Natasha Wimmer

Gabriel Zaid

"This brief guide argues that, in the future, books will be less precious than the time it takes to read them. It addresses how to tackle personal ômust readö lists and pare them down to the books that will truly benefit their readersùwhich ones to start this year, which to put on hold, and which to pull off the sagging shelves. This witty volume describes the importance of books, the way they deepen conversations, and how they create a special hold on their readers. Rather than attempting to answer the question ôWhat should we be reading?,ö it encourages individuals to come up with their own answers."

And How to Find Your Way Among Them

So Many Books

En su discurso de ingreso, Gabriel Zaid aborda el impacto de la imprenta en la creación de comunidades y en la búsqueda y el ejercicio del poder público y privado. Expone las afinidades y contradicciones entre el mundo real y el mundo invisible que se crea a partir de los libros: la república de las letras que congrega a lectores, pasados, presentes y futuros. Aborda las trayectorias de personajes de distintas épocas que transitaron de los libros al poder y también del poder a los libros: Platón, Francisco de Quevedo, Ignacio Altamirano y Daniel Cosío Villegas, a quien le rinde homenaje en estas páginas. En su lección inaugural, Zaid se cuestiona sobre la búsqueda y el ejercicio del poder, y defiende la legitimidad de aquellos que influyen en la vida pública por medio de la imprenta y la libre circulación de las ideas.

Imprenta y vida pública

La Economía Presidencial

So Many Books is not so much a book as a conversation: about books, about reading, about the mad business of how a book is born every 30 seconds. It is a book of proposals and arguments and debate about books, from the age of Socrates to our own. Join the conversation.

Fame. Why do authors seek it? How does one acquire it? What are the consequences of attaining it? Gabriel Zaid examines the methods and motivations, from ancient times to the present day. He shines a critical, yet humorous, light on today's literary world, whose denizens find it "more interesting to talk about writers than to read them," and he takes a serious look at the desire for fame and the disillusionment and objectification that can accompany it. Along the way, Zaid pokes fun at literary and scholarly traditions, including the unwritten rules of quoting other authors, the ascendancy of the footnote, and the practice of publishing "foolishly complete works".

The Literary Encounter in an Age of Distraction

The Secret of Fame

Hay cronologías del poder desde hace milenios, y ahora abundan las de momentos decisivos en el desarrollo de una especialidad. Falta una cronología general del progreso. -Gabriel Zaid- De Gabriel Zaid, uno de los intelectuales más importantes del panorama literario mexicano y autor de El progreso improductivo, relacionado con Cronología del progreso, además de los ensayos Los demasiados libros y Cómo leer en bicicleta. De una manera exhaustiva, el autor presenta una serie de desarrollos humanos que proponen una visión positiva del futuro. Progreso es toda innovación favorable a la vida humana, ya sea en el mundo físico, biológico o cultural; teórico o práctico; individual o social. Es más que una serie de inventos y descubrimientos. Es también el Cantar de los Cantares, la Apología de Sócrates y la música de Bach; los grandes cuadros, las grandes novelas y las grandes películas; el Big Bang, la evolución de las especies, la cocina, la conversación, la rueda, el alfabeto, la imprenta, el desarrollo de la cultura libre, las vacunas, el voto de la mujer, los derechos humanos, el desembarco en la Luna, la conciencia ecológica, la web, los celulares, los microcréditos. Y también el progreso moral, la creación y la crítica de ideas y formas de vivir. Este breve compendio está inspirado en el Bosquejo de un cuadro histórico de los progresos del espíritu humano de Condorcet (1794). Otros autores han opinado: "Recomiendo vivamente al lector las estimulantes reflexiones del poeta y ensayista mexicano Gabriel Zaid, autor de obras que he leído siempre con interés" -Juan Goytisolo- "Gabriel Zaid es capaz de observar el mundo de las letras desde la perspectiva otorgada por otras disciplinas. Su gran acierto es la virtud del poeta: decir lo que oscuramente habíamos intuido sin alcanzar a formularlo en palabras" -José Emilio Pacheco-

Cronología del progreso

Nueva edición, corregida y aumentada, de De los libros al poder, de Gabriel Zaid. En 1932, Alfonso Reyes veía en el mundo "un paulatino advenimiento al poder de las clases universitarias". Y así fue en México, donde la oligarquía revolucionaria cedió voluntariamente el poder a una nueva oligarquía universitaria. Para 1987, según el Diccionario biográfico del gobierno mexicano, de los 1,156 funcionarios más altos del poder ejecutivo, el 98% tenía licenciaturas (más de la mitad en la UNAM) y el 48% postgrados (más de la mitad en el extranjero). El 70% tenía experiencia académica (docencia, investigación) y el 30% había publicado libros. "Veblen intuyó que las diferencias económicas eran mucho menos radicales que las establecidas con base en la educación. Y en nuestro tiempo han sido Bourdieu y Sennett, Illich y Zaid quienes han argumentado que la teórica accesibilidad de todos al saber y la cultura tendía más a reforzar las diferencias de origen y de clase que a compensarlas." Xavier Rubert de Ventós, El laberinto de la hispanidad. Del material de este libro (corregido y aumentado para esta nueva edición) se han publicado glosas, reproducciones, traducciones, comentarios, réplicas y referencias en un centenar de libros y varios centenares de artículos publicados en Berlín, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Londres, Los Ángeles, Madrid, México, Milán, Nueva York, París, Roma, Sâo Paulo, Washington y otras partes.

