Friday, September 5, 2025

Cormac McCarthy's library

 Smithsonian magazine has an article that seeks to give us a glimpse of Cormac McCarthy’s mind by giving us a glimpse of his library.

With 20,000 books, you’ll find something to like. My favorite parts of the collection: a lot of books on Wittgenstein and the collected works of Charles S. Peirce.

I was pleased to learn that McCarthy annotated his books. Not everyone reads with a pencil. Not everyone gets most of his education by thinking with a book in hand.

I’m not a Cormackian. I read the article because I’m interested in the premise, the idea that some things — libraries, notebooks, lists — give us a glimpse of how a person went about thinking.

• Richard Grant, “Two Years After Cormac McCarthy’s Death, Rare Access to His Personal Library Reveals the Man Behind the Myth”; Smithsonian, September/October 2025.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/two-years-cormac-mccarthys-death-rare-access-to-personal-library-reveals-man-behind-myth-180987150/

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