appreciated in Canada. 27 and even 51 listings, that's how it should be.
 
My local library has 1 item: The People Look Like Flowers At Last.

The University of Texas library (a few towns over) has 53 items listed. There are also 133 items listed at a rare books center on the same campus which includes novels, poetry collections, art, etc. A lot of the books in the main library collection are unfortunately "missing", i.e. stolen.
 
I think there is another thread about this, but I remember reading that people used to brag to Bukowski that they stole his books from libraries.
 
I blame Abbie Hoffman for starting the book stealing trend. :hmh:


AbbieHoffman-2.jpg
 
Strangely (or maybe not) there are three books about Buk (Sounes, Polimeni and Miles) but only one book of John Martin's poetry. All of the books are new editions, so I'm guessing sticky fingers have been afoot, as I borrowed a couple of older editions (of the novels) about ten years ago.
 
Milwaukee county library has a ton, I got about 20+ books out of their lib system before I had to buy them myself. They even have a first edition hardcover captains out to lunch, and I think I few other early BSP books that are for ref use only but They have every novel, a ton of collections, Last night of earth poems, hardcover BSP love is a dog from hell, etc. They do have way too much posthumous work though, that really threw me off at the beginning before I knew what was what.
 
I remember finding only one volume of Bukowski's at The Poetry Library in the Royal Festival Hall, but what a volume: stained as a dosshouse mattress. The Dates Ran Away...
 
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I remember finding only one volume of Bukowski's at The Poetry Library in the Royal Festival Hall, but what a volume: stained as a dosshouse mattress.
Reminds me of a book that I once lent a couple: She's a German teacher and he's a philosophy professor working in Denmark. Sophisticated people, you would think. Careful people.
Two weeks later they returned the book. I didn't recognize it. It was stained, it was crushed and consumed.
They didn't say a word. Not worth mentioning they thought.
They are right, maybe, but I've stopped lending books since then.
 
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It is odd that Martin - a smart businessman - didn't talk Buk into recording audiobooks of the novels. Maybe that was because BSP didn't do much audio stuff. (Or maybe they did, you can correct me on that.) Certainly if Buk had been with a bigger house in the late 80s/90s they would have produced audiobooks. Burroughs read Junky for an audiobook in the early 90s.
 
Well, Harper Collins did get him to read from Run With the Hunted, that CD is out there and they classify it as an "audiobook," though it's really just excerpts.

I think in general Bukowski isn't really something the audiobook crowd would flock to.
 

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