Hmm, might be joining this 
If the book is in norwegian and some library has it…
Petter, look for Labyrinter. Any good library should have it. 
Hehe, I actually found ficciones, but I’m kind of worried that it might be in english now… Hmm, I wonder if Labyrinter is labyrinths translated or ficciones translated… Such as their PC-system is working it seems like that.
Anyways Ficciones is already ordered to be sent from another library in the county (without me even thinking about the possibility that it is in English…), they have “labyrinter” in our library (Me ish LOF library BTW). So if it is as it most likely is that ficciones is in english I’ll quite simply just return it and rent labyrinter (or keep it to read the stories not in labyrinter in english, if i manage to). Argh, I’m not making sense am I ?
Argh! It seems like it is even in Spanish.
I ordered Ficciones from my local library today. I’ll get it Monday or Tuesday, somewhere around there.
Wait—
I bought Collected Fictions by mistake! 
After all, I was a bit tired when I went to Barnes & Noble today. I just didn’t know how tired. 
Oh well, there’s no harm done, really. I was planning on going back again tomorrow for something else anyway.
Sonia, first you should check with wikipedia if you don’t actually have all the stories you’ll need in that book
I came back when I realized I was in the clear but you got here first! 
I have what I needed and much more, so I’m more than good. 
I’m glad I took a closer look because I would have felt like such a dolt if I went back to buy Ficciones only to come back and realize that I have the entire book already.
If it is Labyrinths, you shouldn’t worry 
I have read El Aleph and Ficciones, and I’m inviting a (real life) friend who also read El Aleph. Labyrinths is a Yank anthology of Borges fictions, it’s basically made of stories from those two books. So if what you get is the translation to Labyrinths, you’ll have at least two people to discuss the “extra” stories with, and I can find you the ones you’re missing, in English, if you want me to.
Oh, that wouldn’t be a problem, I’d probably try to buy the Collected Fictions from you if that was the case. 
At any rate, I don’t know how the Collected Fictions treat Ficciones, which is actually a collection of (two) books. So if you don’t find “ficciones” in the index, the books you’re looking for are “the garden of forking paths” and “artifices” 
Our library only seems to have the book in spanish 
I would be able to read an english or dutch version and I even would have tried to read a german version. But spanish will not work for me.
Ansie, isn’t there an inter-library borrowing system?
There is, but in all dutch libraries they only have the spanish version. There are other books of him. Maybe one of them is the dutch translation or one of them contains some of the stories. But I don’t no which it could be.
Depends on the country. In France, there are 3 books, Fictions, Labyrinthes et L’Aleph, which have different short stories in them. Fictions contains (amongst other short stories):
- The Garden of Forking Paths
- Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
- Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
- The Circular Ruins
- The Babylon Lottery
- The Library of Babel (very famous
) - Death and the Compass
- The Secret Miracle
- Three Versions of Judas
and in some editions: - The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim
We do have this one in holland.
El Aleph is a great book, but not as easy to read as Ficciones. Not that it demands you be a genious or anything, but it feels like reading philosophy with a plot. 
Man… finally my broke ass got around to ordering Ficciones from Amazon.com! Geez it took me waaaaay to long! Hope the english translation is good and that it gets here soon I’m pumped!
Don’t worry if it takes a while to arrive, there will be at least the whole of March for you to join the discussion. 
Yep, it’s listed in there.
I got labyrinter today
Long live the library!
Ok. The month has started and I hope there’s been time for enough people to get the book so we can start discussing. Since I don’t know how far people have read, and still expect a couple more to join in the next two or three days, I’ll make a post about the history of this book for now.
On the Christmas eve of 1938, Borges had a serious accident in which he injured his head; during the treatment, he almost died of sepsis. By that time, he was already a cult classic among the academia for his essays and poetry. His philosophy was young and playful, and his poems were fresh and vivid. Although perhaps not a public figure of Buenos Aires at that point, he was already pretty notorious within his scene. So it was with great despair that he received the news that his injury had apparently damaged the language region of his brain, and that the doctors didn’t know exactly what effects that would have.
Borges later confessed that his first incursion in fiction wasn’t completely incidental. Being already somewhat notorious for his essays and poetry, he felt he just wouldn’t be able to face failure in composing a piece of either… But as for stories, he had never done them before, failure could just as well mean he sucked at it. So he started gathering material and ideas for a story while still in the hospital — success at this enterprise would mean no loss of writing capacity, while failure would pretty much mean nothing. And so during his first days out of the hospital he composed what would be his first short story. That story was “Pierre Menard”.
Those who read it will see how he actually wasn’t able to keep himself from risking an essay in his first short story. That dual style of writing, that style Borges would later become famous worldwide for, was actually born of his fear of having lost his capacity to write essays. After having “Pierre Menard” published in the Sur magazine, being received with much praise, he decided to write another one. And another one. And another one. And so he composed the pieces — or fictions — of the first book in our collection, The Garden of Forking Paths.
So that’s how it all started. I wish everyone a happy reading, and I’ll be back with something about the first few stories, tomorrow.
Ok here it is. I don’t have it yet, but I would have if it was in English. I went to the library today and got Ficciones, just to find that it was all in Spanish! 
So when I got home I just went and held ‘Collected Fictions’ on my library’s website. So I won’t get it until Thursday or Friday.
If you speak English and can’t read Spanish get Collected Fictions!!! It’s the English translation.