Supposedly, Pablo Picasso made Gertrude Stein sit more than eighty times for her portrait. And then painted out the head and redid it three months later without having seen her again. When told Stein did not look like her portrait, Picasso replied, she will. Ever wonder what the two of them were talking about when Stein wasn't spending her days sitting for Picasso? Well, Correspondence: Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso edited by Laurence Madeline is now a part of the Graduate Services Collection and it might answer this question. Along with the letters between these two titians of Modernism, the corresponce between George Bernard Shaw and his publishers and the letters between Theodore Dreiser and his women (the ones he fancied anyway) are now in Graduate Services; both should make for some interesting reading to say the least. There is also a book of George Orwell's thoughts on art in general and a book length conversation with Seamus Heaney on his art in particular. Want more? How about Burroughs and Kerouac sparring with art (and authorial ideology) as well as each other while finding their voices through collaboration in the long lost manuscipt now not so lost, And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks. Trying to get a word in edgewise are some works by Bowen, Atwood, Badiou (twice again), Cheever, Merwin, Oates, Zizek, and, always a part of the conversation 700 years and counting, Dante. From old favorites getting new looks to a few new books from old favorites talking about their books. Literature, letters, and good conversation seemed to sum up September. Enjoy.

Inferno by Dante Alighieri translated by Robert M. Durling 

 Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri translated by Robert M. Durling

A Quiet Game and Other Early Works by Margaret Atwood

The Century by Alain Badiou 

 Conditions by Alain Badiou 

 People, Places, Things by Elizabeth Bowen

National Melancholy: Mourning and Opportunity in Classic American Literature by Mitchell Breitwieser

And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac

 Complete Novels of John Cheever

Collected Stories and Other Writings of John Cheever

 Letters to Women: New Letters Volume II by Theodore Dreiser

The Dream We Carry by Olav H. Hauge translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin

Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney by Dennis O'Driscoll

The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin

 Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery by Jennifer L. Morgan

Dear Husband by Joyce Carol Oates

 All Art is Propaganda by George Orwell

 Selected Correspondence of Bernard Shaw: Bernard Shaw and his Publishers edited by Michel W. Pharand

Correspondence: Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso edited by Laurence Madeline

Violence: Six Sideways Reflections by Slavoj Zizek

Looking to shake off the lethargy of a summer vacation with a few academic New Year's resolutions are you? Well your home away from home, Graduate Services, has a few home away from home house warning gifts to keep your blood pumping and your mind focused on the year ahead. These gifts are the new books we recieved in July and August. The list may not look like much, but with the OskiCat machine now up and running you can expect a lot more in the coming months. And we didn't want to overwhelm you too much right away. We're nice like that. Enjoy.

 The Theory of the Novel by Georg Lukacs

 Popular Politics and the English Reformation by Ethan H. Shagan

 Catholics and the 'Protestant Nation' edited by Ethan H. Shagan

 Reading for the Plot by Peter Brooks

June saw the following books make their way to Graduate Services. Some are old favorites and some are new books from old favorites about some of our favorite things, like numbers and the things Linda Williams usually writes about. They are now all here for you all the time. Enjoy.

Screening Sex by Linda Williams

Number and Numbers by Alain Badiou

Paradise Lost by Barbara K. Lewalski, John Milton

Nietzsche: Life as Literature by Alexander Nehamas

The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature) by Mary Carruthers

France Since the Second World War: Seminar Studies in History by Tyler Stovall

Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867 by Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland, Jane Rendall

Sublime Desire: History and Post-1960s Fiction (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society) by Amy J. Elias

The Order of Mimesis: Balzac, Stendhal, Nerval and Flaubert (Cambridge Studies in French) by Christopher Prendergast

Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 1812-1855 (Russian Research Center Studies) by Martin Malia

Gramsci and Marxist Theory edited by Chantal Mouffe

Esthétique de la disparition by Paul Virilio

Starting July 6th, Graduate Services will be open earlier AND later during the week and on Sundays. The new hours are Monday through Thursday, 9AM-9PM; Friday, 9AM-5PM; and Sunday, 1PM-9PM. What about Saturdays though? Due to budget cuts, Graduate Services will not be open on Saturdays anymore. The bright side? This means you get an extra day off from your studies with a built in excuse. No more another Friday night-that-was-so-good-Saturday-isn't-really-going-so-well-but-I-really-should-be-studying-right-now-though-I-can't guilty feeling. Graduate Services is here for you even when we're not. And now we will be open on Sundays again too. Just so you know, we will not take responsibility for your Saturday nights.

Graduate Services Hours for the rest of the summer:
Monday-Thursday, 9AM-9PM
Friday, 9AM-5PM
Saturday, Closed
Sunday, 1PM-9PM

These hours can also be found here.

The UC Berkeley Library will not thrust a product on its patrons that does not meet the high standards of such a distinguished institution. As a result, the go live date for the new library catalog, OskiCat, has been pushed back from June 16, 2009 to June 24, 2009. A few kinks needed to be worked out, but it'll be worth the wait, trust me. In the meantime, do a little recon and take a look at the Library Tutorials Page for a sneak preview of this OskiCat.