De los libros al poder

Il segreto della fama

"Gabriel Zaid is a marvelously elegant and playful writer—a cosmopolitan critic with sound judgment and a light touch. He is a jewel of Latin American letters, which is no small thing to be. Read him—you'll see."—Paul Berman "Mr. Zaid's goal is to capture the variety of anxieties that beset literary fame-seekers, and he does so with a mocking cleverness. A serious theme, though, runs through his book—that with the possible exception of a few agonized painters and musicians, no one can quite touch the exquisite torment of the literary artist as he faces the hazards of fate."—Wall Street Journal In So Many Books, Gabriel Zaid explored the predicament in which all "unrepentant readers" find themselves today, when "the human race publishes a book every thirty seconds"—more books than any of us can even contemplate, much less read. Now, in The Secret of Fame, this "playful celebrant of literary proliferation" (New Yorker) examines the methods and motivations of literary fame-seekers from ancient times to the present day. He shines a critical, yet humorous, light on today's book world, whose denizens often find it "more interesting to talk about writers than to read them," and he takes a serious look at the desire for fame and the disillusionment that can engulf those who achieve it. Along the way, Zaid pokes fun at literary and scholarly traditions, including the unwritten rules of quoting other authors, the ascendancy of the footnote, and the practice of publishing "foolishly complete works." More important to Zaid than the fame of a piece of writing or of its writer is the miracle of great writing. "Fame concentrates society's attention on a few names. This can be a good thing. It keeps us reading the great books, keeps us revisiting the great works of art. But fame can also be a bad thing. It keeps us focused on names, not the living experiences of great works," which "focus our minds, speak to the best in us, and spark our imagination." Though the hunger for fame is not going away, the deeper quest on the part of the maker (as writer, artist, actor, etc.) is to make us "feel more alive, more engaged in meaningful conversation with life." He concludes, "Nobody knows where masterpieces come from. Miracles are miracles. They catch us before we catch them. But we’re not trapped by them—we're set free." Gabriel Zaid's poetry, essays, social and cultural criticism, and business writings have been widely published throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Zaid is the founder and manager of a consulting firm in Mexico City involved with the publishing business. Natasha Wimmer is an editor and a translator in New York City. Her recent translations include The Savage Detectives and 2666 by Roberto Bolano and The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa.

"Gabriel Zaid's defense of books is genuinely exhilarating. It is not pious, it is wise; and its wisdom is delivered with extraordinary lucidity and charm. This is how Montaigne would have written about the dizzy and increasingly dolorous age of the Internet. May So Many Books fall into so many hands."—Leon Wieseltier "Reading liberates the reader and transports him from his book to a reading of himself and all of life. It leads him to participate in conversations, and in some cases to arrange them…It could even be said that to publish a book is to insert it into the middle of a conversation."—from So Many Books Join the conversation! In So Many Books, Gabriel Zaid offers his observations on the literary condition: a highly original analysis of the predicament that readers, authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and teachers find themselves in today—when there are simply more books than any of us can contemplate. "With cascades of books pouring down on him from every direction, how can the twenty-first-century reader keep his head above water? Gabriel Zaid answers that question in a variety of surprising ways, many of them witty, all of them provocative."—Anne Fadiman, Author of Ex-Libris "A truly original book about books. Destined to be a classic!"—Enrique Krauze, Author of Mexico: Biography of Power, Editor of Letras Libres "Gabriel Zaid's small gem of a book manages to be both delectable and useful, like chocolate fortified with vitamins. His rare blend of wisdom and savvy practical sense should make essential and heartening reading for anyone who cares about the future of books and the life of the mind."—Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Author of Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books "Gabriel Zaid is a marvelously elegant and playful writer—a cosmopolitan critic with sound judgment and a light touch. He is a jewel of Latin American letters, which is no small thing to be. Read him—you'll see."—Paul Berman "'So many books,' a phrase usually muttered with despair, is transformed into an expression of awe and joy by Gabriel Zaid. Arguing that books are the essential part of the great conversation we call culture and civilization, So Many Books reminds us that reading (and, by extension, writing and publishing) is a business, a vanity, a vocation, an avocation, a moral and political act, a hedonistic pursuit, all of the aforementioned, none of the aforementioned, and is often a miracle."—Doug Dutton "Zaid traces the preoccupation with reading back through Dr. Johnson, Seneca, and even the Bible ('Of making many books there is no end'). He emerges as a playful celebrant of literary proliferation, noting that there is a new book published every thirty seconds, and optimistically points out that publishers who moan about low sales 'see as a failure what is actually a blessing: The book business, unlike newspapers, films, or television, is viable on a small scale.' Zaid, who claims to own more than ten thousand books, says he has sometimes thought that 'a chastity glove for authors who can't contain themselves' would be a good idea. Nonetheless, he cheerfully opines that 'the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.'"—New Yorker

Gabriel Zaid

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