Hero of the Moment

The Inaugural Interim Professor of 21st century English Literature at the International Training Centre for...

the Harmonious Interplay of Beauty, Understanding and Magnificence, Professor Hero M Pathi, has been very busy for the past six weeks, doing her shopping.  I have been provided with this image of her, taken this morning, from a closed-circuit security television camera in Adelaide's Rundle Mall:

Professor Pathi is deeply distressed by the crowds and the lack of worthy 21st century literature in Adelaide's various shopping districts.  What is she to do?  I know very little about recent literature myself, having found little of it to be an appropriate use of my time.  Perhaps you can assist our Hero, dear reader.

Giving books as gifts can be a difficult challenge.  Most of the time, such gifts are something of an embarrassment for the recipients, who either forget where they have put the items, or allow their unwanted books to be donated to a charitable cause in early January.  The givers are usually somewhat miffed when raising the subject in conversation - the volumes in question having been carefully chosen at great inconvenience during a food-less lunch hour.

Whether you are foolish enough to meander around in search of inappropriate gifts, or even to fool around with a young man called Leander after work hours, is besides the point.  Hero is seeking to find twelve books suitable for my own library, and hopes to provide at least one for me to read in my boudoir during the next spell of hot weather.

All twelve volumes are required to have never been published in any form before the year 2000.  It does not matter if they are works of fiction or non fiction, but they must be available in English if I am to understand them.

What does matter is that those twelve books are likely to be useful for anyone seeking to understand the 21st century Enlightenment.  This means that you can be a hero of the moment yourself, by providing suggestions for suitable additions to, and editions for, my library.

Professor Pathi would be most grateful, too.


UPDATE:  November 2011


The professor's research is still ongoing.  She has not yet discovered any suitable 21st century additions for my library.  Where should she look next?  What should she be reading?